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Delivery time is on the receipt. The exception has its own time. You’re mid-signoff for a 12-pallet LTL drop when the driver points to a crushed corner on the third pallet from the back, pen hovering over the exception field at the top of the form. The rain is picking up behind him, and the next delivery is scheduled to pull into the bay in 17 minutes, so you don’t want to rush this entry.
Locate Both Timestamps on Your Uniform Freight Bill
This is the standard freight document in your hand, pre-printed with carrier routing details, a line item list of every piece in the shipment, and dedicated fields for delivery confirmation and discrepancy notes. The first timestamp, the delivery time, is already scrawled in the upper right corner of the form, entered by the driver when he pulled into the bay and checked in with the gate attendant before backing up to the dock. The second timestamp, the exception time, goes directly next to the note you write describing the crushed pallet, and you enter it yourself as soon as you confirm the damage is present and not pre-existing from your own warehouse stock. Illustrative example: You note the driver has logged the delivery time as 13:42, and you jot the exception timestamp as 13:47, five minutes later, when you pull back the shrink wrap and confirm the outer shipping boxes on 8 of the 12 cases on the pallet are punctured, exposing the water-sensitive industrial adhesives inside. You don’t wait to enter this time until after you finish checking the rest of the load, because even a 10-minute delay in logging the exception can create ambiguity later about whether the damage happened while the load was on your dock, not in the carrier’s trailer. You double check that the time you write matches the clock mounted above the bay door, not the time on your phone, to ensure consistency with any security footage recorded from the bay camera system. If you notice the driver’s entered delivery time is off by more than a few minutes from the bay clock, you note that small discrepancy in the margin as well, so there is no confusion about which timekeeping source you used for your exception entry.
Confirm Which Timestamp Takes Priority for Shipment Accountability
Many people new to dock work assume the delivery time is the only relevant timestamp for a load, but the exception timestamp controls for all questions related to load condition, shortage, overage, or misdelivery that you identify before you sign the freight bill. The delivery time only confirms when the carrier presented the load to you for inspection, not when you verified the contents matched the bill of lading and were in usable condition. To eliminate any confusion about which time applies to which part of the delivery, you can reference the following breakdown of each timestamp’s purpose:
| Timestamp Type | Who Enters It | What It Validates |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery Time | Carrier driver or authorized gate attendant | Time the load was fully accessible for inspection at your designated dock bay |
| Exception Timestamp | You, the on-duty dock lead completing the load check | Time a discrepancy, damage, or mismatch with the bill of lading was confirmed before you signed for the shipment |
| Post-Signoff Adjustment Time | Authorized carrier representative only | Time a post-delivery request to modify the receipt was submitted, which never overrides the pre-signoff exception timestamp you entered |
You mark the exception time with a small star in the margin next to your damage note, so anyone reviewing the form later can immediately spot which timestamp applies to the discrepancy. You don’t cross out or alter the delivery time, because it is still a valid record of when the carrier completed their transit to your facility, it just does not apply to the damage you found during your check. If the driver pushes back and says you should note the exception as happening at the delivery time to “keep things simple,” you politely decline, explaining that the accurate time of your discovery is required for your internal records. You only sign the form once both timestamps are clearly entered and unaltered, because your signature confirms you agree with all entries on the document up to that point.
Store This Annotated Freight Bill in Your On-Site Shipment Folder
Once you and the driver both sign the form, you keep your copy and hand the driver his duplicate before he pulls away from the bay. You do not set the form down on the counter next to the stack of old packing slips and broken tape guns, because shift changes happen in two hours and the night crew often clears the counter to make space for their own incoming shipments. Instead, you walk directly to the locked filing cabinet by the dock office, pull open the color-coded red folder for incoming LTL shipments received that month, and slide the form into the chronological slot behind the other receipts logged that day. If your facility uses a digital record keeping system, you first snap a clear photo of the entire form, making sure both timestamps, the damage note, and both signatures are completely legible, and upload it to your shared drive before filing the physical copy. You cross-reference the timestamps with the entry you logged in Dock Tally earlier that shift to align the records, so anyone looking up the shipment later can find all related documentation in one place. You write the initials of the part-time picker who was helping you unload the pallet, and who also witnessed the damage, in the margin right next to the exception timestamp, so there is a secondary point of reference if anyone asks for confirmation of your discovery time later. You lock the filing cabinet when you’re done, so only authorized dock and operations staff can access the stored receipts, and you make a quick note in your daily shift log that the damaged pallet was moved to the holding bay for further inspection by the inventory team later that afternoon.
Next Time You Open This Annotated Freight Bill
You will only pull this document from the folder when you need to reference the timeline of the discrepancy, whether that’s for your own monthly inventory reconciliation, a routine carrier follow-up request, or a stock adjustment log for your operations team. You don’t pull it for casual check-ins, because once it’s filed, the timestamps are fixed and do not need to be adjusted unless you have new, verified information from a witness who was present during the delivery that you missed when you first filled out the form. When you open the form, you first locate the star you drew next to the exception timestamp, so you can immediately point to the relevant entry if you’re sharing the document with someone outside your dock team. You never alter the timestamps or the damage note after you’ve filed the form, even if a carrier representative calls and asks you to adjust the exception time to match the delivery time to simplify their internal auditing process; the original entries are the only valid record of what happened during the delivery, so you direct them to the filed copy of the freight bill if they need additional clarity. If there is a question about when the damage occurred, you cross-check the exception timestamp on the form with the time stamp from the bay security camera footage, which will align almost exactly with the time you wrote down during the load check. You keep the form in the on-site folder for a minimum of 18 months, per your company’s record retention policy, before you move it to off-site archival storage with other old shipment records. Even after it’s moved to off-site storage, you can request a copy of the form at any time if you need to reference the timeline again, so you don’t need to keep a personal copy of the form at your desk or in your personal files. When you’re done referencing the form, you return it to the exact same chronological slot in the red folder, so it is easy to locate the next time someone needs to access it.