Why we count on the ground

Why the count goes wrong so often

Pallets are stacked, banded and loaded quickly. A stack that should be fifteen is sometimes fourteen because one was pulled for a repair and nobody adjusted the tally. Two stacks lean together and get counted as one. A partial stack at the back of a trailer gets estimated rather than counted.

None of this is dishonesty. It is what happens when a countable object is stacked eight feet high in a dark trailer and somebody is trying not to hold up a driver.

The trouble is what happens next. The receiving site counts a different number, the invoice reflects a third, and by the time anyone investigates, the load has been broken down and dispersed across a warehouse. At that point nobody can prove anything, and two organisations that were getting along fine start distrusting each other over forty pallets.

How the count actually runs

• The load comes off onto the hard standing rather than being counted in the trailer.

• Both parties are present. The driver stays; your person watches.

• Stacks are counted, not estimated. Partial stacks are broken and counted individually.

• Anything unexpected — a wet stack, a mixed footprint, damage — is photographed there and then.

• The agreed number goes on the paperwork before anyone signs.

It takes about fifteen minutes on a full load. That is the entire cost of the system.

Why we photograph

A photograph taken at the point of exchange settles almost everything. Not because anyone expects to litigate, but because memory is unreliable and two people can genuinely remember a load differently a week later.

The most useful photographs are the boring ones: the stack as it came off, the condition of the bottom layer, anything that was not what was described. If we are collecting cores and a third of the load is soaked, that photograph is why the price conversation is straightforward rather than adversarial.

It works in both directions. If we deliver a load that does not match the grade quoted, your photograph is what makes the credit immediate rather than negotiated.

What this means for you

Have somebody available at the exchange. Not for the whole visit — for the count.

If your site cannot spare a person, tell us, and we will photograph the count as we make it and send it with the paperwork. That is second best but it is far better than nothing.

And if a number ever looks wrong on an invoice, raise it. Our count records and photographs exist precisely so that question has an answer rather than a negotiation.