- Proof of delivery
Proof of delivery is a method to establish the fact that the recipient received the contents sent by the sender. When the sender sends multiple documents through the
mail there is a possibility of some not reaching the intended recipient. Generallypost office s provide additional service of guaranteed delivery wherein they ask the recipient to sign a paper and that paper is filed by the postal service for a specified number of days.Proof of delivery becomes very important when legal and financial documents are to be exchanged between two parties. In the United States,
DHL , UPS andFEDEX as well as the US postal service (USPS ) provide proof of delivery. Commercial fleet operators also need to be able to confirm proof of delivery of goods to their customers.In e-commerce, businesses exchange millions of documents using computer to computer communication techniques like email, FTP and EDI. Such documents contain information related to purchase orders, invoices , shipping details , product specifications, price quotes etc. These documents could be exchanging new data as well as corrections to previously transmitted messages.
Legal complications can arise if the recipient company refutes receiving a corrected product specification or a message about a delayed shipment. Both companies could be at loggerheads each proving/not proving the existence of that particular communication.
Message oriented Middleware (MOM), is a class of software used to implement computer based business document exchange. Such systems provide proof of delivery services by employing techniques such as logging each send/receive activity.
Companies also employ an intermediate data broker to exchange information. Employing such services provide not only proof of delivery but also other services like data integrity, multi-point delivery, single point of contact for data exchange etc.
External links
;Commercial Software
* [http://www.ProofOfDelivery.com A Proof Of Delivery software product for commercial fleet operators]
* [http://www.thepodfather.eu The POD Father - pay-as-you-go proof-of-delivery service]
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