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A line mentions pallets in and pallets out. You have not counted pallets yet. The lift truck idles 15 feet from the dock edge, its forks already positioned to pull the first skid off the trailer if you give the signal. The carrier driver leans against their cab door, pen tucked behind one ear, waiting for you to confirm the exchange terms before you sign the proof of delivery. A light rain spatters the top of the uncovered trailer load, so you don’t want to drag the process out longer than necessary.
Locate Both Pallet Exchange Lines
First, scan the lower half of the bill to find the two dedicated pallet count lines, which are almost always tucked in the special notes section just below the line-item descriptions of your inbound goods. Sometimes the lines are explicitly labeled “Pallets In” and “Pallets Out”, but other times they are buried in a shorthand entry that starts with “EXCH:” or “PAL TERMS:”, so you may have to read the full notes block carefully to spot both numbers. The first line, pallets in, counts every pallet the carrier is dropping off at your facility, including both the pallets holding your ordered goods and any empty pallets they are handing off as part of the regional fleet’s shared pallet exchange program. The second line, pallets out, counts every empty pallet you are sending back with the driver to be reused for other shipments across the network. If you can only find one number, ask the driver to point out the second count, or confirm if they forgot to record one of the figures before arriving at your dock. Illustrative example: the carrier has written 14 on the pallets in line and 9 on the pallets out line, reflecting a net 5 pallets you would be responsible for returning on the next carrier pickup from your facility. If either line is smudged, crossed out, or written in a different ink color than the rest of the bill, ask the driver to rewrite the number clearly before you move forward with counting, as ambiguous entries can lead to mismatched records later.
Mark the Controlling Pallet Count Line
The controlling line is the one that reflects the physical, jointly verified count you complete on the dock right now, no exceptions. First, walk the full length of the trailer to count every full and empty pallet on board, including any stacked empty pallets tucked in the nose of the trailer that are easy to miss if you only glance at the back of the load. Next, count the empty pallets you have staged by the dock door that you plan to send back with the driver. If the counts pre-written on the bill match your physical tally, put a small checkmark next to both lines and initial next to the checkmark to confirm you verified the numbers in person with the driver present. If the counts do not match, cross out the incorrect number in a single thin line, write the correct count in the blank space next to it, initial the change, and ask the driver to initial the change too, so there is no dispute later about what was actually exchanged. You can cross-reference your count with your Dock Tally log if you want a secondary record of the pallet stock you have on hand that day. It’s important to complete this count before you mark any lines on the bill, even if the driver insists their pre-written numbers are correct, because they may have counted pallets incorrectly at their last stop, or forgotten that they dropped off a stack of empty pallets at a prior delivery earlier that shift. You don’t have to argue with the driver if their numbers don’t align with yours; simply walk them through the trailer and your staged pallets to point out exactly what you counted, and agree on a number that both of you can confirm on the spot.
File This Bill With Your Daily Receiving Paperwork
Once you have marked the controlling line and signed off on the full delivery, file the bill immediately to avoid losing it or misplacing it under other dock paperwork. Follow these steps to ensure it is processed correctly:
- Staple a small scrap of paper with your handwritten physical count to the back of the bill, so you have a backup of the numbers you recorded on the dock if the printed lines ever smudge or fade over time.
- Place the bill on top of the rest of your receiving documents for the day, separated from any outbound shipping paperwork to avoid misfiling with pickups scheduled for later in the shift.
- Slide the full stack of daily receiving documents into the designated locked tray at the front of the dock office, so the administrative team can process it when they run end-of-day reports.
- Add a short note to your personal shift log noting the net pallet count from the exchange, so you can reference it later if you get a question about pallet stock before the administrative team finishes processing the day’s paperwork.
- Double-check that you have not left any other stray marks on the bill besides your initials next to the verified pallet lines, so there are no confusing extraneous notes for anyone reviewing the document later.
You don’t need to flag the bill as a special pallet exchange document, because the administrative team knows to pull the pallet count lines from every receiving bill when they run their weekly pallet reconciliation report. If you have a particularly large exchange that results in a net gain or loss of more than 10 pallets, you can add a small sticky note to the front of the bill to highlight the exchange for the admin team, but that step is optional and only necessary if your facility has specific protocols for large pallet movements.
Next Time You Open This Bill
The next time you open this bill will likely be if your facility gets a query about mismatched pallet counts from the carrier’s fleet operations team, usually 2 to 4 weeks after the delivery date. When you pull it up, either in digital scanned form or the physical copy from the file room, you will first look for your initials next to the controlling pallet line to confirm that the count you agreed to on the dock is the one recorded on the document. You can cross-reference the noted count with your shift log entry from that day to confirm the numbers align, and you can share a copy of the bill with the carrier’s team to resolve any discrepancy quickly. You will not need to add any new notes to the bill at that point, since all relevant information was recorded at the time of the exchange, and any added notes after the fact will not carry the same weight as the initialed, jointly agreed upon counts from the dock. You may also open this bill if you are doing a quarterly physical count of your facility’s pallet stock and need to cross-reference incoming and outgoing pallet totals from that delivery date to resolve a gap in your internal count. In that case, you will use the controlling line numbers to adjust your internal pallet log as needed, to make sure your on-hand count matches the records from all deliveries and pickups that quarter. You will not need to reach out to the carrier in that scenario unless the gap is larger than 20 pallets and you can trace it back to an unrecorded exchange with that specific fleet. The bill acts as a neutral, time-stamped record of the exchange, so you will never have to guess what was agreed upon when you were standing on the dock in the rain that shift.