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A truck pulls up to your dock and a pallet comes off the back. Before anyone in the office pays a cent for it, someone on your team has to answer a simple question: is this actually what we ordered? Receiving is where that question gets answered — where the count on the invoice becomes the count that really arrived. In ShelfSpace it takes about two minutes, and this is the whole thing, start to finish.
Receiving is the moment the count becomes real
By the time a delivery reaches your dock, it already exists in ShelfSpace — it's sitting on your Incoming tab with the vendor, the line items, the expected package count, and the dollar total, all filled in before product hit the floor. Nothing on that tab is paid yet. These are just the orders you're expecting. Receiving is the step where your team confirms what physically showed up, so the office never approves a payment for boxes nobody checked.
Open the order that came in and you'll see everything you're checking against, including whether it's a wholesale or a consignment order. Here's the part that trips people up: it doesn't matter. You receive them the exact same way. That label only changes how the vendor gets paid later — as an invoice you approve, or as product settles when it sells — never how you check the truck in. One receiving flow covers both.
Two ways to add the paperwork
Step one is proof of what arrived: the signed paper invoice, and the Metrc transport manifest that rode along with the shipment. Both attach right to the delivery, so the paper trail lives with the order instead of in a folder somewhere. And you've got two easy ways to get them on there — no scanner required.
At your computer
Drag & drop
At the front desk, drag the files straight into the delivery, or click to browse. PDFs and photos both work.
Out on the dock
Use your phone
No computer nearby? Log into ShelfSpace on your phone, tap the camera, and photograph the invoice and the manifest right there. Every page becomes a clean PDF, attached automatically.
The phone option is the one receiving teams reach for most, because the person checking in the truck is rarely sitting at a desk. They're standing at the dock with the paperwork in hand. Snapping a photo is faster than walking paper back to the office and scanning it, and it lands in exactly the same place.
Confirm each line — and catch what's short
With the documents in, you move to the line items. This is the real check. Every line starts marked Received, at the quantity the vendor invoiced, and you've got four ways to call each one:
- Received — it all showed up, exactly as billed.
- Short — fewer units arrived than the invoice says. Enter the quantity you actually got.
- Damaged — it arrived, but it's not sellable. Add a note and quarantine it for return.
- Not Compliant — it doesn't meet spec or labeling rules. Note it and set it aside.
Say the driver came up two units short on the first item. Tap Short and enter what actually came in. Watch the amount you owe the vendor: ShelfSpace drops it automatically, so you never pay for product that didn't show up. A four-unit line billed at twenty-four dollars each, received as two, quietly takes forty-eight dollars off the payable — no calculator, no follow-up call. Damaged and Not Compliant work the same way, each with a note that becomes part of the record.
And it is a record. Every disposition, every adjusted quantity, every note is logged and visible in the vendor's own portal. There's no shadow spreadsheet and no side email about the shortage — the vendor sees the same reconciled delivery you do, which is how an honest mistake stays an honest mistake instead of turning into a dispute.
Confirm the total, and it's done
One last gate before the delivery is checked in: the money. Because you came up short, ShelfSpace shows the vendor's full invoice and the reduced total it will actually pay, side by side. You check that reduced number against the signed paper in your hand and confirm. That's the FinTech backstop — the person receiving the boxes gets the last look at the dollar figure before it flows anywhere.
Confirm it, and the delivery lands on Received, marked Receipt Verified, with the shortage on the record. It moves on to your office to approve and pay — but your receiving team is done. Here's the whole flow, from the dock to the handoff:
Open it and click Receive
Find the order on the Incoming tab, open it, and click Receive Delivery to start.
Add the paperwork
Drag in the signed invoice and Metrc manifest, or photograph them with your phone.
Confirm each line
Received, Short, Damaged, or Not Compliant — the amount owed adjusts as you go.
Confirm the total
Check the reconciled amount against the signed paper invoice and confirm.
It lands on Received
Marked Receipt Verified and handed to the office to approve and pay.
What you receive is what gets paid. A short line reduces the payable at the moment of receiving, so the discrepancy is settled before it ever reaches an invoice — not argued about after a check goes out.
That's receiving, end to end. It's the same two minutes whether the delivery is wholesale or consignment, whether you're at a desk or on the dock, whether everything matched or a line came up short. For the office side of the story — how a received delivery gets approved and how ShelfSpace checks it against Metrc before a check is cut — that's the next step in the accounts payable flow.
If you're still receiving deliveries on paper and reconciling shortages after the fact, drop me a line and I'll show you how much of it disappears.