Shipping and Receiving Coordinator Job Description

A Shipping and Receiving Coordinator owns the schedule, the paperwork and the problem list for a facility's loading dock. The crew moves the freight; the coordinator decides which trailer gets which door, what has to be counted before it is signed for, and what the carrier needs on paper before it leaves.

Inbound: from appointment to putaway

Many shifts begin at the appointment board. Each inbound carrier gets a door and a time window, and the coordinator watches for the trucks that miss theirs. When a load arrives, the receiving check compares the freight against the purchase order and any advance ship notice: piece count, pallet condition, lot numbers where they matter. Shortages, overages and visible damage go on the delivery receipt before the driver signs off, because the signed receipt is the record a carrier reviews when a damage claim comes in. The receipt is then posted in the warehouse management system (WMS) or ERP so buyers and planners can see the stock.

Outbound: building a load that bills correctly

On the shipping side, the coordinator turns released orders into tendered freight. Parcel goes out through the carrier's shipping software; less-than-truckload (LTL) freight needs a bill of lading with the right National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) item, weight and dimensions for each handling unit, and any accessorial instructions such as liftgate or inside delivery. Full truckloads need a trailer, a seal number and a pickup time that lines up with when the freight is actually staged. Hazardous materials add their own shipping papers and a check that the people preparing them hold current DOT hazmat training.

Exceptions, claims and carrier invoices

Much of the job is handling what did not go to plan. A carrier misses a pickup and the order has to be rebooked. A pallet arrives crushed and the photos, receipt and invoice go into a claim file. A carrier invoice shows a reweigh or reclass fee and the coordinator checks whether the BOL measurements support it. Detention charges are another source of disputes, so careful coordinators log when each truck arrived and when it left.

Where the job sits

In a transportation or third-party logistics setting, the coordinator may work for a carrier terminal, a freight forwarder or a contract warehouse handling freight for several clients, which means juggling each client's routing guide and labeling rules. In a manufacturing plant or retail distribution center, the same role answers to the plant or DC manager and spends more time with purchasing and production planning. In both, the coordinator may supervise no one formally yet still direct the dock crew's priorities hour by hour.

Education

A college degree is not the usual entry point. BLS says material recording clerks, the group that includes shipping, receiving and inventory clerks, typically need a high school diploma or equivalent and are trained on the job. As a rough guide, the path runs from a receiving or shipping clerk seat to coordinator, and an associate degree or certificate in logistics or supply chain management can help someone aiming for transportation planning or supervision later.

Experience

As a rough guide, one to three years on a dock as a clerk, receiver or lead is good preparation. The useful experience is specific: having keyed receipts in a WMS, built LTL bills of lading, filed at least a few freight claims and dealt with carriers by phone and portal. Time in a carrier's customer service or dispatch office is also relevant, because it teaches how a terminal sees a shipper's freight.

Training the rules require

Two federal rules shape the training file. Under DOT's 49 CFR 172.704, hazmat employees must be trained, and each must receive the required training again at least once every three years. Under OSHA's powered industrial truck standard, 29 CFR 1910.178, the employer must ensure each forklift operator is competent, as shown by completing training and an evaluation, and an evaluation of each operator's performance must be conducted at least once every three years. A coordinator who never drives a forklift still needs to know those rules, because scheduling an untrained operator onto a lift truck is a compliance problem.

Credentials worth considering

• Certified Logistics Associate (CLA) and Certified Logistics Technician (CLT), awarded by the Manufacturing Skill Standards Council (MSSC), cover warehouse and dock fundamentals.
• Certified in Logistics, Transportation and Distribution (CLTD), awarded by ASCM, the Association for Supply Chain Management, suits coordinators moving toward transportation planning.
• An OSHA 10-hour General Industry card, issued through OSHA's Outreach Training Program, covers general workplace safety hazards.

Tools and skills

Expect to work daily in a WMS or ERP, carrier portals and parcel shipping software, plus spreadsheets for claim logs and dock reports. Familiarity with NMFC classification, freight terms on a bill of lading and carrier accessorial charges belongs in a coordinator's toolkit. The soft skills are practical ones: staying calm with a driver who has waited three hours, writing a claim that a carrier cannot easily dismiss, and telling a buyer bluntly that a load will not arrive today.

The headcount picture

BLS projects employment of Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks, the occupation that includes coordinators, to fall from 827,700 jobs in 2025 to 765,000 in 2035, a decline of 8 percent. O*NET rates the outlook as a decline of 1 percent or more over 2025-2035 but still projects about 61,300 openings a year on average. BLS ties the outlook to technology: as e-commerce continues to grow, it says, companies are expanding their use of automated storage and retrieval tools to meet demand for products and faster delivery.

Where the jobs are

O*NET lists manufacturing and retail trade as the top industries for the occupation. For material recording clerks as a group, BLS reports that transportation and warehousing employed 14 percent of workers. Inside transportation, May 2025 OEWS data counted 4,230 Shipping, Receiving, and Inventory Clerks in truck transportation and 10,420 in support activities for transportation.

Rules changing the paperwork

Freight classification is in the middle of a rewrite. The National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) says it moved a large share of the NMFC to density-based classes, which makes handling-unit weights and dimensions on the bill of lading central to how LTL freight is rated. NMFTA scheduled Docket 2026-3 for release on Nov. 6, 2026, with a single proposal: an updated Item 640, the rule on how to classify a shipment that includes multiple articles, such as a pallet with a mix of products at different classes. NMFTA's schedule for the docket set a virtual public meeting for Dec. 15, 2026 and a planned effective date of Jan. 23, 2027. Coordinators who ship mixed pallets should check the final disposition before building those BOLs.

Electronic BOLs now have an industry standard. The Digital Standard Development Council's Digital LTL Council publishes an eBOL API standard, now at version 2.1, that lets shippers create, update and delete eBOLs and supports nine-digit postal codes and the Standard Carrier Alpha Code (SCAC).

Detention and dock heat

Dock efficiency is a federal research topic. FMCSA has called detention in the commercial trucking industry a longstanding issue, and public comments summarized in its February 2024 notice about a detention study pointed to understaffed shipper and receiver facilities, difficult driver check-in and appointment times that were not honored, all of which sit inside a coordinator's job.

Heat is the other open file. As of an Aug. 18, 2026 Congressional Research Service update, OSHA had no standard specifically addressing indoor or outdoor heat exposure; it published a proposed heat rule on Aug. 30, 2024, and a 2026 National Emphasis Program on heat hazards is in force through April 2031 unless OSHA cancels or extends it.

Moving up

The natural next steps are shipping or warehouse supervisor, transportation coordinator or planner, and inventory control roles. BLS notes that material recording clerks with additional training or education may advance to other positions.

Dear Hiring Manager,

Please consider me for the coordinator opening at your Riverside cross-dock. For the past three years I have worked receiving at a regional food distributor, and for the last year I have run our dock appointment board on second shift, covering 14 doors and roughly 40 inbound and outbound trailers a night.

When I took over the board, drivers were regularly waiting past their windows because we booked appointments without checking which crews were staffed. I started matching each slot to the labor plan and calling carriers by mid-afternoon when we had to push a load. Late releases dropped, and our two largest LTL carriers stopped adding detention to most of our invoices.

I also took over freight claims from our office manager. I photograph every damaged pallet before the driver leaves, write the exception on the delivery receipt in plain terms and attach the invoice and PO the same day. Last quarter I recovered most of what we filed, and the claims we lost taught me to be more specific on the receipt.

On the outbound side I build our LTL bills of lading and check every pallet's dimensions before tender, which has cut the reclass charges we used to see on mixed loads. I hold current DOT hazmat training for the cleaning chemicals we ship and an OSHA 10-hour card, and I am working toward my Certified Logistics Technician credential.

I would like to bring that same attention to schedules, paperwork and carriers to a facility that handles freight for several clients. I would welcome the chance to talk about your dock and how you measure it.

Sincerely, Jordan Alvarez