The Receiving and Putaway SOP

Purpose

Every delivery that reaches the shop either becomes stock someone can find tomorrow or becomes a problem nobody can trace. This procedure guarantees three things: a short or damaged delivery is written on the carrier's paperwork before the driver leaves, so the claim is still possible; parts bought for one customer's job stay with that job instead of disappearing into general stock; and every received part is in its labeled bin, and in the inventory count, by the end of the day it arrived. Without it, the shop pays for parts it never got, a tech drives to the wholesaler for a valve that is sitting in an unopened box by the door, and the inventory count drifts a little further from the shelf every week.

Scope

Covers every supplier and carrier delivery to the shop building during business hours: parcel, wholesale route truck, and freight on a pallet. It starts when the delivery truck arrives and ends when the last item is in its bin and the paperwork is filed.

It does not cover: compressed gas cylinders, which are received under The Compressed Gas Cylinder Storage SOP; a leaking or spilled chemical carton, which goes to The Shop-Floor Spill Response SOP the moment it is seen; parts a tech picks up at a supplier counter (they are logged under the same receiving log, but there is no carrier to note shortages with); and returns to suppliers. How the parts room is arranged and labeled is in Organizing a Parts Room So Anyone Can Find Anything.

Roles and responsibilities

If the receiver and the parts lead are the same person, the handoff to purchasing still happens in writing the same day.

Procedure

1. Count pieces against the bill of lading before signing. Meet the driver at the truck or the bay door, take the bill of lading (BOL, the carrier's shipping document listing the piece count), and count cartons, pallets or loose items physically received against the piece count on it. Acceptance: the number in front of you equals the number on the BOL. Wrong looks like one carton fewer, an extra carton for someone else, or a pallet with its wrap cut open; when the count is off, write the exact shortage on the BOL above your signature ("14 pieces billed, 13 received, 1 carton short") and have the driver initial it before you sign, and never sign a clean BOL "to save time," because a clean signature tells the carrier everything arrived. Hazard: stay clear of the liftgate edge and the gap between the platform and the truck while it moves, and do not step into a trailer or box truck that is not parked with its brake set.

2. Inspect the outside of every piece before the driver leaves. Look for crushed corners, punctures, wet cardboard, torn shrink wrap, and on tall equipment (water heaters, condensers, furnaces) a tripped tip indicator or a carton lying on its side that is marked "this side up." Acceptance: every piece is square, dry and upright, or each damaged piece is written on the BOL by carton number ("carton 7 crushed, subject to inspection") and initialed by the driver. Wrong looks like a stain, a smell, or liquid on a carton of chemicals or adhesives: stop, do not open it, keep people back, and run The Shop-Floor Spill Response SOP using the product's safety data sheet. Hidden damage found later is reported to the carrier the same day, because a carrier's window for concealed-damage claims is short and set by its own terms. Hazard: lift any carton over 51 pounds with a hand truck or a second person, not by yourself to check its underside.

3. Release the driver. Sign the BOL with the notes on it, take your copy, and let the driver go. Acceptance: you hold a signed copy that shows every shortage and every damaged piece you found. Wrong looks like a driver who refuses to wait or to initial a note: write "driver declined to initial" with the time, sign, and photograph the BOL and the damaged carton before the truck leaves. Then tell purchasing within the hour. Hazard: keep the bay door path clear while the truck pulls out, and nobody walks behind it while it backs up without a spotter the driver can see.

4. Open and count contents against the packing slip, line by line. Open each carton, and check part number, description and quantity against the packing slip, then the slip against the purchase order. Acceptance: every line's received quantity matches the slip, and every slip line matches the order. Wrong looks like 20 where the slip says 24, a 1/2-inch valve where the order says 3/4, or a line on the slip that was never ordered; mark the actual count on the slip in ink beside the printed number, set the wrong item aside on the "hold" shelf with the slip, and send the discrepancy to purchasing before the end of the day. Do not put a wrong or short line away as if it were right. Hazard: cut away from your body and your other hand with a retractable blade, wear cut-resistant gloves for banding and sheet metal, and watch for loose fittings rolling off a cart onto the floor.

5. Tag job-specific parts with the job and stage them, not shelve them. Anything ordered for a particular customer job (a control board, a water heater, a special-order valve) gets a tag with the job number, customer name and the tech's name, and goes to the job staging shelf, not into general stock. Acceptance: the tag is on the part, the job record shows the part as received, and the assigned tech has been told. Wrong looks like a job part with no job reference on the slip or order: ask purchasing which job it belongs to before it is staged, and if nobody knows, hold it rather than shelving it. Hazard: stage heavy job equipment on the floor or the lowest shelf, never on a high shelf above head height, and strap any tall carton that could tip.

6. Route hazardous materials to where they live. Chemicals go to the chemical storage room, flammable liquids into the flammable cabinet, batteries to their shelf with terminals protected, and any compressed gas cylinder that came on the same truck is handed to The Compressed Gas Cylinder Storage SOP. Acceptance: nothing hazardous sits in the receiving area at the end of this step. Wrong looks like an incompatible pair placed together (an oxidizer beside an acid, a pool chlorine product beside another chlorine product it reacts with); stop and separate them using Pool and Cleaning Chemical Incompatibility in Storage. Hazard: read the label's signal word before lifting a chemical container, and wear the gloves and eye protection the safety data sheet names.

7. Write the receiving log line. Before anything is put away, write one log entry for the delivery: supplier, packing slip number, piece count against BOL, the line-by-line count result, damage noted, who received it, and the bin or tag each line is going to. Acceptance: every slip line has a log line, and the count and damage columns say "ok" or name the exception. Wrong looks like a log entry with blanks; a blank count column means the count was not done, so go back and do it. Hazard: while you write, the opened cartons sit in the receiving area, so keep them off the walkway to the bay door and break down empty boxes rather than leaving them underfoot.

8. Put stock away the same day to its labeled bin. The parts lead takes each logged line to the bin label written in the log, confirms the label's part number matches the part, places it, and updates on-hand in the inventory system. Acceptance: each bin label matches the part in it, older stock sits in front of newer stock where it can expire, and on-hand reflects the receipt. Wrong looks like a part with no existing bin: do not make a floor pile or "temporary" shelf; place it on the "awaiting bin" shelf and flag it to the parts lead to create a location. Hazard: check the rack's load label before putting heavy stock on an upper beam, use a ladder or platform rather than climbing shelving, and put the heaviest items at waist height.

9. File the paperwork and close the receipt. File the signed BOL and the marked packing slip with the purchase order. Acceptance: purchasing can match order, slip and supplier invoice without asking anyone what arrived. Wrong looks like an invoice for 24 valves against a slip marked 20; purchasing pays for 20 and requests a credit for the rest, or waits for the backorder to arrive. Hazard: none at the desk, but the receiving area is checked once more before filing: no carton, strap or box cutter left on the floor or the liftgate path.

The record this produces

Each delivery leaves four records. The annotated BOL, signed with every shortage and damage note, is what a freight claim stands on. The marked packing slip, with actual counts in ink, is what purchasing matches against the invoice. The receiving log line (below), kept in the parts room, is what the parts lead and the owner read to see which suppliers ship short and how often. Job tags and the job record tell the assigned tech the part is in. Purchasing reads all four at invoice time; the owner reads the log quarterly for supplier performance.

A worked pass: Wednesday's route truck

A plumbing shop's wholesale supplier arrived at 9:40 a.m. The BOL listed 14 pieces.

Step 1 failed. The receiver counted 13. He wrote "14 pcs billed, 13 rcvd, 1 ctn short" on the BOL; the driver initialed it.

Step 2. Carton 7 had a crushed corner. Noted on the BOL, initialed. Everything else was square and dry.

Step 3. Signed and released at 9:52 a.m. Purchasing was messaged at 9:55 with a photo of the BOL.

Step 4. Contents against the slip: the 3/4-inch ball valves were 20 against a slip quantity of 24, and the four missing valves matched the missing carton's line on the slip. Carton 7 held PEX elbows; all 100 were undamaged. The count was written in ink on the slip.

Step 5. A pressure-reducing valve on the slip was ordered for job 2291. Tagged with the job, the customer and the tech, staged, and the tech was messaged.

Step 6. Nothing hazardous on this delivery.

Step 7. The log line:

RECEIVING LOG            10/14/26  9:40a
SUPPLIER: wholesale, north branch
PACKING SLIP: 448213
BOL PCS: 14 billed / 13 rcvd (1 ctn short, noted)
RECEIVED BY: J.M.
--------------------------------------------------
LN ITEM                SLIP RCVD DAMAGE    BIN/TAG
1  3/4 ball valve       24   20  none      B-14
2  1/2 PEX elbow       100  100  ctn crush B-09
                                 contents ok
3  PRV, 3/4              1    1  none      JOB 2291
4  wax ring w/ flange   12   12  none      C-03
--------------------------------------------------
SHORT: ln 1, 4 pcs, sent to purchasing 9:55a

Step 8. Lines 1, 2 and 4 put away by 11:15 a.m. to B-14, B-09 and C-03; on-hand updated with 20 valves, not 24.

Step 9. When the invoice arrived for 24 valves, purchasing matched it to the slip and requested a credit for four. The supplier shipped the missing carton on Friday's truck instead, so the credit request was closed, and the carton was received as its own log line against the same slip number.

Read back against the procedure: had the receiver signed a clean BOL in step 1, the four valves would have been the shop's word against the carrier's signature.

References

• See related: Organizing a Parts Room So Anyone Can Find Anything; Rack Load Ratings and the Label Every Bay Needs; Pool and Cleaning Chemical Incompatibility in Storage
• See related: The Compressed Gas Cylinder Storage SOP; The Shop-Floor Spill Response SOP
• NIOSH Revised Lifting Equation (the 51-pound load constant used in step 2)