Free files. Four generated rows. No account or AI tool required.
In this guide
Check the warehouse shipment report before using it
A warehouse shipment report checklist helps you verify the reporting boundary, record IDs, timestamps and formulas before a summary reaches the next shift or morning review. This guide follows the actual four-row CSV in the free Floor Read starter. Its definitions are specific to this exercise; agree the definitions for a real report with its owner.
- Set the report day and time zone. The practice report day is March 31, 2026. All timestamps use one consistent fictional local time zone. Use the shipment timestamp to select that day's records.
- Confirm the columns. The example needs
order_id,shipment_id,order_ts,ship_tsandship_cost. Stop if a required value cannot be interpreted consistently. - Check shipment IDs. Each shipment ID must be unique. Investigate a duplicate; deleting it automatically could hide an export or record problem.
- Check repeated orders. Repeated order IDs must agree on the order timestamp. Multiple shipments for one order are valid in this example.
- Check times and costs. A shipment cannot precede its order timestamp. This exercise rejects missing, negative or nonnumeric shipping costs.
- Record the selection. Keep the selected row count beside your results so another person can retrace the calculation.
Count distinct orders before calculating cost per order
Shipments and orders answer different questions. Order O1001 has two shipment rows in the starter. Counting both as orders would change the denominator and produce the wrong shipping cost per order.
| Order | Shipment IDs | Shipping cost | Order count |
|---|---|---|---|
| O1001 | S2001, S2002 | $8 + $5 = $13 | 1 |
| O1002 | S2003 | $10 | 1 |
| O1003 | S2004 | $18 | 1 |
| Total | 4 shipments | $41 | 3 orders |
Shipping cost per order = $41 ÷ 3 = $13.67
Round the displayed answer to cents. Dividing by four gives $10.25 per shipment, a different measure. Label the denominator clearly.
The $41 total is the sum of the selected shipment costs. It does not include labor, packaging or other costs absent from the CSV. Call it shipping cost, not total fulfillment cost or profit.
Calculate time to the first selected shipment
For each distinct order, take its earliest selected shipment timestamp and subtract its order timestamp. This exercise then reports the median of those order-level elapsed hours.
| Order | Order placed | First selected shipment | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| O1001 | Mar 31, 06:00 | Mar 31, 08:00 | 2 |
| O1002 | Mar 30, 12:00 | Mar 31, 09:00 | 21 |
| O1003 | Mar 30, 23:00 | Mar 31, 10:00 | 11 |
Sort the values: 2, 11, 21. The middle value is 11 hours. O1001's second shipment does not create a second order-level observation.
Keep the full definition beside the result. These are hours to the first selected shipment in the report-day extract. They do not measure when the full order was completed, whether it met a promise or whether an earlier shipment exists outside this extract.
Keep missing inputs out of the conclusion
The practice CSV contains no labor hours, open-work snapshot, service commitments or comparable prior period. Leave labor productivity, late-order rate, trends and causes unknown. Give each missing input an owner role who can confirm it.
If a real selection has no rows, show zero shipments and zero orders. Leave cost per order and median elapsed hours blank with the reason. A blank ratio with an explanation is clearer than a division-by-zero error or a made-up result.
Use the free warehouse shift handover template to carry the checked facts and remaining questions into the next shift. The complete starter guide includes the answer key and an optional AI prompt that uses only the fictional records. Verify the AI output against the same hand checks.