A statement query that goes back three months
A customer is holding payment on part of their statement. They say a case was damaged in April, two cases were short in May, and they were sent the wrong size in June. The driver remembers one of them. The delivery notes have some handwriting. Your office has a chain of emails but no clear record of what was agreed. So someone spends an afternoon piecing it together, and in the end gives the credit because the account is worth more than the argument.
Across all your customers, that is a lot of afternoons, and a lot of credits nobody can check.
Why claims turn into investigations
Claims are raised long after the delivery, through whichever channel the customer prefers. The evidence (what was picked, what was loaded, what the customer signed for, what the damage looked like) is scattered across paper, phones and systems. Without it, the office cannot tell a picking error from a transit breakage from a customer counting wrong, so it cannot fix the cause either.
| Claim type | Evidence that would settle it | Where it usually is |
|---|---|---|
| Damaged in transit | Photo at the drop, driver note | On the driver's phone, if anywhere |
| Short delivered | Picked and loaded quantities | Pick sheet in a tray |
| Wrong item | What was ordered and what was picked | Two different systems |
| Not ordered | The original order and its source | An email in a shared inbox |
What slow claims cost
Payments are held while claims are argued, which hits cash flow. Credits are given without evidence, so the business pays for errors it did not make. Genuine problems, like a picker who confuses two similar lines or a van with a loose load, never get fixed because claims are not categorised. And customers find the process tiring, which is not how you want them to feel about you.
Your drivers carry some of the cost as well. When a customer disputes a delivery on the doorstep, the driver has no quick way to record it properly, so they either argue or accept whatever is written on the note. Neither helps the office later.
The claims process we build
- At the drop, the driver's phone app records the customer's signature and any issue on the spot: which line, how many, with photos.
- Customers can also raise claims later through a simple form or by email, which creates a claim record linked to the delivery.
- Each claim is checked automatically against the order, the pick record and the load, so the office sees whether the quantities matched at each step.
- Your approval rules decide what happens next: small claims with evidence approved directly, others routed to a manager, anything over a time limit flagged.
- Approved claims raise a credit note in your accounts system, such as Sage or Xero, through its API, and the customer is told.
- Claims are categorised by cause, so a monthly view shows picking, transit and supplier problems separately.
- Every claim has an owner and a status.
- Evidence is attached, not described.
- Credits follow rules rather than who shouts loudest.
How it feels after
Most claims are settled while the delivery is still fresh in everyone's mind. Statement queries shrink because the customer already has the credit or a clear answer. The warehouse manager gets a list of the mispicks that cost the most, and the transport manager sees which runs have the most breakages. Credit decisions become consistent.
Does this sound familiar?
- Customers hold payment over old delivery claims.
- Credits are given because checking takes too long.
- Drivers take photos but nobody can find them.
- You cannot say what your most common claim cause is.
- Claims arrive by phone, email and on statements.