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A number is penciled at the top. It is not the pro number. You’re leaning against a dented steel dock bumper, rain dripping off the brim of your hi-vis hat onto the crumpled freight document in your hand, and you squint to make out the smudged digits because the last shift’s lead didn’t bother to press hard when they scribbled it. The load you just pulled off the inbound trailer matches the origin address printed in the lower left corner, so you know the document is tied to the pallets stacked four high 10 feet behind you.
Cross-reference the penciled number against your open claim logs
Grab the rugged tablet strapped to your belt and pull up your team’s shared open claim tracker, typing in the six digits you can just make out through the faint pencil smudge. You’re looking to confirm the number is tied to an existing, in-process claim, not a random jotting for a pickup schedule or personal phone number someone scrawled between shifts. Illustrative example: If the penciled number reads 782419, you filter your log to find that entry, filed 48 hours prior for a partial damage report on a load of outdoor garden decor shipped from a distribution center outside Columbus, Ohio. If you don’t find a match immediately, cross-check the night shift’s team chat logs, where staff often drop quick claim updates for the morning crew before they clock out. Most mismatches at this stage come from messy handwriting, so if the first number you type doesn’t pull up a result, try swapping similar-looking digits like 1 and 7, or 0 and 8, to account for the faint scrawl.
Verify the number is tied to the shipment listed on this bill of lading
Now that you’ve matched the number to an open claim entry, cross-check every detail on this bill of lading against the notes in the claim log to ensure you’re not linking two unrelated shipments. Confirm the shipper name, origin zip code, number of handling units, and declared value all line up between both documents. If a single small detail doesn’t match, it’s possible the night shift lead scribbled the number on the wrong bill of lading by mistake, so pull other open claim entries from the same 4-hour arrival window to find the correct match. The fastest secondary check is to cross-reference the trailer number listed in the claim log with the number printed on the rear of the trailer you just unloaded, since that detail is far less likely to be misrecorded than a pallet count or zip code. If the trailer numbers match, you can be confident the penciled number belongs to this specific bill of lading, even if a minor detail like a SKU count is off between the two records.
Note any visible damage to the pallets associated with this shipment entry
Walk back to the stack of pallets you just unloaded and conduct a slow visual check of every handling unit tied to this bill of lading. Look for crushed carton corners, torn shrink wrap, leaking contents, or scratch marks that indicate the pallet was mishandled during transit or cross-docking. Compare what you see to the damage notes in the existing claim entry to see if there’s any new damage that wasn’t documented the first time the shipment was touched. For example, if the initial claim only noted two cases of cracked ceramic planters, but you notice a third pallet on the load has a gash in the side where a forklift tine caught it during the last carrier transfer, you’ll want to jot that new damage down in the margins of the bill of lading right away, before you move the pallets to the designated holding area. You can also log that new damage note in your dock management system so the claims team has a full record of all issues with the load, including the Dock Tally timestamp of when you first observed the new damage.
Document any mismatches between claim details and physical freight status
When you find a mismatch between the original claim notes and the physical freight in front of you, follow these steps to capture all necessary details before you move the shipment to long-term holding:
- Take 3 clear photos of the mismatched detail, including one wide shot of the full pallet to show its placement in the load, one close-up of the specific issue (like the gash in the pallet side or cracked planter cases), and one shot of the shipping label affixed to the pallet to tie the issue directly to this specific shipment.
- Jot the specific mismatch detail directly next to the penciled claim number on the bill of lading, using a thick permanent marker so it doesn’t smudge, fade, or erase like the original pencil entry when the document is passed between teams.
- Add a note to the existing claim entry in your tracking system that includes the date and time of your observation, the specific detail you found that didn’t match the initial report, and any context you have about why the mismatch might exist (for example, if the load was transferred between three different carriers before arriving at your dock, additional damage during transit is a reasonable explanation).
- Flag the entry for the claims team by adding a priority tag to the log, so they see your update when they first pull up the claim file later that day, instead of waiting for them to reach out to you with questions.
Stick only to factual observations in all your notes, and avoid making assumptions about who is responsible for any unreported damage, so the claims team has unbiased information to work with when they review the file.
Pull up this same penciled claim reference when you follow up with the claims team next week
When you sit down at the end of the week to follow up on all open claims from the past 14 days, you’ll pull this exact bill of lading out of your pending shipment file to reference the penciled number and all the notes you added to it. You’ll use the six-digit number to quickly pull up the full claim file, so you don’t have to sift through dozens of unrelated entries to find the one tied to the garden decor load. If the claims team has additional questions about the damage you observed, you can point directly to the notes you wrote on the bill of lading and the photos you uploaded to the system to answer them quickly, without having to go back to the holding area to re-examine the pallets weeks after they arrived. Keeping this bill of lading in your pending file instead of filing it away with closed shipments ensures you don’t lose track of the penciled number before the claim is fully processed, so you don’t have to track down the night shift lead to ask them what the number meant if you forget the context in the coming days. You can also use the penciled number to check for status updates on the claim any time you have a spare minute between loads, to stay on top of progress without waiting for formal updates from the claims team.