The (electronic) advanced shipping note is the announcement of the delivery of goods from a supplier to the recipient in advance of the actual delivery. An advanced shipping note should contain at least the estimated time of stock receival, the purchase orders and order items contained in the delivery, the material (material number, quantity) and any weight and/or volume. The advanced shipping note is issued, for example

• By transferring advanced shipping note information from the supplier directly to the ERP system and from there to the WMS,
• through a load carrier-specific advanced shipping note, e.g. via NSU (number of shipping unit) or SSCC (Serial Shipping Container Code),
• by internal advanced shipping note, i.e. by transferring order items from the own host system (ERP, MMS etc.) to the WMS incl. approximate delivery date. This date is calculated in advance by the own host system (e.g. on the basis of historical data or typical/regular delivery times of the supplier).
• by notifying partial quantities of a split delivery via the delivery note. The recording takes place via the WMS.

Goods that have already arrived in the warehouse may have to be notified by means of the delivery note information in the WMS before they are accepted (otherwise they cannot be processed in the WMS).