Create a Bill of Lading (BOL) from a template

Multiple document types can be added, shared, and emailed from a Turvo shipment directly to your customer or broker partners. Adding and sharing documents within Turvo offers better organization, and leads to faster time to pay. Certain document types can be generated directly in Turvo with your organization's branding.

An existing Bill of Lading (BOL) document can be uploaded and added to your shipments regardless of the features enabled for your tenant. However, Turvo users with the Document templates page enabled in the Admin console can create a custom BOL template in order to generate BOL documents directly from shipments in Turvo.

Contact your Turvo representative to have the Document templates feature added to your Admin console.

In this article, you’ll learn more about:

• Configuring a BOL template
• Creating a BOL from a template
  • Configuring billing
  • Selecting stops
  • Updating the BOL ID
  • Configuring sharing and generating the invoice
• Managing and updating the BOL

Configure a BOL template

Before a BOL document can be generated directly from Turvo, a user with Admin or Super Admin permissions must configure a custom template in the Admin console > Document templates page. While other document templates have the standardized Turvo template as an option for their default template, the BOL template function requires a custom template. No Turvo template is provided.

Your tenant will support one default BOL custom template, and multiple secondary templates that can be assigned for use with specific customer accounts.

Note: For instructions on how to configure and assign custom Turvo templates, see our Configure Document templates in Admin console  article.

Create a BOL from a configured template

Once a template is created and applied, it can be used to create a BOL document in a shipment.

Note: BOLs cannot be created in orders.

1. Navigate to a shipment, either by hovering over the left navigation and clicking Shipments to see all of the shipments shared with you, or by searching for the shipment in the global search bar.

2. Once in a shipment, click on the Documents tab and click + Add Document to create or add a new document.

3. In the shipment’s Documents tab, click +Add document to launch the Add document modal.
4. Select BOL in the Document type drop-down. The modal will automatically populate the information from the shipment and settings as defined in the template.

5. Some options can be overridden on a per-document basis when generating the document, such as the BOL ID, Bill type, Freight payment terms, Customer, Related stops, Items, and Contact information.
   1. Important note: The code for each of these fields must be present in your custom template’s HTML file for these toggles to work properly. Additionally, the BOL ID field must be enabled in your tenant. Contact your Turvo representative to have the field enabled.

Configure billing

6. Use the Freight payment terms drop-down to select the type of billing that applies to the BOL.
   1. Prepaid: The billing will be prepaid by the shipper.
   2. Collect: The consignee is responsible for payment upon receipt of the shipment.
   3. Third party: The shipment will be paid for by a third party, separate from the shipper or consignee (typically a factor).
   4. If billing will be submitted to a third party, click the Bill to a third party checkbox and use the Third party bill to field to indicate the entity that will receive the bill.

7. If only one customer is on the shipment, that customer will be selected automatically. If you have multiple customers on the shipment, use the Customer drop-down to select the customer the BOL will be sent to.

Select stops

8. The BOL requires the selection of a pickup and delivery location from the shipment’s route to be added or generated from a template. Use the checkboxes to the right of the route’s stops listed in the Related stops section of the modal to select one pickup and one delivery location.
   1. Items associated with the stops will be listed under Items once stops are selected.

Update the BOL ID

9. If a BOL ID is already present in the shipment’s Details tab > Customer section > IDs segment, those IDs appear in the BOL ID field automatically. These IDs will then be shown in the document upon creation. If you have provided a BOL ID to your customer for their reference.
   1. If no BOL ID is provided in the shipment’s information, Turvo will generate a BOL ID based on the Turvo shipment ID. The automatically populated BOL ID(s) in the field can be removed using the small ‘x,’ and additional BOL IDs can be manually added to the document using this field. If a new BOL ID is manually added, Turvo will validate the ID to ensure it isn’t duplicating the BOL ID of another shipment.

Protip: See our Secondary IDs for Shipments and Orders  article to learn more about adding a BOL ID to your shipment.

Note: For shipments with multiple customers, the BOL ID  field will update to reflect the BOL ID(s) for the customer selected in the Customer field.

Important note: Changes made to the BOL ID field in the Add document or Update document modals will not be reflected in the shipment’s Details tab > Customer section > IDs segment.

Configure sharing and generate the invoice

If you are working with a Turvo-connected customer, you have the option to share the BOL with them as a part of the shipment record. Once shared, the customer can access the BOL document in the shipment’s Documents tab.

10. To enable sharing of the BOL manually, use the sharing drop-down menu at the bottom of the Add document modal. A padlock symbol and My company means the invoice will only be shared with your organization. If your customer doesn't appear as a sharing option in the drop-down menu, they don't have their own Turvo tenant and invoices can't be shared.

10. 1. To remove a customer from document sharing, click the customer name. If a customer has been successfully removed, the checkmark to the left of their name will disappear. Then click APPLY.

10. 2. If your organization and the customer are listed, the document will be shared with the customer.

11. Once you’ve completed any changes needed in the modal and selected sharing options, click CREATE to generate the BOL document.

Manage and update the BOL

Once created, the BOL will appear in the shipment’s Documents tab. The file can be managed and updated the same as other shipment documents.

See the following articles to learn more about managing and updating shipment documents:

• Add, create, share, or send a document in a shipment 
• Edit the pages in a document 
• How to archive and update documents