Bill of Lading Overview

GoldFinch Bill of Lading Management helps organizations prepare, organize, and maintain transportation documents for outbound shipments.

By connecting bills of lading to warehouse shipments, sales orders, customers, delivery locations, carriers, pallets, and items in Salesforce, GoldFinch provides a more consistent, traceable shipping-document process.

What Is a Bill of Lading?

A bill of lading is a transportation document containing important information about a shipment, such as:

• Shipper and consignee
• Origin and destination
• Carrier
• Shipment date
• Freight terms
• Products and quantities
• Packages, pallets, or handling units
• Weight and other shipping information
• Special instructions or references

The precise information required depends on the shipment, carrier, destination, products, and applicable regulatory requirements.

Bill of Lading Process

A typical GoldFinch bill of lading process includes:

1. Identify shipments
   Select the warehouse shipments or other eligible records to be included.
2. Create the bill of lading
   GoldFinch uses information from connected customer, shipping, warehouse, and item records to help prepare the document.
3. Review shipment details
   Authorized users review the carrier, destination, products, quantities, pallets, weights, freight terms, and other required information.
4. Process the document
   Complete the bill of lading according to the organization’s shipping procedures.
5. Print or share the document
   The completed document can accompany the shipment and be retained with the related GoldFinch records.

The exact workflow depends on the organization’s configuration and transportation requirements.

Connected Shipping Information

GoldFinch can bring together information from related records, including:

• Customers and ship-to locations
• Sales orders
• Warehouse shipments
• Items and item descriptions
• Quantities and units of measure
• Shipment pallets
• Package counts
• Gross and net weights
• Carriers and transportation methods
• Freight terms
• Customer purchase order numbers
• Shipment and tracking references

Using connected records reduces duplicate entry and helps maintain consistency between warehouse transactions and transportation documents.

Shipment and Pallet Support

A bill of lading may cover one or more related warehouse shipments, depending on the customer’s processes and GoldFinch configuration.

For palletized shipments, GoldFinch can use information associated with shipment pallets, such as:

• Pallet identifiers
• Products and quantities
• Number of handling units
• Pallet weights
• Related shipment information

This helps warehouse and logistics teams prepare documents that correspond with the physical shipment.

International and Cross-Border Documents

GoldFinch can also support selected documents used for cross-border shipments, including:

• Canada Customs Invoice
• CUSMA Certificate of Origin

These documents can use information maintained in GoldFinch, such as customer, consignee, item, value, country of origin, and shipment details.

Document availability and required information depend on the customer’s configuration and shipping requirements.

Visibility on Salesforce

Because GoldFinch is Salesforce-native, bill of lading information stays connected to related operational and customer records.

Authorized users can review:

• Bills of lading in progress
• Related warehouse shipments
• Sales orders and customer references
• Carrier and delivery information
• Shipment pallets
• Printed transportation documents
• Cross-border shipping documents
• Completed shipment history

This connected view helps warehouse, customer service, sales, and logistics teams work from consistent shipment information.

Business Benefits

GoldFinch Bill of Lading Management can help organizations:

• Reduce duplicate shipment data entry
• Standardize transportation documents
• Improve consistency between shipping records and physical goods
• Consolidate related shipments where appropriate
• Maintain connected shipment documentation
• Strengthen pallet and shipment traceability
• Improve coordination among warehouse, logistics, sales, and customer service teams
• Support selected domestic and cross-border shipping processes

Important Considerations

Shipping, customs, and certificate-of-origin requirements vary by carrier, product, destination, and applicable laws or trade programs.

Each organization is responsible for determining which documents are required and confirming that all information is complete and accurate. GoldFinch helps prepare and maintain documents but does not replace professional customs, legal, tax, or trade-compliance advice.

Available features depend on the customer’s licensed GoldFinch modules and configuration.

GoldFinch customers can sign in to Clientcare for detailed instructions on configuring, creating, processing, and printing bills of lading and related cross-border documents.