Supplier Shipped But Order Not Received? Here's What to Do

What this looks like

It is 8:30 Tuesday morning. PO 5572 for 240 stainless housings was supposed to land at receiving last Wednesday. The supplier sent the advance ship notice a week ago Friday with a UPS tracking number. You checked the tracker on Monday and it showed "in transit, expected delivery Wednesday." It is now Tuesday morning, six days after the promised receipt date, and receiving still has nothing posted in the ERP. You pull up the tracker and it now reads "delivered" with a timestamp from last Thursday at 10:42, signature: "loading dock". You have no driver name, no internal sign-off, and no record of the freight on your dock.

There are three places the shipment can be and the diagnostic for each is different. The package may be sitting on your dock or in your receiving area without being logged into the ERP, which happens when a part lands on a day receiving is short-staffed or when the carton labeling does not match the PO well enough for the receiving team to match it cleanly. The package may be stuck somewhere in the carrier network, with the tracker either lying outright (the "delivered" status was attached to the wrong stop) or stalled (a transit terminal that misrouted the freight). Or the package may never have shipped at all, with the supplier's "shipment notice" being a planning record that never converted to an actual ship, which happens more with smaller suppliers running on simpler ERP systems.

Before you contact anyone, run the diagnostic. Walk to receiving and ask whether anything has come in for the supplier in the last two weeks (the carton may be sitting in a hold area). Pull the tracking number and check the carrier's detail view (not just the summary), since a "delivered" status with no real signature is the classic carrier-misroute signature. Open the supplier portal if they have one and look at their shipment record. Pull the supplier's ASN email and confirm the tracking number matches the one you are checking. If all three sources still disagree, you have an investigation to run, not a follow-up to send.

Why it matters

A shipment-not-received situation drains time disproportionately to its size, because every hour you spend chasing the freight is an hour you are not spending on other open loops. The cost picture also depends on which side the failure landed on. If receiving has the parts and never logged them, you have wasted forty-five minutes on a recovery that should have been a five-minute walk to the dock. If the carrier lost the freight, you are now opening a claim that takes six weeks to settle while production runs without the parts. If the supplier never actually shipped, you have lost the entire week between the false ASN and the discovery, and recovery of the original date is almost impossible.

Production sees the impact regardless of which side broke. On a $10,000-per-hour assembly line that needs the parts to run a Friday build, a freight situation discovered Tuesday with an unclear path to resolution by Friday means you are already in air-freight expedite territory, with $3,000 to $40,000 of premium freight on top of the original PO cost depending on the carrier and the part. The longer the diagnostic takes, the fewer recovery options you have and the more expensive each one becomes.

There is also a documentation cost on the AP and audit side. A "delivered" status from the carrier with no corresponding receipt in the ERP creates a three-way-match problem that AP cannot resolve without your input. If the supplier invoices on the ASN and AP processes the invoice on the carrier-confirmed delivery, you have paid for parts that are not on your dock. Document the situation in writing the same day you discover it, attach the carrier tracking record and any communication with the supplier, and flag the PO with AP so the invoice does not clear under the discrepancy.

What to do, step by step

Step 1: Verify on your own dock before you call anyone. Walk to receiving and check whether the freight is there but unlogged. Check any hold area for cartons whose labels do not cleanly match the PO. Check the inbound staging space if you have one. Most "shipment not received" situations resolve at this step, because the freight landed on a busy day and never made it through the receiving keystrokes. The fifteen minutes you spend on the dock saves the hour you would spend on the phone with the carrier.

Step 2: If the freight is not on your dock, pull the carrier tracking detail and confirm the freight's real status. The summary view ("delivered") often lies. The detail view shows the route, the timestamps at each terminal, and the actual signature. A "delivered" status with no signature, a signature that does not match anyone on your team, or a delivery address that is not your dock all mean the carrier misrouted. A package that is still showing "in transit" four days past the expected delivery means the freight is stuck.

Step 3: Contact the carrier directly with the tracking number and ask for a freight investigation. Most carriers have a dedicated number for shipper-side claims (different from the consumer support line) and will open a trace request. Document the trace request number and the agent name in the same email thread you keep on the PO. If the carrier confirms the freight is misrouted, push for an immediate recovery (re-route to your dock today) before opening a formal claim. Claims take weeks, recoveries can land same-day if the freight is sitting in the right terminal.

Carrier follow-up email template: "[CARRIER ACCOUNT REP NAME], we have a shipment with tracking number [NUMBER] from [SUPPLIER NAME] that shows [STATUS] but has not been received at our dock. Promised delivery was [DATE]. Receipt address: [ADDRESS]. Please open a trace request and confirm by [TIME, TODAY] either the actual location of the freight or a recovery path. This shipment is on our production critical path. Trace request number please. [YOUR NAME]"

Step 4: Contact the supplier in parallel, not after. The supplier needs to know the freight is missing the moment you confirm it, both so they can pull their own freight records and so they can start producing replacement quantity if the package is genuinely lost. Do not wait for the carrier investigation to close before looping the supplier in. Most freight recoveries take 48 to 72 hours, and you do not have that runway if production needs the parts Friday.

Supplier follow-up template: "[SUPPLIER NAME], we have not received PO [NUMBER] ([PART DESCRIPTION], shipped [DATE] under tracking [NUMBER]). Carrier shows [STATUS] but the freight is not on our dock. We have opened a trace with [CARRIER] (request [NUMBER]). Please confirm from your records the carton count, the pallet description, and any photos from the loading dock. If carrier recovery is not possible by [DATE], we need a replacement-shipment plan and your view on freight responsibility. Production is impacted starting [DATE]. [YOUR NAME]"

Step 5: Communicate internally before production has to ask. The planner needs to know the freight is missing, the carrier trace is open, and the recovery window. Two sentences is enough.

Internal update template: "[PLANNER NAME], freight situation on PO [NUMBER] for [PART DESCRIPTION]. Carrier shows [STATUS] but the parts are not on our dock. Trace open with [CARRIER]. Supplier looped in. Best-case recovery [DATE]. If recovery is not in hand by [TIME, DAY], we will need to plan around a [X]-day slip and start the air-freight conversation on a replacement ship. Will confirm by [TIME, DAY]. [YOUR NAME]"

If the carrier and the supplier both come back without a recovery path inside 72 hours, the freight is effectively lost. Open the claim, switch the conversation to a replacement shipment with the supplier, and start the expedite playbook on the new ship. Document everything.

How PO-Relay handles this

When a supplier sends an advance ship notice, PO-Relay's Email Intelligence reads the message, extracts the tracking number, and updates the task to "in transit" with the expected delivery window. If the receipt window passes without a corresponding ERP receipt, the loop is flagged as "shipped but not received" automatically. You do not have to remember to check the tracker on every PO. The flag surfaces the moment the gap appears.

The Parts Dashboard shows shipment-not-received flags sorted to the top by urgency, with the carrier tracking number, the original promised date, and the days past attached. You see the situation the moment you open PO-Relay rather than discovering it on a Friday morning when production needs the parts that afternoon. The chat assistant can pull the same detail on demand if you want to ask "which shipments past their delivery window have not been received?"

Auto Follow-Ups drafts the carrier and supplier emails the moment the flag is raised, pre-loaded with the PO number, the tracking number, the supplier name, the promised date, and the actual carrier status. You review every draft and send from your own inbox. The escalation language for the parallel-track approach (carrier and supplier in the same hour, not sequentially) is built into the draft structure. PO-Relay never sends email and never writes to your ERP.

The Morning Report resurfaces unresolved freight situations every day until either the receipt posts or the loop is manually closed. The afternoon recap captures any movement on the trace request, so the audit trail of when you discovered the situation, when you opened the carrier trace, and when the supplier looped in stays intact for the AP and finance conversations later.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Skipping the dock walk and going straight to the carrier. Most "shipment not received" situations resolve in a fifteen-minute walk to receiving, because the freight landed on a busy day and never made it through the keystrokes. Calling the carrier first burns an hour of your day and theirs on a problem that may not exist. Walk the dock first, then escalate to the carrier and the supplier in parallel.
• Trusting the carrier summary status without pulling the detail view. A "delivered" status with no signature, a signature that does not match anyone on your team, or a delivery address that is not your dock all mean the carrier misrouted. The summary view often lies. The detail view shows the route, timestamps at each terminal, and the actual signature. A two-minute check on the detail view is the single most reliable diagnostic.
• Calling the supplier after the carrier investigation closes instead of in parallel. Carrier traces take 48 to 72 hours. If you wait for the carrier answer before looping the supplier in, you have lost three days of replacement-production runway. The supplier needs to know the freight is missing the moment you confirm it, both to pull their own loading dock records and to start producing replacement quantity if the package is genuinely lost.
• Not flagging AP the same day. A "delivered" status from the carrier with no corresponding ERP receipt creates a three-way-match problem AP cannot resolve without your input. If the supplier invoices on the ASN and AP processes against the carrier-confirmed delivery, you have paid for parts that are not on your dock. A two-line note to AP the day you discover the freight is missing prevents an overpayment and creates the paper trail for the recovery later.

Keep reading

• Late delivery from a supplier →
• Partial shipment from a supplier →
• You need to expedite an order →
• Someone asked "where's my part?" →
• Quality issue on a shipment →