A Bill of Lading is a shipping document which is issued to the transportation carrier acknowledging that they have received the shipment of goods and that they been placed on board a particular means of transportation which is bound for a particular destination. It also states the terms in which these goods are to be carried. These Bills of Laden are issued in the non-negotiable short form type and includes all hazardous material detail with total weight for the entire shipment. The carrier must deliver it only to the consignee name in the Bill of Lading. The Bill of Lading then acts both as a receipt of goods and as an agreement to transport these goods to a specific destination and the consignee in return for payment of the transportation charges.

NOTE: When the Bill of Lading is initially created and every time it is printed, the following fields will be updated: Date Created, Created by Whom, Date Last Printed, and Print by Whom.

You may view an existing Bill of Lading or to create a new Bill of Lading number to, enter a period <.> and press

<ENTER>.

The Shipper Location will default to the Port Number Location. This may be changed.

Enter the Order Number or Invoice Number to include on the Bill of Lading. The user has the ability to enter multiple Orders with different customer numbers and/or shippling addresses. The Invoice Number will be converted to the associated Order Number.

NOTE: If an Order Number is entered, the system will by-pass the Purchase Order and Purchase History Number prompts.

If the Order Number is not entered, the cursor will be at the Purchase Order Number. Enter the PO or PO History Number to include on the Bill of Lading.

NOTE: If a Purchase Order and Purchase Order History Number are entered, the system will by-pass the Return to Vendor Number prompt.

If an Order Number or PO Number is not entered, the cursor will stop at Return to Vendor. Enter the Return to Vendor Numbers to include on the Bill of Lading.

The Shipping Carrier Name is free form. Example: FEDEX, UPS, US Postal, etc.

The Display Print History <PH> option displays all the printed Bill of Lading with the following fields: ID, Date Created, Location, Order Number, Purchase Order Number, Return to Vendor, and Carrier.

A Bill of Lading will only print with the following minimum fields: Location; Order(s) or PO(s) or Invoices; and Carrier.

The following is printed on the Bill of Lading: 

1. ID
2. Carrier Name, Date
3. Shipper’s Address (Sending): Assigned by the Shipper Location in field 1.
4. Consignee (Receiver): Customer in an Order or Vendor in a PO, or the Return to Vendor
5. Send Prepaid Address: The Address of the responsible party for the Freight Bill. The address is placed in TCL MASTER file with an ID of BOL.ADRESS. This record is set to a length of 18-lines and has to be manually created.
6. Itemized detail list of all Hazardous Material including: Emergency Contact and Phone Number, HAZ MAT code description and special instructions, Number of each HAZ MAT type, Unit of Measure, and Weight, Total Number of HAZ MAT packages, Total HAZ MAT weight, and a Certified statement for the named material
7. Total Bill of Lading weight
8. Manual entry area for COD information
9. Manual entry area to note Pieces and Skid counts
10. Consignor waiver statement
11. Manual entry area for the Carrier to sign and date the document

Bill of Lading can be printed for multiple Orders, Purchase Orders or Return to Vendors.

NOTE: A prompt will appear for the first mismatch found during entry:

Shipto Customer does not match other orders. Keep this Order <Y/N>:

Future occurrences on the same bill of lading will bypass this prompt if the user accepts this order.

                                                                   

There is a Haz Mat Shipper Alternate Format that will print a blank line for Freight of All Kinds. To enable this feature enter <Y> to use an Alternate Format when printing the Haz Mat Shipper, in "Inventory Setup" in SYSTEM MANAGEMENT (10.2.4.2 field 23 page 2). This will print a blank line instead of the Quantity for each line.

This option is for the new requirements that are being imposed by the Federal Government Department of Transportation (DOT). The shipping box/container count has to be written on the invoice instead of the quantity of items and there is no way to count shipping boxes/containers in our system.

If using this alternate format, the person doing the shipping has to pack the items, then do a count of boxes/containers and write the count on the Bill of Lading.

While entering POS Orders onto the Bill of Lading, the Shipto Customer and Alternate Shipto Customer of each order are compared to the other orders already on the Bill of Lading. The Shipto or Alt Shipto is checked against the other orders' Shipto or Alt Shipto - as long as at least one match is found, it will be allowed on the Bill of Lading.

The Hazardous Material Shipper Document will only print Hazardous parts with a Quantity Shipped greater than zero.

There are two MASTER files in TCL for the Bill of Lading that can be modified if required. MASTER BOL.COMMENT contains general conditions of a Bill of Lading. This should be reviewed prior to using the Bill of Lading. MASTER BOL.ADDRESS should contain the Prepaid Freight Billing Address.

NOTE: Customers using MASTER ALT.SHIP.PRINT flag - The Alternate Shipto printing logic does not use the Shipto customer as the "Ship From " address.

Bill of Lading Related Optional Programs

VMI Bill of Lading

This program is available for VMI customers (Source account only). At the Bill of Lading ID prompt, enter <V> to create a new VMI Bill of Lading.  The user will enter the Source account Order Number(s), but the Shipping address data from the Destination orders will be validated. The destination account name and order number has also been added to the display during the entry of order numbers.

When the user is ready to print the BOL, a request is submitted to a background process running in the destination account.  A new BOL is created in the Destination Account; a print file is generated, and returned to the printer assignment from the Source account. 

A new VMI Setup is available for the printer number to be used in the Destination account for this process (10.6.x.1 field 10).