What is a delivery note, and how is it different from a delivery ticket, packing slip or GRN?

There is no single international template, but most delivery notes carry the same core information. The point of the document is to describe the goods, not to bill for them, so prices are usually absent — they come later, on the invoice.

• Supplier and customer — names, addresses and, in many countries, tax IDs.
• Delivery address — for a contractor, the job site, which is how the cost ends up on the right project.
• Document number and date — the reference the invoice should later point back to.
• Items and quantities — product description, quantity and unit (m³, t, kg, units, m²).
• Order or contract reference — a purchase order number, call-off or contract reference, when the supplier fills it in.
• Signature of the receiver — plus, often, handwritten notes: short deliveries, damaged items, times.

The same job — proving what arrived — goes by different names in different markets, and a few neighbouring documents are easy to confuse with it. Usage varies by trade and company; the table shows the common meaning.

Construction materials arrive continuously and in small pieces: a truck of concrete, a pallet of blocks, a bundle of rebar. The site manager or foreman checks the load, signs, and keeps a copy. Weeks later the supplier sends an invoice — often one monthly invoice covering dozens of deliveries — to the office, where someone who never saw the trucks has to decide whether to pay it.

That is why the signed delivery note matters: it is the only independent evidence of what reached which site, in what quantity, on what day. Without it, the invoice can only be checked against itself. With it, finance can answer the question that matters — was everything we are billed for actually delivered? — and the site can see what its materials really cost.

Most contractors check invoices by matching three things: the delivery notes, the invoice and the agreed prices. We explain that method step by step in how to reconcile supplier invoices, and the difference between the two documents in delivery note vs invoice.

A signature on a delivery note is read later as "received as described". A minute at the gate saves an argument at month-end.

1. 01Check the delivery address and the project: is this load meant for this site?
2. 02Compare the items on the note with what is on the truck — product, size, grade or class (for example C25/30 concrete, or 16 mm rebar rather than 20 mm).
3. 03Count or estimate quantities and write any shortfall or damage on the note before signing.
4. 04For timed deliveries such as ready-mix concrete, write the arrival and discharge times; they drive waiting-time charges.
5. 05Sign legibly, keep your copy, and get it to the office the same day — a photo is enough if the paper stays on site.

In Portugal the delivery note is not just a commercial courtesy. Goods moving between businesses must travel with a transport document under the goods-in-circulation regime (Decreto-Lei 147/2003), and the most common one is the guia de remessa. It has a legally defined minimum content, carries a unique document code (the ATCUD) and, for most suppliers, is reported to the tax authority before the truck leaves.

If your company has projects in Portugal, read guia de remessa explained and ATCUD explained.

Audiree was built in Portugal and works today with Portuguese construction companies. The site team photographs each delivery note when it arrives (or forwards the PDF); AI reads every line — article, quantity, unit, price where there is one — and matches each line, by meaning rather than identical text, to the supplier contract for that project. When the invoice arrives, it is checked against the delivery notes and the contract with ten deterministic validations. What matches is approved automatically; divergences go to a review queue with the exact difference.

The reading does not depend on a particular layout, so notes from any supplier can be processed. If you run projects outside Portugal, a demo with your own documents is the honest way to see whether it fits.