In modern logistics, quality control doesn’t start at dispatch – and it doesn’t end at delivery. Every shipment passes through multiple hands and environments, making every warehouse responsible for two linked responsibilities: verifying the condition of goods arriving inwards with IQC or Incoming Quality Control and proving the accuracy and integrity of goods leaving its doors with Outgoing Quality Control or OQC.
Yet most warehouses still operate without a complete picture. Industry experience shows that over half of cargo disputes can be traced back to unclear inbound conditions. When visual proof is missing at either end, accountability becomes speculation.
IQC and OQC are not separate checklists – they are two halves of the same quality loop. IQC establishes the baseline; OQC confirms the final condition. And like any loop, it’s only as strong as its weakest link. In most warehouses, that weak link is the absence of consistent, structured visual documentation.
Digital photo documentation closes this gap. By creating unbroken visual proof at receiving and dispatch, logistics teams gain a verifiable audit trail that reduces claims, improves accuracy, and strengthens trust with suppliers and customers.
Incoming goods inspection – also known as Incoming Quality Control (IQC), goods-inward inspection or inspection of goods on delivery – is the first and most important quality checkpoint in the warehouse.
It verifies condition, accuracy and compliance the moment the goods arrive and determines where liability begins. Its purpose is to verify that what was received matches the purchase order and is fit for use or redistribution.
Most disputes originate at the inbound stage. If damage, shortages, or packaging failures go undocumented, responsibility often shifts unfairly to the warehouse. This makes IQC more than a procedural step – it is an essential liability control point.
A strong IQC workflow includes five elements:
1. Quantity verification & documentation alignment: Matching delivery against PO, delivery note, ASN and supplier packing list. This is where OS&D (overages, shortages, damage) is formally identified.
2. Packaging condition & pallet integrity: Checking for crushed pallets, broken boards, torn stretch wrap, wet or mould-affected cartons and signs of mishandling or contamination.
3. Photo documentation before handling: Photos captured before unwrapping or moving pallets protect the warehouse. Teams typically record: trailer/seal condition, pallet appearance from multiple angles, visible damage, load shifting and securing materials such as straps or dunnage.
4. Verification of product identifiers: Batch/lot numbers, expiry dates (FEFO), barcodes, serial numbers and regulatory marks (CE, FDA, MSDS, etc.).
5. Real-time discrepancy recording: Issues such as damaged pallets, incorrect SKUs, or shortages must be documented immediately to support supplier communication and claims. Warehouses that delay this step often absorb upstream costs unknowingly.
IQC establishes the baseline condition for every item entering the warehouse.
Without clear inbound proof, warehouses lose the ability to:
Strong IQC protects the warehouse and ensures all downstream processes run on reliable information.
Outgoing good inspection – commonly handled as part of Outgoing Quality Control (OQC) – is the final verification step before goods leave the warehouse – the last moment to ensure shipments are accurate, undamaged and compliant with customer requirements. Because the warehouse is the last-touch handler, any downstream issues often point back to outbound operations unless clear evidence proves otherwise.
OQC typically focuses on four areas:
When disputes arise over shortages, mispicks, packaging failures, or transit damage, the OQC record becomes the primary line of defence. Without verifiable evidence, warehouses often absorb liability for issues they didn’t cause. OQC also plays a critical role in quality control delivery, ensuring the customer receives goods exactly as expected.
OQC is not just the last step in dispatch – it is a core component of quality cargo control.
IQC and OQC serve different functions, but both depend on one thing: clear, verifiable visual proof. Without photos, neither stage can reliably confirm how goods looked at handover – and the quality loop breaks down.
The reality is that most warehouses still rely on informal photo habits. Images live on personal phones, in WhatsApp groups, or in scattered email threads. They lack timestamps, user attribution and links to the correct PO or shipment. When something goes wrong, teams are left piecing together evidence from whatever they can find – if anything can be found at all.
This gap leads to predictable failures:
IQC shows how goods arrived.
OQC shows how goods left.
But only structured, time-stamped photo documentation connects the two with a continuous, unbroken chain of evidence.
This connection unlocks four major advantages:
When photos are captured in a structured way at both ends, IQC and OQC stop being isolated checkpoints and become a closed-loop quality system where every movement of goods is documented, verifiable, and accountable.
Modern warehouse teams increasingly rely on structured, time-stamped photo documentation using tools such as Blimp App to validate quality at every stage of handling. Unlike informal photos, structured documentation ties each image to the right shipment, user and inspection step – giving the warehouse a complete and accurate visual audit trail.
1. Reliable, tamper-proof evidence: A proper digital system anchors each photo to: the correct PO or pallet, the exact date and time, and the user who captured it. Because the record can’t be edited or lost, warehouses gain evidence that stands up in supplier disputes, carrier claims, and audits.
2. Faster dispute handling and reduced liability: Managers no longer hunt for photos across devices. They retrieve the full inspection record in seconds – ending disputes before they spiral and ensuring the warehouse doesn’t absorb unfair blame.
3. Standardised inspections across shifts and sites: Structured workflows guide teams to capture the same required visuals every time – pallet condition, packaging integrity, trailer/container state, load securing, seal numbers and any discrepancies. This removes inconsistency between shifts and raises the quality baseline across the operation.
4. Real-time visibility for managers and customers: Digital inspection systems reveal which steps were completed, skipped, or flagged. Customers gain transparency through clear photo reports, strengthening confidence and reducing unnecessary back-and-forth.
Structured photo documentation transforms quality control from reactive claim handling into a proactive system that prevents errors, proves performance, and provides traceability at scale. It becomes the backbone of quality cargo control, ensuring that every inbound and outbound movement is covered by clear, objective evidence.
The receiving dock is the point where most liability is determined – often within minutes of the truck arriving. If damage occurred upstream, this is the only moment when the warehouse can prove it. Once pallets are moved, opened, or rewrapped, the original condition becomes harder to establish, and responsibility becomes easier to dispute.
The process of receiving goods in a warehouse typically includes unloading, quantity verification, packaging inspection, OS&D recording, photo capture, documentation sign-off, and WMS updates. Among these steps, the verification and photo capture stages do the most to protect the warehouse from adopting upstream problems.
Common inbound issues that require immediate photographic evidence include crushed or leaning pallets, wet or mould-affected cartons, torn stretch wrap, overstacked loads, broken pallet boards, incorrect SKU substitutions and temperature-related damage. Any of these can lead to disputes later if the warehouse cannot show what the goods looked like at the moment of arrival.
Capturing inbound photos before handling is therefore one of the simplest and most effective ways to protect against inherited liability. When done consistently, this transforms receiving from a vulnerable handover into a controlled, traceable quality checkpoint that establishes a clear baseline for the rest of the warehouse process.
IQC and OQC are often viewed as separate responsibilities performed by different teams – but they are actually two parts of the same quality assurance cycle. Any gap between what is documented at receiving and what is documented at dispatch creates uncertainty, delays, and avoidable cost.
Most quality issues don’t originate inside the warehouse itself. They happen before goods arrive (supplier errors, packaging failures, transit mishandling) or after they leave (carrier handling, storage conditions, unloading errors). Yet warehouses frequently carry the blame because they lack the one thing that settles disputes quickly: clear visual proof of how goods looked when they entered and left their control.
Structured photo documentation closes this gap. When inbound and outbound checks both include consistent, time-stamped photos, warehouses create a continuous, defensible chain of evidence – a quality loop that cannot be disputed.
This unified approach allows warehouses to:
By linking IQC and OQC through structured photos, warehouses gain a complete narrative of each shipment’s journey. It closes the gaps between shifts, departments, and external partners – and turns quality control from reactive firefighting into a continuous, data-supported process. This is the foundation of modern quality cargo control.
In many warehouses, IQC and OQC are executed by different teams, on different shifts, with different habits. One team may capture detailed photos; another may rely on memory. Documentation is scattered across personal phones and chat apps, and managers rarely get a complete, consistent picture of what actually happened at each handover point.
Blimp App closes this gap by bringing both IQC and OQC into a single, structured, repeatable workflow. Instead of using personal devices or loosely defined checklists, teams capture inspections through secure shared devices using PIN-based login. Every photo is automatically time-stamped, tagged and stored in a tamper-proof cloud archive where it can be retrieved within seconds.
This unified approach strengthens operations in three essential ways:
Importantly, Blimp does not replace existing warehouse processes – it standardises them. The underlying checks remain the same, but now they are captured with the same structure, the same visual evidence, and the same audit-ready consistency across every shift and site.
The result is a warehouse that operates with clarity, repeatability and complete traceability – a quality loop closed not by paperwork, but by verifiable proof.
As supply chains grow more complex and customer expectations rise, warehouses can no longer rely on handwritten notes, scattered photos, or memory to defend their quality. Every pallet and every shipment needs to be backed by the kind of evidence that removes doubt – not because customers demand it, but because the operation itself depends on it.
Structured photo documentation turns IQC and OQC from isolated activities into a connected inspection loop. Instead of focusing only on receiving or only on dispatch, warehouses gain visibility into the full lifecycle of the goods under their control. This clarity eliminates blind spots, reduces disputes, and exposes recurring issues that would otherwise remain hidden.
Warehouses that adopt consistent, visual-first inspections gain measurable advantages:
But the biggest benefit is simpler: certainty.
Instead of debating what happened, teams can point to time-stamped, tamper-proof photos that show exactly how goods arrived and exactly how they left.
In a sector defined by accountability and speed, photo documentation is no longer optional. It has become a foundational part of modern incoming and outgoing quality control. And by standardising this process in one unified workflow, Blimp App enables warehouses to operate with the clarity, consistency and traceability the industry now demands.
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