# Pick ticket vs packing slip vs bill of lading, explained > https://rundoo.ai/resources/guides/pick-ticket-packing-slip-bill-of-lading/ [Guides](/resources/guides/index.md) /Product Product # Pick ticket vs packing slip vs bill of lading, explained What a pick ticket, packing slip, bill of lading, delivery ticket, and proof of delivery each do, who signs what, and what goes wrong when one gets skipped. [![Titus Capilnean](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/titus-capilnean.jpeg)](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tituscapilnean/) [Titus Capilnean](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tituscapilnean/), Head of Marketing October 27, 2026 Last updated October 27, 2026 A pick ticket tells your crew what to pull for an order, a packing slip travels with the shipment and lists what is inside it, and a bill of lading is the carrier's legal receipt for the freight itself. The pick ticket stays in your store, the packing slip rides in the box or on the pallet, and the bill of lading belongs to the truck. Every order that moves through a supply store, inbound from a vendor or outbound to a customer, leaves this paper trail behind it, and a paper trail is only worth something if somebody follows it. ## The trail an order follows, in both directions Paper confuses people because the same handful of documents show up on both sides of your loading dock, made by different people for different reasons. Inbound, when you buy from a vendor, the carrier issues a bill of lading when the freight gets picked up, the vendor tucks a packing slip into the shipment, and the vendor's invoice arrives separately, by mail, email, or as an EDI 810 invoice. That invoice, plus the freight bill and any fees, is what feeds your [landed cost](/resources/guides/landed-cost-for-retail-inventory/index.md), so none of it is junk mail. Outbound, when you sell to a customer, your store generates a pick ticket or picking list so the yard or warehouse crew knows what to pull, a packing slip or delivery ticket rides with the load, and the drop gets closed out with proof of delivery, a signed record that the goods arrived. If the customer bought on a charge account, your invoice is what lands on their statement at the end of the month. ## The pick ticket, or picking list Your store creates the pick ticket from the sale, and your own crew reads it. Whether it prints at the counter or shows up on a screen in the yard, it answers four questions for the person pulling the order: what to pull, how many, in what unit, and from which bin or yard location. A good pick ticket carries no prices. The forklift driver loading forty bags of layer feed does not need to know what the contractor is paying per bag, and leaving pricing off keeps the pull focused on count and location. Some stores have the puller initial each line as it gets staged, which gives you a name to ask when the count comes up short. The picking list is the same document by another name. Lumber yards tend to say pick ticket, some warehouses say picking list, and a few older systems say pick slip, but the job is identical: turn a sale into a stack of physical product at the dock. ## The packing slip The shipper creates the packing slip, and the receiver reads it. When your vendor ships to you, their packing slip is in the box or strapped to the pallet. When you ship or deliver to a customer, yours goes with the load. The packing slip lists what is in the shipment: item, description, quantity, and unit of measure. It usually carries no prices, because it is a contents list, not a bill. It is the document the receiver counts against, which makes it the single most important piece of paper on your receiving dock, and the one most often trusted when it should not be, as the receiving section below explains. ## The bill of lading The bill of lading is the one document in this stack with federal rules behind it. Under 49 CFR 373.101, every motor carrier moving property in interstate or foreign commerce has to issue a receipt or bill of lading for the freight tendered to it, and that document must contain five things: 1. The names of the consignor and consignee (in plain words, the shipper and the receiver) 2. The origin and destination points 3. The number of packages 4. A description of the freight 5. The weight, volume, or measurement of the freight, when that applies to how the freight is rated The carrier also has to keep a record of all of it as prescribed in 49 CFR part 379. So when a driver hands you a bill of lading at your dock, you are looking at the carrier's receipt for the freight, not a formality. It names who shipped, who receives, how many pieces, and what the freight is. The bill of lading belongs to the transportation, not the merchandise. It does not list your cost per item, and it is not the bill you pay the vendor. It is the carrier's record, and it gets signed at both ends: the shipper signs when the carrier picks up, and the receiver signs when the freight arrives. That second signature is where receiving discipline matters, because a clean signature says the freight arrived as described. ## The delivery ticket and proof of delivery When the truck doing the delivering is yours, the documents change names. A delivery ticket is your store's packing slip for your own truck: it lists what is on the load, and it gets signed at the drop. Many stores put prices on the delivery ticket since the customer is standing right there and the ticket doubles as a record of the sale, which is one place it differs from a vendor's packing slip. Proof of delivery is the signed record that closes the loop: the recipient's name, a signature, the date and time, and sometimes photos of where the load landed. When a contractor calls three weeks later saying the field fence never showed up, the proof of delivery is the difference between a two minute conversation and a free roll of fence. ## The invoice The invoice is the bill. It is the itemized record of the completed sale with prices, terms, and totals, whether the customer paid at the counter or charged it to a charge account. Inbound, your vendor's invoice is what you owe, and it is the document you reconcile against the packing slip (what arrived) and the purchase order (what you asked for). The packing slip says what shipped, the invoice says what you pay, and confusing the two is how stores pay for product they never received. ## Side by side comparison | Document | Who makes it | Who uses it | Prices on it? | Signed? | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Pick ticket (picking list) | Your store, from the sale | Your yard or warehouse crew | No | Sometimes initialed by the puller | | Packing slip | The shipper (vendor inbound, your store outbound) | Whoever receives the shipment | Usually no | Sometimes, at delivery | | Bill of lading | The carrier | Shipper, carrier, and receiver | No item prices | Yes, at pickup and at delivery | | Delivery ticket | Your store, for your own truck | Your driver and your customer | Often yes | Yes, at the drop | | Proof of delivery | Completed at the drop | Your office, in any dispute | No | Yes, the signature is the whole point | | Invoice | The seller | Whoever pays the bill | Yes | No | ## Worked example: a feed store delivery, start to finish A farm customer with a charge account calls in an order: 40 bags of 50 lb layer feed, 10 steel T-posts, and one roll of field fence, delivered to his place on Thursday morning. The sale creates the pick ticket. It reads: 40 bags layer feed, 50 lb, from the feed room pallet by door two; 10 T-posts, 6 foot, from the rack in the side yard; 1 roll field fence, 47 inch, from the fence row. No prices. Your crew pulls it, stages it by the dock, and initials the lines as each item lands on the pallet. The truck gets loaded, and the delivery ticket goes with the driver: the same three lines with quantities, plus the customer's name, the drop address, and a note that the gate sticks. Because this customer buys on a charge account, the ticket may show the pricing, and the sale posts to his monthly statement either way. At the farm, the driver drops the feed in the barn, the posts and fence by the gate, and the customer or his hired hand signs the delivery ticket. That signature is your proof of delivery: name, date, time, and exactly what was left. If the driver snaps a photo of the pallet in the barn, even better. Back at the store, the signed ticket comes home with the driver, and the order is done. Say the pick had come up short, with only 36 bags of feed in the room. That is when the crew flags it before the truck leaves, the customer gets told what is coming later, and the rest gets handled as a backorder rather than a [special order](/resources/guides/backorder-vs-special-order/index.md), since layer feed is something you stock, not something you are ordering on his behalf. ## Receiving inbound: check it before the driver leaves Receiving is where the inbound documents earn their keep, and the window to use them is short. When a truck hits your dock, you have three documents in play: the bill of lading or delivery receipt in the driver's hand, the packing slip in or on the shipment, and your copy of the purchase order back at the counter. Before the driver leaves, count the freight against both the bill of lading and the packing slip. If there is a shortage or visible damage, write it on the delivery receipt before you sign, then call the carrier or vendor promptly. A clean signature with no notes is you stating, on a regulated document, that everything arrived as described, which turns the short conversation later into a much harder one. The most common receiving error is quieter than a damaged pallet: the receiver counts the packing slip instead of the freight. The slip says forty cases, someone is in a hurry, forty gets keyed into the system, and only thirty-six arrived. Your on hand count is now wrong by four cases, and that error will sit there costing you money until a count catches it. Those receiving mistakes are a real source of [shrink](/resources/guides/retail-shrink-hardware-and-feed-stores/index.md), and a discrepancy that only surfaces at count time is exactly the kind of thing a [cycle counting](/resources/guides/cycle-counting-for-retail-stores/index.md) habit is built to catch. ## What goes wrong when a document gets skipped Each skipped document fails in its own predictable way. Skip the pick ticket and your crew pulls from memory, which works until the busy Saturday when it does not. Skip the packing slip and the receiver has nothing to count against, so mistakes enter the system as fact. Skip the signature at delivery and you have no proof of delivery, which turns every "it never showed up" call into your word against theirs. Skip the count at receiving and you pay invoices for product that never crossed your dock. None of this requires new software or a consultant, only that the paper exists, that someone reads it, and that the right person signs it at the right moment. ## How Rundoo handles the outbound half Rundoo schedules a delivery straight from the sale, so the trip starts from the order itself rather than from a whiteboard. A delivery is one truck's trip, and each address on it is a stop, so a driver running three drops on Thursday morning sees all three stops in the Rundoo Staff App, each with the address, the contact, and the instructions like the note about the sticky gate. Customers get an email or text when the delivery is scheduled, when it is being prepared, when it is on its way, and when it is delivered, which means fewer "where is my feed" phone calls landing on your counter. You can see the rest of the delivery flow on the [deliveries page](/product/deliveries/index.md). Share Topics [Product](/resources/guides/index.md#inventory-and-purchasing) [← All guides](/resources/guides/index.md) ## Frequently asked questions What is a bill of lading? A bill of lading is the receipt a motor carrier issues for freight it picks up, naming the shipper (consignor), the receiver (consignee), the origin and destination, the number of packages, a description of the freight, and its weight or volume when that affects the rate. Federal rule 49 CFR 373.101 requires one for property moving in interstate or foreign commerce, and it gets signed at pickup and again at delivery. What is the difference between a pick ticket and a packing slip? A pick ticket is made by the seller for its own crew and tells them what to pull, how many, in what unit, and from which bin or yard location, and it stays in the store. A packing slip is made by the shipper for the receiver, lists what is in the shipment, and travels with the freight, so one document pulls the order and the other checks it. What is a picking list? A picking list is another name for a pick ticket. It tells the person pulling an order what to pull, in what quantity and unit of measure, and from which bin or yard location, and it usually carries no prices. What is proof of delivery? Proof of delivery is the signed record that goods arrived: the recipient's name, a signature, the date and time, and sometimes photos of where the load was left. On a store's own truck it usually lives on the signed delivery ticket, and it is what settles a later claim that the order never showed up. What is a delivery ticket? A delivery ticket is a store's version of a packing slip for its own truck. It lists what is on the load, often shows prices because it doubles as a record of the sale, and gets signed by the customer at the drop, which makes the signed copy the proof of delivery. ## Find out what Rundoo can do for your business Learn how Rundoo can help you save time, money and hassle running your business. [Book a demo](/signup/index.md) ! ## See Rundoo in action [Product ### Tour the platform POS, inventory, payments, and AI for independent supply stores, in one system.](/product/index.md) [Customers ### Read customer stories See how real paint, hardware, farm, garden, and lumber stores run on Rundoo.](/clients/index.md) ## Keep reading [![ABC analysis for inventory: classify every SKU](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/abc-analysis-inventory-aisle-photo.jpg) Product ### ABC analysis for inventory: classify every SKU ABC analysis ranks every SKU by annual dollar movement at cost so your counting, reordering, and vendor attention go where the money is, and here is the step-by-step method with a ten-SKU feed and hardware example.](/resources/guides/abc-analysis-inventory/index.md) [![Backorder vs special order vs out of stock](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/backorder-vs-special-order-photo.jpg) Product ### Backorder vs special order vs out of stock Out of stock means your shelf is empty, a backorder means the vendor's shelf is empty, and a special order is an item you never stock that you order for one customer, and each one gets a different answer at the counter.](/resources/guides/backorder-vs-special-order/index.md) [![Cubic yard calculator: feet and inches to yards](https://pub-5247264bd04e4ebeaecbbedb3bebb9f8.r2.dev/static/images/articles/cubic-yard-calculator-photo.jpg) Product ### Cubic yard calculator: feet and inches to yards A cubic yard is length times width times depth in feet, divided by 27, so here is a calculator for rectangles, circles, and triangles with depth in inches, three worked examples, the three mistakes that wreck an estimate, and the conversion to cubic meters.](/resources/guides/cubic-yard-calculator/index.md)