Writing Off Goods That Cannot Be Delivered

Sometimes cargo stops being deliverable: it cannot be found, or it arrives damaged beyond use. A write-off records that outcome against the individual load, closes the shipment as undeliverable, and creates no further transport.

Overview

Most delivery problems end with the goods moving again: another attempt, a redelivery from a hub, or a return to the shipper. A write-off is the exit for goods that will not move at all, because they no longer exist as deliverable cargo.

You record it in Orbit MissionControl against a single Load, not against the whole Shipment. A consolidated shipment can lose one pallet and deliver the rest, so each load carries its own outcome.

Key highlights

Two reasons describe what happened to the goods: Lost and Damaged.
Nothing is created by a write-off: no return Shipment, no extra stop, no transport.
Damaged goods stay in your location stock until you record their disposal, because they are still physically on the floor.
The Shipment closes as undeliverable, and once every shipment of an Order has ended with at least one loss, the order reads as undeliverable too.
An administrator can undo a write-off, which puts the load back where it was.

The two reasons

The reason answers what happened to the goods, not what was done about them afterwards.

Reason	Meaning	Effect on location stock
`Lost`	The goods cannot be found. Nothing remains at any address.	Removed immediately, because there is nothing anywhere to account for.
`Damaged`	The goods still exist but can no longer be delivered. This covers goods that have gone bad as well as goods that were crushed or soaked.	Kept, and flagged as dead stock, until you record the disposal.

You can add a note alongside the reason, for example what was searched or who inspected the pallet. The note travels with the write-off record and is visible on the load.

Recording a disposal

A damaged pallet sitting in a warehouse is still taking up space, so Orbit keeps it in your location stock and marks it as dead stock. When someone actually disposes of it, record the disposal on the load. That removes it from stock and stamps who recorded it and when.

Disposal applies only to damaged goods. Lost goods never had anything to dispose of.

If a hub had already thrown the goods away before anyone declared them, you can record the write-off with the disposal already done, so the dead stock window never opens.

What happens to the shipment and the order

A written off load leaves nothing to recover, so the Shipment closes as undeliverable rather than waiting for another attempt. Loads on the same shipment that were delivered stay delivered.

An Order reads as undeliverable once every one of its shipments has ended and at least one of them ended in loss. This is worked out from the shipments rather than set by hand, so it follows them: if the loss is undone, the order reopens.

In Orbit Hub, a shipper sees such an order among their completed orders, with its own step in the progress list, so a lost delivery is never silently missing from their history.

Undoing a write-off

A pallet declared lost can turn up a week later, so a write-off is reversible. Undoing one requires administrator permission and a reason, and it restores the custody the load held immediately before the declaration: waiting at a hub, on a vehicle, or at the pickup.

A disposal cannot be undone. Once the goods have been thrown away there is nothing to put back.

Example

Spaceport Shipping Co. books three pallets of chilled produce from Rotterdam to Lyon, with a hub handover in Paris.

The first trip delivers all three pallets to the Paris hub, where they wait for the onward trip.
A cooling failure at the hub spoils one pallet. Julia, an operator, opens the shipment in Orbit MissionControl, finds that load, and writes it off with the reason Damaged, noting the cooling failure.
That pallet stays in the Paris hub's stock as dead stock. The other two continue to Lyon and are delivered.
The warehouse team bins the spoiled pallet the next morning. Mohammad records the disposal, and the pallet leaves the hub's stock.
The shipment closes as undeliverable because one load was written off. The delivered pallets remain delivered, and the shipper sees the outcome in Orbit Hub.

Technical details

Everything above is available through the Orbit API as well as in Orbit MissionControl. Write-offs and disposals are recorded as leg actions, a written off load reports the status Perished, and an order that ended in loss reports the status failed. Location stock records carry a flag for dead stock, and a record for goods that no longer exist carries the time they were lost or disposed of.

The status values above appear in existing response fields, so if you validate load or order statuses against a fixed list, add them before you rely on the responses. See the Orbit API Reference for the request and response shapes.

FAQ

The goods have to be driven to a disposal site. Is that a write-off?
No. If something still has to be transported, it is a return to a disposal address rather than a write-off. A write-off is for goods that will not travel again at all.

Can I write off a load that is still on a vehicle?
Yes, when the driver has reported that it could not be handed over. Cargo that is simply still in transit is not written off; it is either delivered or reported as a failure first.

Does a write-off produce a credit note or an invoice change?
No. It records the physical outcome of the goods. Commercial consequences are handled in your own billing process, and the write-off gives it a dated record to work from.

Why is a damaged pallet still in my stock figures?
Because it is still in the building. Orbit keeps it visible as dead stock so the space it occupies is accounted for, and removes it when you record the disposal.

Who can undo a write-off?
An administrator, with a reason. Ordinary operators can record a write-off and a disposal, but not reverse one.