Dispatching and Operations
Material Ordering PO for roofing contractors
A wrong delivery is the supplier’s problem for a while, and then it quietly becomes yours. Nobody announces the moment it changes hands.
An order somebody else can read back
Quantities and specification written down before the order is placed, in terms that do not require the supplier to guess. Colour, profile, gauge, and the accessories that get left off because everybody assumes they travel with the main material.
A check at delivery against that written order — counted and looked at while the truck is still a recent event and everything is still in one place, rather than at install when it is spread across a roof.
And a discrepancy raised in writing while the remedy is still open. That last clause is the whole design: raising it is easy at any time, and only useful inside a window nobody will tell you is closing.
The moment nothing visible happens
Most deadlines in a construction business announce themselves. A permit is issued or it is not. A crew arrives or it does not. The consequence arrives at the same time as the event, which is what makes them manageable even when they are missed.
The window on a delivery is not like that. It opens when the material arrives and it closes some time later without anything occurring — nobody signs, nothing is sent, no message arrives. The transition is produced by inaction, and on the day it happens the pallet looks exactly as it did the day before. A company can lose the right to reject a load during a week in which it did nothing wrong and nothing at all.
Which is why the discipline attaches to the arrival rather than to the use. The instinct is to check material when you come to fit it, because that is when you find out whether it works, and it is precisely the wrong moment: it is the point at which the crew is committed, the roof is open, and the cheapest remaining option is usually to accept a compromise and say nothing.
The consequence is also mostly invisible in the accounts. It shows up as slightly worse margins on jobs where something was made to work, spread across enough jobs that no single one looks wrong. Nobody records the moment a company decided to absorb a supplier’s error, because there was no moment — only a window that had already closed.
Acceptance can happen by doing nothing
The window has a legal shape, and it is worth seeing because it explains why the check belongs at delivery. Taking one state’s enactment of the commercial code as a worked example, California Commercial Code section 2606 provides that “Acceptance of goods occurs when the buyer (a) After a reasonable opportunity to inspect the goods signifies to the seller that the goods are conforming or that he will take or retain them in spite of their nonconformity; or (b) Fails to make an effective rejection”.
Read paragraph (b) slowly. Acceptance is not only something a buyer does; it is also something that happens to a buyer who does nothing. There is no signature and no notification. The clock is a reasonable opportunity to inspect — which for a pallet sitting on a driveway is not long, and is certainly not the fortnight until the crew opens it.
And acceptance is close to a one-way door. At California Commercial Code section 2607, “Acceptance of goods by the buyer precludes rejection of the goods accepted and, if made with knowledge of a nonconformity, cannot be revoked because of it unless the acceptance was on the reasonable assumption that the nonconformity would be seasonably cured.”
These are commercial code provisions governing the parties to a contract for goods. They do not bind this brand, which buys nothing on your behalf and is not a party to your orders, and nothing here is a determination about any delivery or remedy of yours. They are quoted for one reason: the cheapest possible version of this discipline — count it when it arrives, write down anything wrong — is worth doing because the alternative is not a slower remedy but no remedy.
This describes one state’s commercial code in general terms. It is not legal advice, it makes no determination about your orders, your suppliers or your remedies, and the position differs by state and by agreement. Those questions belong with your own counsel.
Where the money leaves the plan
This desk sits inside Dispatching and Operations, and the department boundary is set out there rather than repeated here. What is particular to this page is that it is the point at which an operational decision becomes a financial commitment — everything before it can be changed on a plan, and everything after it appears on an invoice.
What owners ask about deliveries
The load gets checked when the crew opens it. Is that not the same thing?
It is the same check at a much worse moment. By the time a bundle is opened on a roof, the delivery has been sitting on the property for days, the crew is on the clock, and the practical options have narrowed to making it work. Counting at delivery costs a few minutes and preserves every option; counting at install costs nothing and preserves none.
What goes into the order itself?
Quantities and specification written down before anybody picks up the phone — colour, profile, gauge, the accessories that are always forgotten, and which job it belongs to. Most ordering errors are not mistakes in the transaction; they are ambiguities in what was asked for, resolved by the supplier in good faith and in a direction nobody intended.
Do you decide what material a job needs?
No. Specification is a technical and commercial decision that belongs with whoever is responsible for the roof, and it depends on the building, the manufacturer’s requirements and what you have agreed with the customer. This desk turns a decided specification into an unambiguous order and then verifies that what arrived matches it.
Why does a purchase order number matter?
Because without one there is nothing to check an invoice against, and the disagreement moves to the end of the process where it is most expensive. A number attaching an order to a job also means the cost lands where it belongs rather than in a general pile, which is what makes job costing possible at all.
What happens when a delivery is short?
It is raised immediately and in writing, against the order. Short deliveries are ordinary and most suppliers correct them without argument — provided they are told while the delivery is recent and identifiable. The difficulty is never the shortage; it is raising it three weeks later, when the paperwork has to establish something everybody has stopped remembering.
How long do we actually have to reject something?
Less time than most people assume, and the boundary is not a fixed number of days but a reasonable opportunity to inspect. It is worth understanding because acceptance can happen by simply doing nothing, and once it has, rejection is no longer available. The section below sets out how that works.
The acceptance provisions quoted above
- California Commercial Code section 2606 — What constitutes acceptance of goods — California Legislative Counsel
- California Commercial Code section 2607 — Effect of acceptance — California Legislative Counsel
Work out who counted your last delivery
If the answer is the crew who opened it on day two, the window had closed before anybody looked.