Further to our previous article in which we discussed the Section 1, General Rules of Conduct and informed that we will be summarizing DRC’s Trading Standards, this time we will address Section 3, General Records, Section 4, Documents to be Preserved, Section 5, Receiving Record, Section 6, Sales Tickets/Invoices. And Section 7, Lot numbers.
All these sections specify what documents must be preserved and for how long period of time.
Section 3, General Records indicates that all the documents pertaining to a transaction must be kept for a minimum period of two years and must be available if required. It is a DRC member’s responsibility to maintain records that will disclose essential facts regarding the transactions.
Section 4, Documents to be Preserved lists all the general documents that must be preserved such as Bills of Lading, Purchasing Orders, Invoices, Manifests, Receipts, Confirmation of Sales, Memorandums of Credit, Account of Sales, to name a just a few.
Section 5, Receiving Record states that all receivers shall keep in order of receipt a record of all produce received and must clearly show arrival dates and the carrier’s, seller’s or consignor’s information.
Section 6, Sales Tickets/Invoices specifically mentions what information Sales Tickets/Invoices must contain: serial numbers, date of sale, purchaser’s information, seller’s information, description and price of the commodity, lot numbers, etc. In addition, this section states that DRC has the right to request a copy of the sales ticket(s) in case of a dispute.
Section 7, Lot Numbers. An identifying lot number shall be assigned to each load. The lot number is an excellent method to preserve the identity of a load.
In our experience, having all these documents well organized and easily available for a period of two years, can save you time and money in the event of a dispute. Remember that a Notice of Dispute can be filed 9 months from the date the dispute arose and not having some of these documents may result in losing a claim.
