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Liftgate or inside delivery is written under the rate. You are still at the door. The driver leans against their rig’s step, waiting for you to confirm the charge before they roll the pallet off the truck. The rain spits off the edge of the dock overhang, leaving dark splotches on the asphalt at your feet. You glance down at the freight document in your hand again, tracing the hand-scrawled line under the base rate with your thumb.
Verify This Freight Document’s Listed Accessorials Match Agreed Terms
You first cross-reference each accessorial line item with the service requests you submitted when booking the shipment. If you did not request a liftgate because your dock has a working leveler and pallet jack, the listed charge does not belong on the document. You confirm that each service listed is one you explicitly agreed to before the carrier dispatched the driver for the pickup. You do not assume any listed charge is valid just because it is printed or handwritten under the base rate line. If you requested inside delivery to drop the pallet at the back of your receiving area instead of the dock door, you confirm that exact service is what is listed, not a generic “special handling” charge that carries a higher cost. You also confirm that no extra accessorials are tacked on that you never discussed, such as residential delivery fees when your site is a zoned commercial warehouse, or pallet jack fees that are standard to your dock operations.
Cross-Check This Freight Document’s Accessorial Costs Against Pre-Shipment Quotes
Next, you pull up the saved quote from your booking confirmation on your phone to compare line item costs. Carriers sometimes adjust accessorial fees between booking and delivery if they note site conditions they claim were not disclosed, but you have the right to cross-check those adjustments against the numbers you agreed to upfront. You save all booking confirmations to a dedicated folder on your work device, so you can pull them up in 10 seconds or less even when you are standing outside in the rain, no need to run back to the office to find a printed copy. Illustrative example: If your pre-shipment quote listed a liftgate accessorial fee at $75, but the document in front of you lists it at $92, you flag the $17 difference before you sign for the shipment. You note any variations between the quoted cost and the listed cost clearly, even if you think the difference is small enough to ignore later; minor fees add up across dozens of shipments each month, and unconfirmed charges often carry over to the final invoice without any additional notification.
Document Service Execution On This Freight Document Before Signoff
Before you allow the driver to begin unloading, you document exactly what services they perform as they complete them, to tie the listed accessorials to actual work completed. The table below gives you clear fields to fill in directly in the document’s open margin or notes section, so you have a tied record of service and charge:
| Accessorial Type | Performed As Requested? | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Liftgate | Yes / No | Used to lower pallet 42” from truck bed to ground, no damage to pallet wrap |
| Inside Delivery | Yes / No | Pallet dropped 12 feet inside dock door, no extra maneuvering required |
| Limited Access Fee | Yes / No | Site has public dock access with 24/7 entry, no restricted check-in procedures |
You fill out each line as the driver works, so you do not forget details after the pallet is unloaded and the driver leaves the site. You sign each note with your initials and the current time, so there is no ambiguity about when the observation was made. If a service is listed that the driver does not perform, you mark that line explicitly so there is no record of the service being rendered.
Flag Discrepancies Directly On This Freight Document With the On-Site Driver
If you find a discrepancy between the agreed service, quoted cost, or actual work performed, you point it out to the driver before you sign the delivery receipt. You write the exact nature of the discrepancy directly next to the relevant line item, and ask the driver to add their initials next to your note to acknowledge they saw the feedback. Most drivers are familiar with this process, and will not push back on adding their initials next to your note, as they are only acknowledging your feedback, not agreeing that the charge is invalid. You follow your site’s standard process for noting disputed charges, which only requires a short, clear note rather than a lengthy explanation of why you are disputing the fee. You can note a liftgate charge is invalid because your dock has a functional leveler, or an inside delivery charge is higher than quoted, without justifying your position to the driver at length. If you use consistent tracking for delivery documentation, you can align your notes per Dock Tally protocols to make later reviews faster. You do not hold up the delivery unnecessarily over a disputed charge, but you make sure the written record of the discrepancy is attached to the document before you sign.
Reference This Freight Document At Invoicing Reconciliation
This is the next time you open this same page, when the carrier’s invoice arrives in your queue for approval. You pull up the scanned copy of the signed delivery document you saved to your system after the driver left, and cross-reference every line item on the invoice against the notes you added at the time of delivery. Any charges you flagged as incorrect at the dock can be cross-referenced with your notes, and you submit the annotated document along with your request to adjust the invoice to match the agreed quote and actual services performed. You do not have to search for old email threads or booking confirmations first, because all the relevant details are already noted directly on the document you filled out while you were standing at the dock door. This cuts down your invoice reconciliation time per shipment by an average of 7 minutes, which adds up to hours of saved work each month if you process 20 or more shipments a week. If the accessorial charges match exactly what you noted as agreed and performed, you approve the invoice for payment without extra follow-up. You keep the scanned copy of the document in your shipment records for a minimum of 18 months, so you can reference it again if any billing questions arise after the invoice is paid. You also can pull the document if you are negotiating new contract rates with the carrier, to show patterns of unagreed accessorial charges that you want excluded from future pricing agreements.