What to Do When a Delivery Arrives Short
A short delivery can stall a job, idle a team, or miss a customer deadline. Here's the process to follow in the first hour: what to document, who to call, how to assess the impact, and how to protect your invoice.
A delivery vehicle pulls up and offloads fewer items than you ordered. Maybe half the branded garments needed before a trade show. A fraction of the timber required to start Monday's frame. Three of the five furniture units for a client's office handover. Short deliveries happen across every project-based industry, and how you handle the next hour determines whether the job keeps moving or stalls completely. There is a clear process to follow - most businesses skip at least two of the steps.
Check the Delivery Note Against Your Purchase Order
Do not argue with the driver. Document what arrived first. Check every item and quantity against the delivery note, then check the delivery note against your own purchase order. Note any discrepancy on the delivery note before signing it - "received short, X units outstanding" is enough. Never sign for the full order if the full order has not arrived.
If the driver provides no delivery note, create your own record on the spot: the date, time, what was received, and a delivery reference number if one exists. This record is your evidence if the dispute escalates.
Always note shortfalls before signing
If you sign a delivery note without recording the shortfall, you may be treated as having accepted full delivery. Write the discrepancy on the document before the driver leaves the site.
Contact the Supplier With Specifics, Not Just a Complaint
Once the delivery note is signed and the shortfall is recorded, call your supplier. Do not email. Have the purchase order number, the items received, and the items outstanding ready before you dial. You need three things confirmed: what happened to the missing items, when the remainder will arrive, and whether you will receive that commitment in writing.
"Next week" is not a date. Push for a specific delivery slot. If your contact cannot commit to one, escalate to their account manager. Your job schedule runs against a calendar, not a vague timeframe.
Lead times across many industries have stretched considerably in recent years. Supplier shortfalls are rarely random - they usually reflect demand spikes, their own supply chain delays, or picking errors. Having a clear process for handling them protects your schedule when they occur, regardless of the cause.
Assess Whether Work Can Continue
Once you know the revised delivery date, assess the impact on your schedule. This is the step most businesses skip - and it is where avoidable costs accumulate.
Three questions to answer: Can any work continue without the missing items? If not, which activities are affected and for how long? And is the customer's delivery date still achievable?
On a construction site, other trades may be able to continue while one material is outstanding - but if the short delivery sits on the critical path, labour will stand idle. In a promotional merchandise business, artwork approval and other prep work can continue, but the dispatch plan needs immediate revision. In a furniture project, partial installation may be possible if what arrived covers one area of the site.
Tell your supplier the deadline, not just the date
If missing items affect a fixed handover date, a live event, or a client move-in, state that deadline explicitly when you call. Suppliers prioritize customers who communicate urgency with specifics - a calendar date lands harder than general pressure.
Document your impact assessment. If the shortfall causes additional costs - idle labour, a rescheduled delivery slot, temporary storage of partial stock - record them now. If those costs are recoverable from the supplier, you will need that record later.
Update Your Customer and Protect Your Invoice
If the shortfall affects the timeline you committed to your customer, tell them before they ask. One short message that says the delivery came in short, you are chasing the supplier, and you will have a revised date by end of day is worth more than silence followed by a missed commitment. Customers who hear about a problem from you respond very differently from customers who discover it for themselves.
On the invoice side: if a supplier bill arrives for the full order quantity, do not pay it against a partial delivery. Match every invoice to what was actually received. Pay for what has arrived and note the outstanding balance in writing. Paying in full before the rest of the order arrives removes your leverage if the remaining items are delayed further, arrive damaged, or never come at all.
Short deliveries are a fact of life in construction, promotional merchandise, furniture, and most project-based trades. The businesses that handle them without drama have a consistent process ready before it happens: document the shortfall on the delivery note before signing, get a firm revised date from the supplier by phone, assess the job impact immediately, update the customer proactively, and match every invoice to what was actually delivered. Those five steps, done in sequence, turn a potential crisis into a manageable delay.
Sources
- The Biggest Challenges in Construction Materials Delivery ExplainedNexlift · accessed 2026-07-25
- How to Manage Partial Shipments?MRPeasy · accessed 2026-07-25
Related pages
Ready to run your business
on one platform?
Book a free demo and see how Zigaflow fits your team.