Delivery Notes

A delivery note (DN) is a document that accompanies a shipment of goods from your warehouse to a client. It records what was dispatched, in what quantities, and from which warehouse. Delivery notes are the outbound counterpart of goods receipts in the procurement module — while goods receipts track goods arriving from a supplier, delivery notes track goods leaving your warehouse for a client.

Each delivery note is linked to a sales order and represents a single shipment event. A single sales order can have multiple delivery notes, which is common when items ship at different times (split shipments) or from different locations.

Key Concepts

• Delivery Note — A dispatch document listing the items, quantities, and source warehouse for a shipment to a client. Also known as a dispatch note or packing slip.
• Picking — Collecting items from their storage locations in the warehouse to fulfill the order.
• Packing — Packaging the picked items for shipment, potentially consolidating items from multiple locations.
• Dispatch — Handing off the packed goods to a carrier or the client for delivery.
• Split Shipment — When a sales order is fulfilled across multiple delivery notes, typically because not all items are available at once or because items ship from different warehouses.

Creating a Delivery Note

To create a new delivery note:

1. Navigate to Sales > Delivery Notes in the sidebar.
2. Click New. This opens a new delivery note page. (For a note that fulfills a whole order in one go, prefer the Create Delivery Note button on the sales order itself — it pre-fills the lines for you.)
3. Fill in the details:
   • DN Number — A unique identifier for this delivery note (e.g., DN-2026-0112).
   • Sales Order — Select the confirmed sales order to fulfill. Only orders in Confirmed, Processing, or Partial status are available.
   • Client — The client receiving the goods. It comes from the sales order and cannot be changed.
   • Warehouse — The warehouse from which goods will be dispatched. It opens on the sales order’s warehouse once the order is picked; pick another if the goods leave from elsewhere.
   • Delivery Date — The planned or actual delivery date.
   • Carrier — The shipping carrier or freight company (optional).
   • Tracking Number — The carrier’s tracking or waybill number (optional).
   • Shipping Method — e.g., Standard, Express, Client Pickup (optional).
   • Notes — Any delivery instructions or comments.
4. Press Add above the Lines, beside the form. The delivery note is saved in Draft status with its number, and its first line opens, ready to fill in (Adding lines before you save). To add the lines later, click Save instead: the delivery note is stored in Draft status and you land on its page.

Managing Delivery Lines

Add the items to ship:

1. The note’s details are on the left of the page and its Lines are beside them on the right, from the moment you click New. A saved delivery note opens the same way when you click its number in the list.
2. Click Add for each item — picking the SO Line fills in the product and unit for you, and the line keeps them:
   • SO Line — Select which sales order line item you are shipping. The dropdown shows the remaining quantity for each line.
   • Product — The product being shipped (optional, for reference).
   • Description — What the delivery note says was shipped. Filled in from the sales order line, and yours to change if this shipment needs different wording (“half pallet, remainder to follow”). See What the description records below.
   • Source Location — The warehouse location from which items are being picked (optional).
   • Qty Shipped — The quantity being shipped in this delivery.
   • Unit — The unit of measure.
   • Notes — Line-specific notes such as batch numbers, serial numbers, or special packaging instructions.
3. You can add partial quantities — for example, if a sales order line has 200 units ordered, you can ship 150 in this delivery note and the remaining 50 in a future delivery.

Lines can only be added or modified while the delivery note is in Draft status.

What the description records

The description is written down when the line is created, and it stays as written. If you rename the product a month later, the delivery notes you already sent keep saying what they said — your copy and the customer’s signed copy still match.

That is why the Product column can show a different name from the Description on an old note. The Product column points at the product record, which really has been renamed; the Description is the document’s own wording, from the day it shipped. Both are right, and the difference is the record doing its job.

Delivery Note Workflow

A delivery note moves through a series of statuses as it progresses from creation to delivery:

1. Draft

The delivery note has been created but the picking process has not started. You can still add, edit, or remove lines.

2. Picking

Click Picking, the next step on the road at the top of the note’s page, and confirm. The road runs Draft → Picking → Packed → Shipped → Delivered: the steps already passed are ticked, the one the note is at is filled, and the next one is a button — every move on a delivery note is yours to make. Rest on a step to see when it was reached and by whom. Clicking the step you are at opens the map instead: every status with an arrow for each move; the ones you can move to from here are clickable. This signals to warehouse staff that they should begin collecting items from their storage locations. The delivery note must have at least one line before picking can start.

3. Packed

Pick Packed once all items have been collected and packaged. The shipment is ready for dispatch.

4. Shipped

Pick Shipped to record that the goods have been handed off to the carrier or collected by the client. This is the critical step that updates inventory:

• Stock levels are adjusted to reflect the dispatched quantities.
• Each sales order line’s shipped quantity is updated.
• The sales order’s status may change to Processing, Partial, or Completed depending on how much has been shipped overall.

You can optionally provide carrier and tracking number information when shipping.

If the warehouse cannot cover a line — counting only what no other order has reserved — nothing is shipped: the note stays at its step, and a message says how many are available against how many the line needs. Lower that line’s quantity, or wait for the goods to arrive.

5. Delivered

Pick Delivered once delivery has been confirmed at the client’s location.

Two people can have the same delivery note open. If it has moved on since your page showed it — a colleague shipped it, or cancelled it — the step you pick is refused with a message asking you to refresh the page, and the note stays where your colleague left it. So a note is never shipped twice, and a cancelled one is never marked delivered.

Billing a Shipment (Create Invoice)

Once a note is Shipped or Delivered, a Create Invoice button appears in its header. It creates a draft sales invoice billing exactly the quantities this delivery shipped — the ship-then-bill flow:

1. Click Create Invoice and confirm the suggested invoice number (pre-filled from the delivery number).
2. Each invoice line is linked back to both its sales order line and its delivery line, so the order, the shipment, and the bill can always be matched against each other.
3. Quantities are capped at what the order hasn’t been invoiced for yet — if an earlier invoice already billed part of this shipment, only the rest is billed, and a fully billed delivery is refused.
4. You land on the new draft invoice, ready to review and send. It is dated today and falls due on the order’s payment terms, else the client’s own terms, else 30 days later.

To bill an order’s full remaining quantity regardless of deliveries, use the Create Invoice button on the sales order page instead.

Cancellation

A delivery note can be cancelled at any point — pick Cancelled in the map behind the current step:

• Before shipment (Draft, Picking, or Packed) — cancelling simply closes the note; nothing has moved, so nothing needs to be undone.
• After shipment (Shipped or Delivered) — cancelling reverses the shipment. The shipped quantities return to warehouse stock, an inbound reversal movement is recorded for traceability, and the sales order’s shipped quantities and status roll back so the goods can be re-shipped on a new delivery note. An order you have already closed stays closed, though, and so does a line you closed short: the shipped quantity comes off it, but nothing is owed again, and the order that line finished stays Completed.

Once goods have come back on a sales return, the delivery note can no longer be cancelled: the returned goods are already back in stock and off the order’s shipped quantities, and cancelling would put them back a second time. A message names the return; anything else the client sends back goes on another return. While a return against the note is still a Draft, the cancellation is refused too — cancel that return first (a draft has moved nothing), then the delivery note. The other way round, once a delivery note is cancelled no return can be created or received against it: its goods are already back.

Use a post-shipment cancellation to correct mistakes (wrong quantities, wrong shipment). When a client actually sends goods back, don’t cancel — record a sales return instead: it receives the goods partially and condition-aware (Good vs Damaged) while leaving the delivery intact, and for a billed invoice, issue a credit note as well so the financial side matches.

Receiving Goods Back (Create Return)

Once a note is Shipped or Delivered, a Create Return button also appears in its header. It creates a draft sales return pre-filled with each delivery line’s remaining returnable quantity, ready to trim down to what the client actually sent back. The note’s Returns tab lists every return raised against it.

Tracking Fulfillment

The delivery notes list shows the current status of each shipment, the associated sales order, client, warehouse, and carrier information. Use the search box to find a delivery by number or client, and the filter button beside it to narrow by Status, Client, Warehouse, Sales Order or a Delivery Date range (Working with lists).

To see the full details of a delivery note including all its line items, click on the delivery note to open its page: its lines sit beside the details.

Important Notes

• Each delivery note must be linked to a sales order. The client and warehouse should match the sales order.
• Shipping a delivery note is an irreversible action that affects stock levels. Ensure the delivery note lines are correct before shipping.
• You can create multiple delivery notes for the same sales order to handle partial or split shipments.
• The sales order’s status automatically updates based on the total shipped quantities across all its delivery notes.