From proof of delivery to invoice, the same day
Delivery paperwork comes back as photos and scans, and on refrigerated loads the temperature record has to come back too. Here is how signed paperwork becomes an invoice-ready record without a week of chasing.
The problem
Drivers send photos of signed bills of lading. The office matches them to loads by hand, chases the missing ones, pulls the temperature record for each load, and only then can billing invoice. Cash waits a week or more.
What was really causing it
The paperwork is unstructured and arrives through every channel: texts, emails, the occasional paper bundle. Matching it to the right load, with the right temperature record, is slow, careful work nobody planned for.
The paperwork is unstructured and arrives through every channel: texts, emails, the occasional paper bundle.
What the research says
- 88% median perfect order performance, where correct documentation is one of four rates multiplied together (APQC Open Standards Benchmarking, Perfect order performance)
Paperwork is a quarter of the perfect order measure, and for a carrier it is also the trigger for cash: no signed bill of lading, no invoice. The goal is not a better filing system. It is knowing, the day a load delivers, whether its paperwork is complete.
What we built
Every delivery document is read, matched to its load in your TMS, and checked for signatures, shortages and refusals. The trailer's temperature record for the trip is attached. Complete loads are marked ready to bill; incomplete ones go to a short exceptions list.
- Received Photos and scans arrive from drivers by any channel.
- Read Load numbers, signatures, counts and receiver notes are pulled out of each document.
- Matched Each document is matched to its load in the TMS, with the trip's temperature record attached.
- Billed Complete loads are ready to invoice; exceptions go to a person.
What stays as it is
Your TMS and your accounting system.
Where AI fits, and where it does not
AI reads photographed, often crumpled documents. Matching and billing rules are plain software. Shortages, refused product and temperature disputes always reach a person.
What it is worth
What comes next
A customer portal showing delivery status, paperwork and temperature records, and exception reports by customer and by receiver.
Questions people ask
- Can it read crumpled, photographed paperwork?
Most of it. Anything it cannot read with confidence goes to a person, with the photo next to the load.
- What about temperature records?
They are pulled from the trailer's refrigeration unit or telematics where that allows, and attached to the load. Readings out of range are flagged for a person.
- Do drivers need a new app?
No. They keep sending photos the way they do today.
- Perfect order performance, APQC Open Standards Benchmarking
Canonical URL: https://ugibo.com/case-studies/proof-of-delivery-to-invoice