A bilty is the consignment note a road transporter issues when it accepts goods for carriage. It records who sent the goods, who receives them, what they are, how they travel and who pays the freight. In other places the same document is called a lorry receipt, LR, goods receipt or builty.
What a bilty is
When a trader hands cartons, bags or machinery to a transport company, the transporter writes a bilty. It does three jobs at once. It is a receipt, because it proves the transporter took charge of the goods. It is a record of the terms, because it states the freight and who owes it. And it is the working document that travels with the load, so the driver, the branch and the receiver all refer to the same number.
The word is used across Pakistan and India for road freight between cities. Courier parcels and sea or air freight use their own documents, such as airway bills and bills of lading, but a truck or goods-transport booking is almost always a bilty.
What a bilty contains
Formats differ between transport companies, but a usable bilty normally carries:
- Bilty number and booking date. The number is how everyone traces the consignment later.
- Sender and receiver. Names, addresses and phone numbers, so the receiver can be called when the truck arrives.
- Origin and destination. The booking city and the delivery city or branch.
- Description of goods. What is loaded, the number of packages and the weight.
- Vehicle and driver. Filled in once the goods are loaded onto a specific truck.
- Freight and other charges. The amount, and whether it is paid, to-pay or billed to an account. Our guide to bilty charges covers the charge heads in detail.
- Cash on delivery amount. Where the transporter collects the value of the goods for the sender.
- Signature and stamp. The transporter's at booking, and the receiver's at delivery.
Who keeps which copy
Practice varies by transporter and trade, so treat this as the common pattern rather than a rule. A bilty is usually written in several copies. The sender keeps one as proof the goods were handed over. One copy travels with the goods so the receiver can check the consignment and sign for it at delivery. The transporter keeps one in its office record, from which it settles freight and answers questions later.
Why it matters
A bilty matters most when something goes wrong or when money has to change hands.
- Disputes. If cartons arrive short or damaged, the bilty is the starting point: what was handed over, in what quantity, and who signed.
- Collecting freight. On a to-pay booking the receiver pays at delivery. Without a clear bilty, nobody can say how much that should be.
- Settling with drivers and branches. Every trip is a bundle of bilties. The office reconciles the cash collected against the bilties loaded.
- Customer billing. Regular customers are often billed monthly. The bilties are the evidence behind each line of that invoice.
Where paper bilties break down
A printed bilty book works until volume grows. The same problems appear in most transport offices:
- Numbers are skipped, duplicated or written twice when two clerks share a book.
- Freight is added by hand, and a loading or delivery charge is forgotten.
- A to-pay bilty is delivered, the cash is collected, and nobody can match the two at the end of the day.
- A lost copy means reconstructing the booking from memory.
- Monthly customer statements are assembled from a pile of carbon copies.
What a digital bilty should do
If you move bilties into software, check it does more than print a nicer page. At minimum it should:
- Number bilties in sequence with no duplicates, even when several people book at once.
- Take several goods lines on one bilty, each with its own rate and quantity or weight.
- Calculate the total on the server, so a clerk cannot mistype the arithmetic.
- Handle paid, to-pay and billed freight differently, because the cash arrives at different moments.
- Print in English and Urdu, since drivers and receivers read the paper.
- Capture proof of delivery against the same bilty.
- Feed the books, so freight revenue and receivables are not typed in a second time.
FlowForg's transport module does these things: bilty booking with multiple goods lines and sequential numbering, paid, to-pay and billing freight types, a bilingual English and Urdu print pack with QR code and barcode, and delivery with proof-of-delivery capture. See the full road freight and bilty module, or read the buyer checklist for transport software before you compare options.
Common questions
Is a bilty the same as a lorry receipt?
In everyday use, yes. Bilty, builty, lorry receipt (LR) and consignment note all describe the document a road transporter issues when it accepts goods for carriage. Different regions and trades favour different words.
Who keeps the bilty?
Practice varies by transporter, but it is common for the sender to keep one copy, for one copy to travel with the goods so the receiver can sign at delivery, and for the transporter to keep one in its office record.
What happens if a bilty is lost?
The transporter can usually trace the consignment from its own record, which is why a complete, numbered office record matters. A system that stores every booking lets you reprint the document instead of reconstructing it.
Can a bilty be created digitally?
Yes. Transport software can number bilties in sequence, calculate the freight, print the document in English and Urdu, and store the signed proof of delivery against it.