Short shipments: back order or short close
Less arrived than you ordered. The only question that matters on the day is whether the rest is still coming.
The short answer
A short shipment is a delivery containing less than the order specified. Record the quantity actually received against the quantity ordered, then establish whether the balance is on back order and still coming or whether the supplier has closed the line. Pay only for what arrived, and keep the order open only if the balance is genuinely due.
Written by Hamza Rivera, founder, dockcount. How these are checked.
Short deliveries are ordinary. Suppliers run out, pickers miss a carton, and a pallet gets left on a dock somewhere. The damage is rarely the shortage itself and almost always what does not get recorded about it.
The one question on the day
Is the rest coming. That splits into two very different situations that look identical while the driver is still there.
| Back order | Short close | |
|---|---|---|
| What it means | The supplier still owes you the balance | The supplier is not sending the rest |
| The order | Stays open | Gets closed at the received quantity |
| What you pay | For what arrived, now | For what arrived, and that is the end of it |
| What to watch | That the balance actually turns up | That nobody reorders it by accident |
What to record
- Quantity ordered and quantity received as two separate numbers on the line.
- Whether the packing slip already showed the shortage, which tells you the supplier knew.
- Whether the carrier's paperwork shows fewer pieces than the bill of lading, which points at the carrier instead.
Worth knowing
A shortage the packing slip already admits to is a supply problem. A shortage where the packing slip says the goods were sent is either a picking error or a transit loss, and those are chased by different people. Recording which one you are looking at saves an afternoon.
When the shortage is a clean multiple
Before you ring anybody, check the pack size. A shortage of exactly ten times or exactly a twelfth is usually a unit of measure mismatch rather than a missing carton.
DockCount does this job on a phone at the bay: count a delivery against the order it was placed on, photograph anything wrong, and the record writes itself. What short deliveries cost over a year.