Logistics
Logistics and freight document management
Logistics document management is a capture problem before it is a storage one: signed delivery notes, bills of lading, customs declarations and damage reports arrive as photographs from drivers. OCR turns them into searchable records tied to a consignment, which is what makes a claim defensible months later.
Why documents are difficult in logistics
Logistics document management is a capture problem before it is a storage problem. The documents that decide whether a claim succeeds — a signed delivery note, a damage photograph, a temperature log, a customs declaration — are produced away from any office, by drivers and warehouse staff, on a phone, often in poor conditions. A system that assumes documents arrive as clean PDFs from a desktop will simply not receive most of them.
The second characteristic is that documents are worthless unless they are tied to a consignment. A photograph of a signed delivery note is evidence; the same photograph with no reference linking it to a shipment is a file. That linkage has to happen at capture, because reconstructing it three months later during a claim is exactly the work the system was bought to avoid.
Regulatory pressure
Three pressures that shape the configuration
Customs recordkeeping obligations
What it requires. Records supporting customs declarations must be retained and produced on request — three calendar years from the end of the year of acceptance under the EU Union Customs Code, five years from entry under US customs rules, with equivalent duties in most jurisdictions.
What it means for a document system. Retention runs from a date derived from the declaration rather than from when the document was filed, and the records must be retrievable per entry. Because the periods differ by territory, a multi-jurisdiction operator needs retention by record class and route, not a single global period.
Carriage liability conventions (CMR, Montreal, Hague-Visby)
What it requires. Claims for loss, damage or delay must be notified within short prescribed periods, and actions brought within limitation periods that are typically one year — extended in cases of wilful misconduct.
What it means for a document system. The evidential window is short and the document that decides the outcome is usually the signed delivery note with its annotations. Capture speed and the ability to produce a specific note for a specific consignment therefore have direct financial consequences.
Driver hours, dangerous goods and cold chain documentation
What it requires. Tachograph and driver hours records, dangerous goods transport documents, and temperature records for controlled-temperature goods must be created, carried and retained for prescribed periods.
What it means for a document system. These are documents whose absence is itself the offence, independent of whether anything went wrong. That makes completeness reporting — which consignments are missing which document — more valuable than any retrieval feature.
Capability mapping
Five capabilities mapped to logistics requirements
OCR over driver-captured paperwork
Delivery notes, damage reports and weighbridge tickets arrive as photographs. OCR extracts the text so they are searchable by consignment number, registration or date — which is what makes a claim defensible months later.
Consignment linkage through metadata
Enforced metadata ties every document to a consignment, customer and route at capture. AI extraction proposes the consignment number from the document itself, so the linkage does not depend on a driver typing a reference correctly on a phone.
Mobile capture with immediate filing
The interface works on mobile, and email-to-folder import handles the drivers who will always send a photograph to an address rather than open an application. Both routes end with a numbered, classified, retained record.
Completeness reporting per consignment
The valuable report is not what you hold but what is missing: consignments without a signed delivery note, dangerous goods movements without a transport document, cold chain loads without a temperature record. Metadata filters make that a saved search.
Retention by record class and territory
Customs periods differ between the EU, US and other territories, and carriage limitation periods are shorter than both. Retention rules attach per record class with explicit triggers, so one operation can apply several periods correctly.
Taxonomy
A starting folder taxonomy
Consignments
- Consignment note / bill of lading
- Proof of delivery with annotations
- Damage reports and photographs
- Temperature and condition records
- Weighbridge and loading records
Customs and trade
- Import and export declarations
- Commercial invoices and packing lists
- Certificates of origin
- Licences and authorisations
- Duty deferment and guarantee records
Claims
- Claim notifications and correspondence
- Evidence bundles per claim
- Surveyor reports
- Settlement records
Fleet and drivers
- Vehicle registration and maintenance
- Statutory inspection certificates
- Driver licences and qualification cards with expiry
- Tachograph and driver hours records
Compliance
- Dangerous goods documentation
- Operator licence records
- Insurance certificates
- Subcontracted carrier agreements and vetting
The claims folder holds the assembled evidence bundle rather than duplicating the consignment documents. Links keep the bundle connected to the original records, so a claim can be worked without copying documents into a second place where the two versions will diverge.
Worked example
A worked workflow: proof of delivery to claim defence
Step 1: Capture at delivery
The driver photographs the signed note and any damage, sending it from a phone or emailing it to a watched address. The consignment reference is proposed by extraction rather than typed.
Step 2: Index and verify
OCR extracts the text, the consignment linkage is confirmed, and the completeness report clears that consignment — or flags it as missing a document while the driver is still contactable.
Step 3: Notify or defend
When a claim arrives, the consignment’s documents are produced from a single query. Annotations on the delivery note, which usually decide the outcome, are legible because the capture was indexed rather than filed.
Step 4: Bundle and retain
The evidence bundle is assembled in the claims folder with links to the original records, and each record retains under the rule for its class and territory.
Retention
Retention expectations
| Record class | Commonly applied period | What starts the clock | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customs declarations and supporting records (EU) | 3 calendar years | End of the year in which the declaration was accepted | Union Customs Code Article 51 |
| Customs entry records (US) | 5 years | Date of entry | 19 CFR §163.4 |
| Proof of delivery and consignment notes | Commonly 2–6 years, well beyond the claim limitation period | Delivery date | Carriage conventions plus commercial and tax requirements |
| Tachograph and driver hours records | Commonly 12 months for carriage, longer for enforcement records | Date of record | Driver hours regulations — jurisdiction dependent |
| Dangerous goods transport documents | Commonly 3 months to 2 years depending on mode and territory | Date of carriage | ADR / IMDG / IATA DGR provisions |
| Claims files | Aligned to the limitation period plus a margin | Claim closure | Carriage conventions and insurer requirements |
These periods are indicative and must be confirmed against every territory you operate in and every mode you carry by before you rely on them. Customs periods differ by country, carriage limitation periods are unusually short, and dangerous goods rules differ by mode. Nothing here is legal advice.
FAQ
Logistics document management: common questions
Can drivers upload documents from a phone?
Yes, and the more useful answer is that they do not have to change habit: the interface works on mobile, and email-to-folder import files a photograph sent to a watched address. Both routes produce the same numbered, indexed, retained record, which matters because an operation cannot mandate app adoption across subcontracted drivers.
How reliably does OCR read a photographed delivery note?
Printed fields read well; handwritten annotations and signatures do not, and that is the honest limit. The practical approach is to index by consignment reference — extracted or confirmed at capture — so the note is always retrievable even when its handwritten content is not searchable.
What is the most valuable report in a logistics configuration?
Missing documents, not stored ones. Consignments without a signed delivery note, dangerous goods movements without a transport document, cold chain loads without a temperature record. Finding those while the driver is still contactable is worth more than any retrieval improvement.
Can we apply different retention periods by territory?
Yes — retention attaches per record class with an explicit trigger, so EU customs records can run three calendar years from the end of the year of acceptance while US entries run five years from entry, in the same tenant.
Does this replace our TMS?
No. The transport management system plans and tracks movements; DocumentMS holds the documents those movements generate, indexed against the consignment. The integration point is the consignment reference, which is why enforcing it as metadata matters more than any other configuration decision here.
Última revisão: 2026-09-01. Compare all ten industry configurations.