A delivery challan is the note that travels with the goods. It is not a bill — it says what left the building, and when.
Who needs one
Anybody who physically ships things. A services business never raises one.
It matters most when delivery and billing are not the same event: goods go out on the 28th and are invoiced on the 2nd; or five deliveries are made against one order and invoiced monthly. Without a challan there is no record of the first thing except somebody’s memory.
Raising one
- Open the sales order and choose Raise delivery challan.
- Set the quantities actually going in this consignment.
- Fill in the transport details.
- Save and issue. Print it for the driver.
The transport fields
| Field | What it is for |
|---|---|
| E-way bill number | The number generated on the portal. |
| E-way bill date | When it was generated. |
| Vehicle number | The lorry. Asked for at a check post. |
| Transporter name | Who is carrying it. |
| Transport mode | Road, rail, air or ship. |
| LR number | The lorry receipt, for tracing a consignment. |
It moves stock; the invoice does not
This is the important sentence on the page. Stock leaves on the challan, not on the invoice. That is what keeps your stock figure true when goods go out in December and are billed in January. If you ship, raise challans — otherwise your stock is right only by accident.
Invoicing what was delivered
Raise the invoice from the challan, or from the order. Because each challan records what actually went, you can bill exactly what was delivered rather than what was ordered — which is the difference between a clean month end and a set of arguments.
An example
- An order for 40 tonnes.
- 18 tonnes go on the 28th. A challan is raised with the vehicle and LR number. Stock drops by 18.
- 22 tonnes go on the 6th. A second challan.
- One invoice is raised at month end for all 40, from the order.
Where a challan actually earns its keep
Four situations, all common, where goods move and an invoice is wrong or premature:
| Situation | Why not an invoice |
|---|---|
| Goods sent on approval | The sale has not happened yet. It happens if they keep them. |
| Job work | You are sending material to be worked on, not selling it. |
| Delivery before invoicing | The goods went today; the invoice is raised at month end. |
| Moving your own stock | Between your own godowns. There is no customer and no sale. |
In all four the goods are travelling and need paperwork, and in none of them has anybody bought anything yet. That is the gap a challan fills.
The transport details
A challan carries the six despatch fields — e-way bill number and date, vehicle, transporter, transport mode and LR number.
Vehicle and E-way bill are columns on the list itself. That is deliberate: the question you get asked about a challan is almost always “which lorry, and what is the e-way bill number”, and you should be able to answer it from the list without opening anything.
It carries no money
A challan states what left the building. It does not create a receivable, it does not appear in your sales figures, and it does not affect your GST. The invoice that follows it does all three.
Raise the invoice from the challan, not from scratch. Retyping the lines is how a delivery of 48 ends up invoiced as 84 — and the dispute that follows costs more than the order.
Where to go next
Something missing or wrong here? Tell us. A question that needed asking usually means a page that needed writing.