Six checks before you sign a delivery order
Small mismatches between an invoice and a DO are common, and each one can send a transfer back a step. Here's what to check before you sign.
Cask paperwork passes through a lot of hands: the seller, the warehouse, sometimes a haulier, then you and your client. Small mismatches creep in. When we went back through a season of transfers, about one in three had at least one document somewhere in the chain that disagreed with another.
Most mismatches are quick to fix before anyone signs, and slow to fix after. A warehouse can hold a DO over one wrong digit.
The six checks
- Cask numbers. Each cask number on the DO matches your invoice, digit for digit. Swapped digits are the most common slip.
- The warehouse. The DO is addressed to the warehouse where the cask actually lies, which is also where your account is.
- Legal names. Your company's name matches your warehouse account exactly, and the seller's matches theirs. A trading name isn't the same as a legal name.
- Volumes and strength. The OLA or RLA and the ABV match what you agreed. If there's been a regauge, the figures are the new ones you accepted.
- Names on the cask. The trade name and the originating distillery match your invoice and what you told your client.
- Charges. Every charge on the invoice matches something that happened. A regauge shouldn't be billed before it's done.
Keep the versions straight
A DO can go back and forth more than once. Name each file so its state is obvious, from unsigned to signed by the seller, fully signed and stamped. Check that the heading on a signed copy doesn't still say it's waiting for a signature.
When the stamped copy comes back from the warehouse, file it with your invoice. Together they're your record of the purchase.