Cannabis deliveries don't always arrive the way the invoice says they will. A vendor packs 24 jars and ships 22. A pre-roll case gets crushed in transit. A batch arrives with a COA that doesn't match the manifest. The driver's already in your parking lot. You have a few minutes to decide what to do, and that decision sets the entire downstream — what gets paid, what gets disposed in Metrc, what conversation you have with the vendor next week, and whether your audit trail will hold up to a state inspector six months from now.
Here's the operational breakdown of the four dispositions you pick at the dock, what each one flows into, and how to handle the vendor conversation when you've reduced what you're paying them.
The four dispositions
When you click Receive on a delivery in the platform, the second step of the Receive flow surfaces every line item from the vendor's invoice next to a disposition picker — four chips, one received-quantity field. Mark each line for what actually happened. The full mechanics live in the receiving SOP; this post covers what each pick means downstream.
All four chips are universal — they work the same way on a Wholesale delivery and a Consignment delivery. What differs is which payment track the adjusted total feeds into downstream (AP queue for wholesale, weekly settlement engine for consignment). The disposition decision at the dock is mode-agnostic.
Received — the default state
The exact invoiced quantity arrived in good condition. The line item carries the invoice quantity unchanged. This is by far the most common disposition — most deliveries from established vendors arrive complete and intact.
Short — fewer units arrived than invoiced
You counted 22 jars. The invoice says 24. Drop the received quantity to 22 and pick Short. The notes field opens — write what happened. Was the box obviously light? Was a sealed case missing entirely? Did the driver mention it themselves? Did you count with the driver present, or after they left? Detail matters.
What arrived enters your Metrc inventory; what didn't, doesn't. If the vendor disputes the short later, the signed paper invoice plus your notes plus the timestamped Receive record on the platform is the document trail that settles it.
Damaged — units arrived unsellable
Two jars shattered in transit. A vape cartridge case got punctured. A pre-roll case crushed under another pallet. Drop the received quantity to good units only and pick Damaged on the line. Write a detailed note: how many units, what kind of damage, whether the damage was visible through the packaging or only after opening, whether the driver acknowledged it, whether you took photos with a shift manager.
The trickiest call is in-transit damage on consignment product — was it damaged at the vendor's facility (their problem), damaged in the driver's vehicle (the vendor's logistics company's problem), or damaged during your dock receipt (gray area)? Notes that document when the damage was discovered are the difference between the vendor absorbing the cost and a dispute. Photograph everything before you sign.
Not Compliant — anything that fails compliance
Mislabeled product. Wrong batch on the COA. Mismatched Metrc tag. THC percentage outside the labeled range. Suspected contamination. Anything that would put your license at risk if it ended up on the sales floor. Pick Not Compliant, drop the received quantity, and quarantine the affected units immediately. If the driver is still on-site, refuse the line and have them take it back. If they've already left, quarantine in a sealed container and get it returned to the vendor or destroyed through Metrc waste per state rules.
Most non-compliant deliveries become a full credit memo for the affected line because the vendor needs to remediate at their end (relabel, retest, recall). Your notes should be exact — package tag IDs, what specifically was non-compliant, who witnessed it, and what disposition the product took (back to driver, quarantined to be picked up, destroyed via Metrc with reference to the disposal record).
The notes field is where this gets won or lost
Every disposition other than Received opens a notes field. Most operators undervalue it. They type "short two jars" and move on. That's the difference between a quick vendor email and a multi-week dispute.
A good note answers: What was the discrepancy? (line item, quantity, condition). How was it discovered? (during receipt with driver present, during put-away after driver left, during a recount). Who witnessed it? (shift manager, second receiver, the driver themselves). What did you do with the affected product? (refused at dock, quarantined to be picked up, accepted with reduced quantity, destroyed via Metrc with disposal record reference). What evidence exists? (photos taken, paper invoice annotated, Metrc manifest noted).
"Three jars shattered, damage visible through outer carton at unload, driver acknowledged, returned with driver, photo taken with shift manager McNeil at 10:42 AM." That's the note that resolves the conversation in a day.
Detailed notes flow to the vendor's portal alongside the reduced payout. The vendor reads the same record you wrote, on the same page that shows them the dollar reduction. The conversation that follows is grounded in shared facts, not in memory or accusation.
The vendor conversation
A reduced settlement or AP payment lands in the vendor's inbox with a settlement report or invoice attached. If you wrote good notes, the conversation is short — they email you within a day to acknowledge or to ask for the photo, the credit memo gets generated for the disputed lines if applicable, and the next settlement squares up.
If you wrote thin notes, the conversation is long. The vendor remembers shipping 24, your record says 22, neither party has a paper trail that survives the exchange. Now you're on a phone call, dragging through a memory of a delivery that happened three weeks ago, and someone is going to walk away unhappy. That's the conversation the notes field is designed to prevent.
For damaged or non-compliant lines that warrant credit memos, the credit recovery system picks up the line automatically — Metrc reports the waste or quarantine, your delivery record references the disposition, and a monthly credit memo gets built and sent to the vendor for the appropriate amount. See credit recovery for how that compounds across a year of catching this stuff at the dock.
Why this matters beyond one delivery
One short delivery costs you whatever you didn't get. Forty short deliveries across a year of buying without a system to catch them costs you tens of thousands of dollars in overpayment — money you sent to vendors for product that never made it to your shelf, never sold, never showed up anywhere. The compliance side is worse. One non-compliant unit that slips through receiving and lands on the sales floor is a license-risk event. The dispositions exist because the dock is the only place to catch all of this cleanly, and the cost of missing it scales with how many vendors you have.
Receiving is the gate. Everything downstream — AP review, payment, Metrc reconciliation, credit memos, compliance reporting — depends on what gets logged here being accurate. The disposition pick at the dock is one button click that does a lot of work.
For the click-by-click walkthrough of the Receive flow itself, see the receiving SOP. For the inventory-team-role version with permission notes for stores where receiving is separated from AP, see How to Receive Cannabis Deliveries — Inventory Team SOP. For a real example of a shorted delivery caught at the dock, see the case study.
Ready to stop paying for product that never arrived? Reach out and we'll look at your last 90 days of vendor activity to size what you've been losing.