Please help: Unfamiliar with BOL Terms

I will do my best. Customer order number could be part numbers or just their purchase order. Carrier info, not much to worry about there since I think that it pertains to LTL looking at the BOL. As far as number 3, can not help you their. You will find out here that different BOL's will have different descriptions. You might see some that in information it might tell you, see the supplemental page which will be attached. No question is a dumb question when trying to learn.

 

CUSTOMER ORDER NUMBER is generally used by the shipper to identify the shipment to a customer to ensure it is loaded correctly. It can also be the same as the customer's P.O. #( Purchase Order #) which you may need to give to either and/or the shipper/receiver to confirm pick up/delivery, & may identify your appointment.

Carrier information can be as vague as total number of pieces & a FAK ( freight all kinds ), or extremely detailed as when hauling hazmat. It is the shippers way of informing the driver of what is being hauled.

These two pieces of info may be one in the same or different. If different the details for the receiver will be on a separate PACKING LIST. This list is sometimes give to the driver with the BOL or put in a pouch/ envelope & attached to the end of the load, or both.

 

I dont think you really need to stress so much about that, I dont understand half the bol's I have gotten lol, I mostly look at the addresses, weight, seal, bol # and look to see if it says what type of freight it is rather its food, empty cans, tires or whatever. Have had some bol's where it didnt even tell what was in the load but I got an idea based on where it was going in the end or I just ask the shipper what im hauling, usually live loads I can pull forward and take a look inside before shutting the doors and sealing.

 

In my experience in warehousing and supply chain: Handling unit could be a pallet or a container; package could be the individual packages or pallets within the handling unit. For example, I worked at a place that got in castings from Asia in a sealed container. The handling unit was the container #. Each pallet was a handling unit within the container handling unit. There were two castings per pallet and for traceability purposes each casting had a unique serial number so each casting was considered a 'package' (on the BOL anyway).

It can vary from place to place how and if it's used - some need all that info in their ERP system (SAP, Oracle) while others don't.

 

you will find every shipper does things a little different
mostly the info you really need to say fill out a leaving receiver form
will not change much
weight/pieces /BOL/ temp/ etc
the rest is just fluff between company /trucker/broker/receiver


you will find that many shippers weights are not as accurate as the scale


43000 at the bud plant
and 43000 at the paper plant don't ever coincide to 79000 on my truck

 

I take pictures of everything. I delivered 230' of pipe. Bills were lost, my pic's were not. I got paid. Company found the bills under the copy machine. 3 months later. Use your skills, that's what we do.

 

Ha! So true! In my many years of shipping, the weights we put on the BOL's were just an afterthought. We would just go with the weights we had in our ERP system - those often came from purchasing (that right there tells you there's no accountability for accuracy). And if there weren't weights in the system then we just guessed. Only one place I ever worked at actually had a scale for pallets.

We always tried to be accurate but I never understood why it was important until I started following this forum.

 

at the Budweiser plant all the different products
actually weigh different amounts
all 12 oz cans are not created equal
but they are in the computer
is what shipping explained to me as I was being reworked from an over load