The COINS-etc Advance Shipping Notice process with text messaging leads to a substantial saving in the time, effort and cost of recording delivery information. The only effort required is a simple 'Delivery OK' reply to the ASN text message.

As the supplier produces the paper delivery note to accompany the delivery of the goods, an electronic version of the delivery note; the Advance Shipping Notice [eASN], is transmitted to the COINS-etc eTrading Hub. The eTrading Hub converts the eASN to an electronic Goods Received Note [eGRN] and transmits this to the contractor. At the same time the eTrading Hub also sends an ASN text message to the site manager’s mobile phone.

Satisfactory deliveries: when the delivery takes place and the site manager is satisfied that the delivered goods are fit for purpose and that the delivery is exactly what was expected, the delivery note is signed, as Proof of Delivery [POD] and the original ASN text message is replied to, with the pre-determined text message ‘Delivery OK’. This reply ASN text message is received by the eTrading Hub and converted into an eGRN status update message and transmitted to the contractor. All items listed on the original eASN are updated to ‘Delivered’, with the goods received against the PO updated.

Unsatisfactory deliveries: when the delivery takes place but there are delivery queries, or missing or damaged items, the delivery note is amended and signed. The amended details on the delivery note will need to be manually entered into the COINS GRN entry application.

In the vast majority of cases, goods deliveries go according to plan. What is delivered is exactly what was ordered and the delivery is entirely acceptable. Only occasionally (suggested at being around 5% of deliveries), are there delivery problems that result in delivery queries, with incorrect, missing or damaged goods being delivered.

The COINS-etc Advance Shipping Notice text messaging service is designed to simplify and automate the goods receipting process for the CORRECT deliveries; relying on a simple ‘Delivery OK’ reply to the original delivery text message previously sent to the site manager, to automatically record the GRN details in COINS. This simple process, entirely removes the need to input GRN details for all CORRECT deliveries, requiring only that the details of the INCORRECT deliveries have to be input. Historically, better than 95% of deliveries are correct, and would therefore result in 95% of the GRN details being input and updated automatically.