A Complete Guide to the Bill of Lading Form

Those of you who are running a business will know that any business requires shipping and receiving a lot of products. Whether you are producing products yourself or purchasing from other businesses, getting them shipped correctly is crucial.

And while you definitely need to use a good shipping courier for the same, having the correct legal documents and contracts for the shipment of your goods is also equally important.

While there are various kinds of contracts and agreements involved in any given business, most business shipments generally come under a specific contract type called bill of lading form. Since this document is quite important for properly shipping goods for your business, understanding the bill of lading form and correctly making the bill of lading form is quite important. Hence, we are here with a complete guide on the bill of lading form, which will help you learn all of the related details by going through this guide till the end.

What is a Bill of Lading?

Unless you have been already shipping goods as a business for years now, most of you will be unfamiliar with what is a bill of lading. So, let’s start with the basic bill of lading definition and move to more information later on.

To easily understand bill of lading meaning, BOL forms can be considered as the shipping label for large sized shipments. While a basic shipping label is more than enough for a single product, things change a lot when it comes to shipping large amounts of goods as a business.

In that case, you need to include things like the information of all parties involved, addresses of all the parties involved, information about the goods, shipping details, and a whole lot more. Since all of this information needs to be available for all involved parties in an easy to understand way, it is all added in a BOL form.

A BOL form is not just a form filled with shipping information, but it is, more importantly, a legal document. Since it is a legal document or a contract, all involved parties have to follow it as it is. This is highly important for sending goods as a business on a larger scale.

Types of Bill of Lading Form

Apart from knowing what is a bill of lading form, you should also know its various types. Since a bill of lading form is highly important for business shipments, there are various types of BOL forms, including the ones mentioned here:

• Clean BOL: Issued by the shipping company in case of lack of any defects in the goods
• Received for Shipment BOL: Issued by the shipping carrier once the goods are received
• Through BOL: Issued as permission to ship goods through multiple modes of shipment
• Claused BOL: Issued in the case of damaged or missing goods
• Container BOL: Issued for goods that are being shipped safely inside containers
• House BOL: Issued by non-vessel operating shipping couriers at the time of shipment of goods
• Master BOL: Issued by the primary shipping company for any intermediate shipping carriers for handoffs.
• Charter Party BOL: Issued as an agreement between chartered and vessel operators.
• Multi-Modal BOL: Type of a through BOL involving a minimum of two types of transportation methods.
• Stale BOL: Issued as a negotiation 21 days after the original date of shipment.
• Blank BOL: Issued when the detailed terms and conditions of the contract are not mentioned.
• Straight BOL: Issued with non-negotiable terms and conditions, which might not be the safest.
• Order BOL: Issued for making changes and requests to an existing bill of lading form.
• Bearer BOL: Issued to make a party the bearer or nominee of a particular goods shipment.
• Surrender BOL: Issued by a bank when the import documentary credit payment has been made.

Importance of Bill of Lading

Since there are so many types of bill of lading forms available out there, you might be questioning the whole importance of the same. Well, BOL forms are used in pretty much all business shipments because of these benefits that they offer:

Goods Description: Initially, a bill of lading form explains everything about all the goods being shipped in a given shipment.

Goods Receipt: Other than a description, a bill of lading form also acts as a receipt of the goods during the whole shipment process and duration.

Transportation T&C: Most importantly, a bill of lading form explains all of the terms and conditions related to transportation and the whole shipment process.

What to Include in a Bill of Lading?

Before you go ahead and make your own bill of lading form, you should know the things to include in the same. Thus, make sure to include the following things to make a complete bill of lading:

Consignor & Consignee Information: You need to start making a bill of lading form by adding information about the consignor and consignee, along with any other parties that may be involved.

Description of Goods: A well-made bill of lading should have a proper description of all the items and goods inside the shipment.

Goods Quantity & Dimensions: All of the goods inside a shipment need to be explained in terms of quantity and dimensions.

Shipment Destination: Once the goods have been described, make sure to mention the correct shipment destination and the delivery address so the shipment reaches its desired destination.

Terms & Conditions: You also need to mention all legal terms and conditions in your bill of lading to make it a complete legal document.

Special Instructions: If there is anything else that you would like to mention, you will need to state it under the special instructions for the document.

Wondershare PDFelement: How to Fill Out a Blank BOL Form?

Now that we have covered all the details regarding the bill of lading forms, you can go ahead and create and fill out one yourself. You will need to use a tool like Wondershare PDFelement - PDF Editor Wondershare PDFelement Wondershare PDFelement for the same since it offers the following features:

• PDF Management: You can perform functions like PDF merge, file conversion, file compression, file organization, and much more while handling PDF files using PDFelement.
• E-Signature: Since you are creating a contract, PDFelement lets you add an e-signature to the same.
• Templates: If you are creating a BOL form from scratch, you can use templates for amazing designs and to save a lot of time.
• AI Tools: You can further combine all of these features with AI tools to make things faster and more efficient since you won’t have to write or design documents all by yourself.

You can easily make or fill out a blank bill of lading form using Wondershare PDFelement as explained here:

Step 1

First, open up Wondershare PDFelement on your PC.

Step 2

Then, either use the Templates option to create a BOL form or open an existing one.

Step 3

You can then simply add in all the information required for your BOL form.

Step 4

At last, click on File and select Save As to export the BOL form as a PDF file for sharing it with others.

Tips for Error-Free Bill of Lading Forms

While Wondershare PDFelement is definitely one of the best tools for creating and filling out a bill of lading form, you still need to avoid a few common mistakes while filling out a BOL form:

• Correct Descriptions: First, make sure to add the correct descriptions of the goods being shipped.
• Correct Amounts: Depending on the description of your goods, their amount can affect the shipment quite a lot. Hence, make sure to mention the exact and correct amount of goods being shipped.
• Correct Dimensions: Other than the amount, you also need to mention the correct dimensions and weight of the goods you are shipping.
• Correct Shipping Details: Most importantly, make sure to include the complete and correct addresses for both the sender and receiver of a given shipment.

Conclusion

Whether you are talking about the shipper’s details, delivery address, customer details, product details, goods types and volumes, or anything else related to shipments, almost all such details are added to a bill of lading or BOL form. Since this is a legal document and a contract, creating and filling out a BOL form correctly is highly important.

Thus, we have given a complete guide on the bill of lading form up above. From learning what is a BOL to creating and filling in a blank BOL, you will get to learn everything.