The PDA at dispatch: zones by carrier, manifest and driver's signature

November 13, 2026 · 6 min read

Anyone searching for a PDA “for deliveries” or “for delivery tracking” may be thinking of two different things: the PDA the delivery driver carries in the van, or the one used at the warehouse dock to hand the goods over to the carrier. This article is about the second: what the PDA does at dispatch, from each carrier's zone to the driver's signature, and what is recorded. And it says clearly where it ends.

What a PDA does at dispatch

Dispatch is the warehouse's last step: the orders are already packed and labeled, and they have to be handed to the right truck before it leaves. With the PDA, that step stops depending on memory:

→Each parcel has a zone at the dock according to its carrier, and the operator knows which one to leave it in.
→You can see how long until each truck comes and what is left to pick for that truck.
→When the truck arrives, the load is closed in a manifest.
→The driver signs on the screen and the orders change to shipped.

Zones by carrier and cut-off time

A dock without zones is a pile of boxes in which each driver looks for theirs. The rule is simple: one zone marked on the floor per carrier, and each parcel, on leaving the packing table, goes to the zone of the carrier on its label. That way a parcel does not leave on another carrier's truck or get forgotten behind a pallet.

The cut-off time is the other half. Each carrier collects at a set time, and whatever is not in its zone by then leaves tomorrow. That is why the afternoon's work is ordered by truck and not by the order in which the orders came in: first the carrier that comes earliest. A countdown per carrier, in everyone's view, does more for deadlines than any meeting. In peak season this multiplies; we cover it in how to get your warehouse ready for peak season.

The load manifest

The manifest is the list of what a truck takes in one collection. One is made per carrier and per collection, with the orders, the number of parcels and the weight. It serves two purposes: so the driver knows how many parcels to load, and so you can prove afterwards what you handed over.

Doing it by hand —a sheet with the shipment numbers written down— works with twenty parcels and stops working with two hundred. If the software already knows which orders are packed and which carrier they belong to, the manifest comes out by itself when the zone is closed.

The driver's signature on the PDA

When loading, the driver types their name and signs with a finger on the PDA screen. That gesture is the change of custody: up to there the goods are the warehouse's responsibility; from there on, the carrier's.

What is recorded	What it is for
Carrier and manifest reference	Knowing which collection is being talked about
Orders, number of parcels and weight	Checking what was handed over
Name of the person signing and their signature	Knowing who collected it
Date and time of the signature	Proving it left on time
Change of the orders' status to shipped	So the store, the client and the buyer know without calling

If a buyer claims their parcel has not arrived and the carrier says it did not collect it, the signed manifest settles the argument. Without it, it is your word against theirs.

PDA for delivery tracking: how far the warehouse one goes

Here it pays to be exact. The warehouse PDA records the handover to the driver at the dock. It does not follow the truck's route or collect the recipient's signature at their door. The carrier does that with its own terminals: each scan at its depots and on the delivery round generates a tracking event, and the proof of delivery —signature, time, sometimes a photo— is kept by the carrier.

Swipe the table sideways to see all the columns →

Leg	Who records it	With what
Picking and packing	The warehouse	PDA and warehouse software
Handover to the driver at the dock	The warehouse	Manifest signed on the PDA
Transit and delivery round	The carrier	Its terminals and its tracking
Delivery to the recipient	The carrier	Its proof of delivery

What the warehouse software can do is join the two halves: keep the tracking number the carrier gives when the label is created and use it to look up the carrier's events, so they are seen next to the order. If what you need is to control your own delivery fleet, with routes and signature at destination, that is transport management software, which is a different tool.

How we do it at Ubika

In Ubika, the Dispatch zones screen has one zone per carrier with its cut-off time. On packing, each parcel drops by itself into its carrier's zone and you see the countdown to collection. When the truck comes you press “Dispatch”: the manifest and the labels come out. If the cut-off time has already passed, it asks for a confirmation first.

The signature is a PDA task: the driver enters their name and signs on the screen. Without a name and without a signature, the manifest is not closed. On signing, the orders change to shipped, the buyer is notified by email and the client's software is notified too, and Load manifests keeps each collection with its parcels, its kilos, its clients, who collected it and at what time. If the warehouse controls each parcel, the license plate is scanned at every step, from picked to loaded onto the truck.

And the limit, as it is: Ubika covers up to the driver's signature at your dock. It does not follow the driver's route or collect the recipient's signature. After dispatch, the Shipments / tracking screen shows the events the carrier gives for each shipment and lets you cancel it.

You can ask for the demo with your data, see what the terminal is like in warehouse PDA: what it is and how to use it or what the software does in WMS for e-commerce.

Frequently asked questions

What is a PDA for at warehouse dispatch?

For knowing which parcels each truck has to take, leaving them in their carrier's zone, closing the load in a manifest and collecting the driver's signature on the screen. That way what left, with whom and at what time is recorded.

Can the warehouse PDA be used for delivery tracking?

It covers the first leg: until the driver signs for the collection at the dock. Tracking on the road and delivery to the recipient are recorded by the carrier with its own terminals; the warehouse software can look up those events and show them next to the order.

What is a carrier's cut-off time?

It is the time after which whatever is not ready no longer leaves that day with that carrier, because the truck has been and gone. Each carrier has its own, and it is what orders the afternoon's work.

What is a load manifest?

It is the list of what a truck takes in one collection: the orders, the number of parcels and the weight. It is closed when the truck arrives and the driver signs it.

What is the driver's signature on the PDA worth?

It records who collected which parcels and at what time. It is the moment the goods become the carrier's responsibility, and the document you go back to if a parcel is later missing.

Do you need a special PDA for dispatch?

No. The same one used for picking and packing will do: it has to read barcodes and have a touch screen you can sign on with a finger.

Keep reading

What Ubika does: warehouse management software · software for 3PLs · WMS for e-commerce