For distributors who deliver on their own vans and trucks

Wholesale Route Delivery Integration: From Run Sheet to Signed Delivery to Correct Invoice

If you deliver to cafes, restaurants, trades and retailers on set days, your delivery operation is really a loop: orders close for a run, get picked and loaded in drop order, go out on a van, and come back as signatures, photos, shorts, refusals, empty crates and the odd cash payment. In most distributors the outbound half of that loop is reasonably organised and the return half is paper, phone calls and a driver’s memory.

That return half is where the money leaks. Invoices go out for goods the customer never accepted, credits are raised days later from a crumpled docket, kegs and crates disappear, and disputes are settled by whoever shouts loudest. This page covers how to make the ERP the single source for delivery details, how runs, routing and driver apps should connect to it, and how what happens at the door should flow straight back into the invoice. It also says plainly when a small fleet needs far less than this.

Review Your Delivery Loop (03) 9003 0111

The Structure of a Delivery Loop

1 profile

Per delivery point, held in the ERP

Delivery days, run, drop order, receiving window and access notes in one place

4 outcomes

Per line at the door

Delivered in full, short, damaged or refused, each with its own invoice effect

1 cut-off

Per run, not per company

An early regional truck and a late metro van rarely share a deadline

2 to 4 weeks

Typical pilot on one or two runs

Rough guide, before extending to the rest of the fleet

Why Own Fleet Delivery Breaks Between the Truck and the Ledger

These problems show up in distributors whose warehouse and accounts both run well. The gap is the hand-off in each direction.

Delivery knowledge lives in drivers’ heads

The fact that the bakery takes deliveries through the lane before 6am, that the key is in the lockbox, or that the restaurant chef will refuse anything after 11 is usually known by one driver. When that driver is sick, the relief driver phones the office, the office phones the customer, and the run falls behind. Until those details sit on the customer’s delivery profile in the ERP and reach every driver’s app, your service level depends on who is driving that day.

Cut-offs are policy, not system behaviour

Most distributors have an order cut-off, often written on the price list, but the ERP accepts orders at any time and allocates them to whatever run the operator picks. Late orders get squeezed onto a truck that is already loaded, or sit unassigned until a customer rings asking where their delivery is. A cut-off only works when the system knows which run each customer belongs to, when that run closes, and what it should do automatically with an order that arrives after it.

The invoice reflects the order, not the delivery

Many ERPs invoice when the order is picked or despatched. Then the driver leaves two cartons short, the customer refuses a damaged case of milk, and a substitute brand goes in for an out of stock line. The docket is marked by hand, travels back in the cab, and a credit is raised days later if someone remembers. Meanwhile the customer’s accounts team has queried the invoice and held payment. The fix is capturing line outcomes at the door and letting them drive the invoice.

Coverage drops exactly where deliveries happen

Loading docks, basements, cool rooms, country roads and the back of large shopping centres are reliably poor for mobile signal. A driver app that needs a live connection to show the next drop or to accept a signature turns into a driver writing on paper and promising to enter it later. Any app you choose must hold the full run on the device, capture everything offline, and sync cleanly when signal returns, without creating duplicates or losing photos.

How a Connected Delivery Loop Works

Six connections between the ERP, the warehouse, the routing tool and the driver. Not every distributor needs all six, and the order below is roughly the order to build them.

One record every system reads

Delivery profiles as the single source

Each delivery point, not just each account, gets a profile in the ERP: delivery days, assigned run, default drop sequence, receiving window, site access notes, unattended delivery instructions, chilled storage available, and who may sign. A head office account with twelve cafes has twelve profiles. Routing software, run sheets and the driver app all read from this record and never keep their own copy. Changes made by drivers in the field come back as suggestions for the office to approve, so local knowledge is captured without the profile drifting.

Orders land on the right truck

Run cut-offs and standing orders

Each run has its own close time. Orders arriving before it are allocated automatically from the delivery profile. Orders after it follow a rule you choose: roll to the next delivery day, hold for approval with an alert to the account manager, or accept with a late flag if the truck has room. Standing orders for regular customers are generated ahead of the cut-off, with a window for the customer or rep to vary quantities, so the regular Tuesday order is never forgotten and never doubled.

Last drop loaded first

Pick by run, load by sequence

Once a run closes, orders are released to the warehouse grouped by run and sorted in reverse drop order, so the last delivery goes deepest into the truck and the first is at the door. Chilled and frozen lines are picked into separate waves or staging areas and loaded last. Weight and volume for each run are totalled against the vehicle’s capacity before picking starts, so an overloaded run is split or rebalanced in the office rather than discovered at the dock at 4am.

Optimised or fixed, by choice

Routing in, ETAs back

Where routes change daily, closed orders are sent to route planning software with each drop’s location, window, service time and load, and the optimised sequence and estimated arrival times come back to the ERP and the warehouse. Where runs are fixed, the stored drop sequence is used and only exceptions are re-routed. Many distributors run a mix: fixed metro runs, optimised overflow, and regional customers handed to a carrier with a consignment created from the same order.

Evidence attached to the invoice

Driver app and electronic proof of delivery

The driver sees the run in sequence with access notes, receiving windows and what to collect. At each stop the app captures signature and printed name, photos of the goods in place, timestamp, GPS position and, for chilled and frozen loads, a temperature reading or the vehicle’s logged temperature. That bundle is attached to the sales order and invoice in the ERP within minutes of the drop, so accounts can answer a dispute without ringing the driver or hunting for paper.

Invoice matches the delivery

Door outcomes drive the invoice

Shorts, substitutions, damaged and refused lines are recorded against the order line in the app with a reason code and a photo. The ERP then adjusts automatically under your rules: amend the invoice before it is issued, or raise a credit note against it if it already has been. Returnable empties collected, such as crates, kegs and pallets, update the customer’s container balance, and any cash or card payment taken on delivery is recorded against the invoice for reconciliation with the driver’s takings.

A Day on the Run, Before and After

Task	Traditional	Integrated	Notes
Order after the cut-off	Squeezed onto a loaded truck	Rolled, held or flagged by rule	The customer is told which day it will arrive, and the account manager sees every late order in one list.
Regular weekly order	Rep rings to check	Standing order generated ahead of cut-off	The customer can vary quantities until the run closes, and a nil order is recorded rather than assumed.
Relief driver on a new run	Phones the office all morning	Access notes on every stop	Lockbox codes, lane access and receiving windows come from the profile, with sensitive notes shown only at the stop.
Two cartons short	Docket marked, credit days later	Line adjusted at the door	The customer receives an invoice for what they received, and the short is visible to purchasing the same day.
Chef refuses warm seafood	Argument and a phone call	Refusal, photo and temperature logged	Credit raised by rule, the stock quarantined on return, and the cold chain record available for review.
Empty kegs collected	Counted on a scrap of paper	Container balance updated	Balances by customer and container type, so deposit charges and missing kegs are visible rather than written off.
Unattended early delivery	Customer claims it never came	Photo, GPS and time on the invoice	Unattended instructions on the profile, and evidence attached to the order before the customer opens.
Customer asks when the van arrives	Office rings the driver	ETA message sent automatically	Sent when the run departs and updated when the van is a few stops away, from routing ETAs.

What to Get Right

Credit notes and GST adjustments

Changing an invoice that has not been issued is simple. Once a tax invoice has gone to a business customer, a short or refusal usually needs a credit note or adjustment note recorded in the period it occurs, rather than an edited original. Decide with your accountant at which point invoices are issued, how door adjustments are documented, and how they appear on the customer statement, then build the integration to that agreed approach. This is general information, not tax advice.

Cold chain records

Food businesses generally need to show that potentially hazardous food was kept under temperature control, and many customers and auditors ask for delivery temperature evidence. Which records apply depends on your licence, your state food authority and any customer or industry scheme you belong to. Confirm the requirements with your food safety adviser, and design the app and vehicle logging to produce those records automatically rather than relying on drivers writing numbers down.

Chain of responsibility for heavy vehicles

If you run heavy vehicles, the Heavy Vehicle National Law places obligations on parties in the supply chain, not only the driver, and loading, scheduling and fatigue all matter. Routing that plans runs drivers cannot complete legally, or loading that ignores axle and mass limits, creates risk for the business. Get specific advice for your fleet, and make sure planned run times and loads are visible and reviewable rather than buried in software.

Access codes and customer privacy

Lockbox codes, alarm instructions and after hours access notes are sensitive. Anyone with the app could misuse them, and a lost phone exposes every site on the run. Restrict them to the run and the stop, hide them until the driver arrives, require device passcodes and remote wipe, and remove them when a driver leaves. Personal information about customer staff is covered by the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles where they apply to you.

Signatures nobody can identify

A scrawl on glass with no printed name proves very little in a dispute. Capture a printed name alongside the signature, add a photo of the goods in place, and record GPS position and time. For unattended deliveries, agree in writing with the customer that photo evidence at the agreed location counts as delivery, so the profile instruction and your trading terms say the same thing.

Buying more than a small fleet needs

If you run one or two vans on fixed runs, you probably do not need route optimisation or a full integration project. A good run sheet export from the ERP in drop order, an off the shelf proof of delivery app, and a simple link that attaches the signed record to the invoice may be all you need. Add optimisation and automatic credits when run counts or dispute volumes justify them.

How Yes AI Approaches Route Delivery Integration

We ride the run first

Before designing anything we go out on a run and watch the dock, the drops and the paperwork coming back. Most of the real requirements, from lockboxes to refused lines, only show up in the cab.

Food safety and finance in the room

Cold chain records, credit note rules and GST treatment are agreed with your food safety adviser, accountant and accounts team before build, so the driver app captures exactly what each of them needs, and nothing is added later as a workaround.

Built and monitored by us

Run allocation, routing exchange, proof of delivery sync and door adjustments run on a managed cloud automation layer we operate, with alerts when a run fails to sync or an adjustment is rejected, so problems are fixed before the customer rings.

Handed over in plain terms

You receive documented rules for cut-offs, adjustments and container balances, and your team can change run times and reason codes without calling us. We stay on for monitoring and changes if you want us to.

From Paper Dockets to a Closed Delivery Loop

Five steps. A pilot on one or two runs is typically live in two to four weeks once profiles are clean, with the rest of the fleet following run by run.

Ride along and map the runs

Every run, its cut-off, its vehicles, its drops and what comes back on paper today, including shorts, refusals and empties.

Build delivery profiles

Days, run, sequence, windows, access and unattended instructions cleaned up and loaded into the ERP for every delivery point.

Connect runs, picking and routing

Cut-off rules, standing orders, pick by run in reverse drop order, capacity checks and routing exchange where needed.

Pilot proof of delivery

Driver app on one or two runs, with signatures, photos, temperatures and door outcomes flowing back to orders and invoices.

Extend and notify

Remaining runs, carrier hand-off for regional drops, container balances and customer ETA messages.

FAQ

Do we need route optimisation software if our runs are fixed?

Often not. If the same customers are delivered on the same days in roughly the same order, a stored drop sequence on each delivery profile and a run sheet in that order does most of the work. Optimisation pays off when drops vary a lot day to day, when receiving windows are tight, or when you run enough vehicles that balancing them by hand wastes hours. Many distributors use fixed runs for regulars and optimise only the overflow and one off deliveries.

What should electronic proof of delivery capture?

At minimum a signature with a printed name, a timestamp and GPS position, plus photos of the goods in place, especially for unattended drops. For chilled and frozen goods add a product or vehicle temperature reading. Line outcomes matter as much as the signature: which lines were delivered in full, short, damaged, substituted or refused, with a reason code. Without the line outcomes, proof of delivery proves the van turned up but not what the customer should pay for.

How do shorts and refusals become credit notes automatically?

The driver app records the outcome against the order line, and the integration applies your rules in the ERP. If the invoice has not yet been issued, the line quantity is amended before invoicing. If it has, a credit note is raised against the original invoice with the reason and the photo attached. Thresholds help: small shorts credit automatically, while refusals over a set value or from certain customers go to an approval queue. Confirm the GST documentation approach with your accountant.

Will a driver app work in areas with no mobile coverage?

It must, and this is the first thing to test before choosing one. The whole run, profiles, access notes and order lines should download to the device before departure. Signatures, photos and outcomes are stored on the phone and sent when signal returns, in the order they were captured, with each record carrying a unique identifier so a retry never creates a duplicate credit. Test it in your worst cool room and your longest country stretch, not in the office car park.

How should we track crates, kegs and pallets?

Treat returnable containers as a balance per customer and container type, not as stock lines on an invoice. Deliveries add to the balance, collections recorded in the driver app reduce it, and the ERP holds the running figure and any deposit or hire charge under your terms. A regular statement of balances, sent to customers, usually recovers more containers than chasing drivers. Pallet pool accounts with hire companies can be reconciled against the same records.

Can drivers take payment on delivery?

Yes, for cash on delivery customers or overdue accounts on stop credit. The driver app shows the amount due and records cash or a card payment against the specific invoice, and the ERP marks it paid or partly paid. Driver takings are then reconciled at the end of the run against the payments recorded. Keep account customers on normal terms rather than collecting at the door, and make sure the app tells the driver clearly when a customer is on hold before goods come off the truck.

We only have two vans. Is any of this worth it?

Some of it. With two vans on fixed runs, the highest value pieces are usually clean delivery profiles in the ERP, a run sheet export in drop order, and an off the shelf proof of delivery app with a simple link that attaches the signed record and any shorts to the invoice. That can be a small piece of work. Automatic credits, routing integration and container balances are worth adding when dispute volumes or run counts grow.

Close the Gap Between the Truck and the Invoice

Book a call. We look at how orders reach your runs and how deliveries come back to your ERP today, show you where credits, containers and disputes are leaking, and give you a priced plan sized to your fleet. If a run sheet and a simple app will do, we will say so.

Book a Delivery Loop Review (03) 9003 0111

All discussions held in confidence. Australian-based consultants.