Dispatch & shipment — who is carrying it, and under which document

The delivery note is paperwork. The invoice is what moves stock.

A delivery order (delivery note, challan, DN) records what physically left your premises against a sales order. This module adds the logistics around it: which carrier took it, under what consignment number, how many packages, how heavy, where it is now, and who signed for it.

Where the screens live

Only the three routes above are URLs; the note's form and detail open by tapping through. Permissions: canViewSales to see, canManageSalesOrders to create, dispatch and close, canCreateInvoice to bill from a note.

A carrier is a supplier you pay freight to — not a new kind of record.

Transporters live in the supplier master with a Carrier role ticked. That is deliberate: a carrier sends you bills, and bills belong on a supplier. Nothing new to learn, and their freight lands in Vendor Bills with no extra plumbing.

Suppliers → open or create the transporter → Role card → tick Carrier. A supplier can be both Vendor and Carrier. Then fill the block that appears:

Always against a sales order — there is no free-standing delivery.

Sales → Deliveries → New Delivery Order. You are asked for the sales order first, and only orders that are live with something still undelivered are offered. Then:

1. Tick the lines going out and type the quantity for each (Select all / Clear help on a long order).
2. Check the ship-to address. It is prefilled from the customer's shipping address and is a snapshot — editing it here does not change the customer master, which is what you want when one consignment goes to a site office.
3. Fill the Shipment card (§03) — all of it optional at this stage.
4. Save as draft, or Save & dispatch.

Everything optional — the LR number usually arrives after the truck does.

The card says so itself: "Who is carrying it and under which document. All optional — the LR number can be added after the truck leaves." That is the design. Do not hold a dispatch waiting for paperwork.

From e-way bill

If an e-way bill was already filed against this order's invoice, From e-way bill copies its transport block — transporter, vehicle, LR, mode and number — in one press. It matches the carrier by TRANSIN, not by name, so a carrier whose TRANSIN is missing will not be matched even if the name is identical.

The moment the note becomes real — and the quality gate that can stop it.

Save & dispatch does four things in order: raises any pre-dispatch quality inspections, rolls the shipped quantities onto the sales order, stamps the note dispatched, and writes a dispatched event.

If the goods are short, over-committed or otherwise odd, you get a "Dispatch anyway?" confirmation listing the warnings, with Back and Dispatch anyway. It is a warning, not a block.

A small state machine, and one transition people always look for that isn't there.

Answering "where is my order?" without ringing the transporter.

The detail screen shows Track <LR no> once there is a carrier with a template and an LR number. Two things must both be true, which is why a missing link is nearly always a missing {tracking} placeholder on the carrier (§01).

The Deliveries list carries the columns a dispatch desk actually needs — DO #, date, customer, sales order, carrier, LR no, lines, qty, status and invoice — plus a carrier filter, the tabs All · Draft · Dispatched · Delivered · Returned · Not invoiced · Cancelled, and CSV export. Search covers "DO #, customer, sales order, LR, e-way…", so a customer quoting an LR number can be found from that number alone.

The challan is the source; the invoice is where stock finally moves.

A delivered note that nothing has billed shows "Delivered but not invoiced. Raise the bill for what went out on this challan." — press Create invoice and a draft invoice is raised from the note's own lines and linked back to it. Finalising that invoice is what decrements stock (§00).

The list's Not invoiced tab is the working queue for this. A month-end habit of emptying it is the difference between a clean ledger and a hunt.

Said plainly, so you can plan around it.

This release is the transport layer on the note. Still to come:

• Proof of delivery — receiver name, signature capture and photos.
• The event timeline on screen, with quick buttons for picked up / in transit / out for delivery / attempted. Events are already being written (§06); only the UI is missing.
• Alerts — dispatched / delivered / overdue notifications, and the customer dispatch email. Expected delivery drives nothing today: nothing goes overdue on its own, so a late consignment is still found by eye.
• Freight actuals — carrier bills linked to consignments, a freight-outward account, and the Freight recovery and Carrier performance reports. Only the estimate exists now.

The page to keep open while your desk learns it.