Guide

How to audit a bulk shipment before the clock runs out

Most reseller agreements give a buyer 30 to 60 days to report what is wrong with a shipment. A bulk closeout lot takes longer than that to process, which means the deadline usually expires before the contents are fully known. The way through is not to process faster. It is to sample early, compare against the seller’s own file, and file provisional notice on the sample.

By The Retail Ledger · September 27, 2026

1. Step 1

   Before the first truck: fix the baseline

   Export the seller’s size-level inventory report and freeze it as a file with a date stamp. Attach it to the purchase order. Everything downstream is measured against this file, so it has to exist before anything arrives.

2. Step 2

   Day 0: record what the notice clock is attached to

   Log the delivery date of every load, the carton count, the seal numbers and the purchase order each load is governed by. If the contract starts the notice window at delivery, the clock is now running on the first load, not the last.

3. Step 3

   Days 1–3: sample before you process

   Open a random sample across loads, not the first cartons off the truck, and count by SKU and size. Twenty cartons per load is enough to show a gross deviation. This is the step that buys you a discrepancy notice inside the window rather than after it.

4. Step 4

   Compare the sample against the baseline

   Compute the share of each size band in the sample and compare it to the same share in the seller’s file. A deviation of more than a few percentage points across a random sample is not a packing error, it is a composition difference.

5. Step 5

   If the sample deviates: file provisional notice immediately

   Do not wait for the full count. File a written discrepancy notice that states the sample method, the observed deviation, and that the figures are provisional pending complete intake. A notice that is timely and incomplete beats one that is complete and late.

6. Step 6

   Full intake: count by SKU and size, not by carton

   Carton counts confirm nothing about composition. Unit-level intake is what produces a defensible number, and it is the only document that stands up if the dispute goes anywhere.

7. Step 7

   Keep the evidence in a form someone else can audit

   Timestamped photographs of cartons and labels, the raw scan file, the sample worksheet, and the dated copy of the seller’s original report. Reconstructed numbers are worth far less than contemporaneous ones.

Related: what the notice clause actually says and how a lot is valued. General guidance, not legal advice.