How to reconcile material deliveries on road and linear infrastructure projects

Reconciling material deliveries means checking each supplier's bill against what was ordered and what actually arrived, before the bill is paid. On a building site, deliveries come through one gate. On a road, railway, canal or pipeline project, they arrive at batching and hot-mix plants, central stores, stockyards and straight to the chainages, across tens of kilometres, received by whoever is nearest. The order and the bill are easy to find. The hard part is a complete record of every load received, spread along the whole stretch. Most contractors treat that record as site reporting. It's a cost control: every load on it is money you'll pay. This guide covers how to build the record, how to measure what arrived, how to reconcile by supplier and by location, and how to check what you received against what the work used.

A cost control, not a site report

On most projects, deliveries are recorded the way progress is: the store keeps a register, the site posts photos of the challans, the daily report says "material received". The site owns it, and nobody reads it as money.

Yet materials are the largest cost a road contractor buys. On the NHAI contracts in a 2018 Supreme Court case, the price adjustment formula weighted bitumen, cement, steel and other materials together at 50% of the value of work, against 20% each for labour and for plant and machinery, and 10% for fuel and lubricants (NHAI v. Progressive-MVR (JV), clause 70.3). In the audited 2025–26 results of H.G. Infra Engineering, a listed highway contractor, cost of materials consumed was 36% of revenue, before counting material bought through subcontractors (NSE filing).

Margins leave little room for leaks on a cost that size. ICRA puts Indian construction companies' operating margin at 10.7% for the first nine months of FY2026 (ICRA). As an illustration, losing 2% of materials worth half the contract value costs 1% of revenue: close to a tenth of that margin.

A delivery record is a payable, and the reconciliation is where the company decides whether to pay it. Money leaks three ways:

• Paying for material that never arrived, or arrived short. The papers say one quantity, the truck carried another. In one case reported this year, police alleged that steel bound for a contractor's plant on the Samruddhi Expressway was weighed with tampered readings at dispatch, and two trailers reached the plant 11.34 and 8.84 tonnes short (The Hitavada, April 2026).
• Paying royalty twice: once in the supplier's price, and again when the client deducts it from your bill because the load's transit pass can't be produced (see the royalty section below).
• Material received but not used in the work, wasted or over-used beyond what the work needed. Clients that issue material check exactly this against the work done (see below).

None of these shows up in a progress report. They show up in the books, months later, as a lower margin. (More on this in why margin leaks during execution.)

So run delivery reconciliation like the client bill, not like the daily report: on a fixed cycle, owned by the commercial or billing team, with differences signed off by the project manager before a supplier is paid. The site's job is to make the record complete. The commercial team's job is to read it as money.

Why it's harder on a linear project

On a linear project, the same supplier's material can end up in five places in one day:

• Many receiving points. Aggregate goes to the crusher stockyard or the plant, cement and steel to the store, bitumen to the hot-mix plant, and granular material is often tipped straight onto the stretch being built.
• Many receivers. The plant in-charge, the storekeeper, the engineer on each stretch and their supervisors all receive loads. Each keeps the papers their own way, and the photos land in different WhatsApp groups.
• The weighbridge is somewhere else. Material is weighed at the supplier's weighbridge or a public one on the way, rarely where it's unloaded.
• Material moves again after it arrives, from the stockyard or store to the chainages, or between packages. Those internal transfers get counted as new deliveries if nobody marks them.
• Many sources. Aggregate and sand come from several quarries and pits, each with its own transit papers.
• One bill, many locations. The supplier sends one bill a month for loads delivered all along the stretch.

So the reconciliation has to answer two questions, not one: did we receive what we're billed for, and where did it go?

What reconciling deliveries means

Accounts teams call it a three-way match. Before a supplier is paid, three records should agree:

1. What was ordered: the purchase order or work order, with the material, grade, rate and agreed quantity.
2. What arrived: your own record of each load received, accepted or rejected, and where it was unloaded.
3. What was billed: the supplier's invoice.

The first and third are documents someone hands you. The second you have to build yourself, every day, from every receiving point on the stretch.

The papers each load should leave behind

Paper	What it tells you	What to check
Purchase order or work order	Material, grade, rate, quantity, delivery terms	That the load is against a live order, and the order isn't already used up
Delivery challan or delivery note	What the supplier says it sent, with its serial number	Material, grade and quantity against what was unloaded. Keep the consignee's copy
Weighbridge slip	Gross, tare and net weight, vehicle number, date and time	That it shows a net weight, not just gross, and the vehicle matches the challan
E-way bill	The consignment and its value, generated before the goods moved	That its document number matches the invoice or challan
Mineral transit pass or royalty papers	Which quarry or pit the sand, aggregate or earth came from, and that royalty was paid	One per load (see below)
Manufacturer's test certificate	That the lot of cement, bitumen or steel meets the specification	One per lot, with its invoice or challan
Supplier's invoice	The quantity and amount billed	Each line against your receipt records, and the rate against the order
Your receipt record	What you accepted, rejected or part-accepted, where, and who received it	That it exists for every load, with a photo of the papers

A few notes on the Indian papers:

• "Challan" is used loosely on site for any delivery slip. Under GST, a delivery challan proper is issued in place of an invoice only in specific cases, such as job work or goods moved other than by way of supply, and it records the quantity, provisional where the exact quantity isn't known. It's made in triplicate, the original marked "ORIGINAL FOR CONSIGNEE" (CGST Rules 2017, rule 55).
• An e-way bill is generally required before a registered person moves goods with a consignment value above ₹50,000 (CGST Rules 2017, rule 138(1)). Some goods and states are exempt, so check what applies to your material.
• On MoRTH road works, a manufacturer's test certificate "together with invoice or delivery challan shall be furnished for every lot of supply" of materials such as cement, bitumen and steel (MoRTH Specifications for Road and Bridge Works, 5th revision, clause 901.10).

The invoice always states the quantity. A GST tax invoice must show the "quantity in case of goods and unit" (rule 46), and in the UK a full VAT invoice shows "the quantity of the goods" for each description (HMRC VAT Notice 700). So every billed quantity can be checked against a received one, if you recorded it.

Record every load where it's unloaded

There's no single gate, so the receipt record has to be made at each receiving point, by whoever receives the load, the same day. Capture:

• Date and time received.
• Supplier, as printed on that load's own papers. Don't fill it in from the truck's earlier trips: hired trucks carry for different suppliers, and the transporter is often not the supplier.
• Vehicle number.
• Material and grade, such as 20 mm aggregate, GSB, VG-30 bitumen or Fe 500D TMT.
• Quantity received, in the material's own unit: net tonnes, cubic metres or bags. "Three trucks" is not a quantity.
• Paper numbers: challan, weighbridge slip, e-way bill, transit pass.
• Where it was unloaded: the plant, store or stockyard by name, or the chainage and side, such as "Ch 12+400 to 12+600, LHS".
• Status: accepted, rejected or part-accepted, with the reason.
• Received by, and a photo of the papers and the load.

Three rules make the record usable:

• One record per load. A single truck can bring a challan, a weighbridge slip, a transit pass and an invoice. Group them into one delivery, or the same material gets counted once per paper.
• Mark internal transfers as transfers. Material moved from the stockyard to a chainage is a movement, not a delivery. Count it once, when it arrived from the supplier.
• Get the papers to one place the same day. A photo of the challan sent to a single group or number from the stretch is worth more than the original in a supervisor's pocket at month-end.

Measuring what arrived: weight, volume and stacks

On a linear project, the same load can be described three ways: tonnes on the weighbridge slip, cubic metres on the transit pass, and cubic metres again when the stack at the roadside is measured. They won't agree directly.

MoRTH's specifications show why. Aggregates are conveyed to the roadside and stacked, each size separately, and material from different quarry sources is stacked separately too. Aggregate supplied to site is paid in cubic metres from stack measurements, after a deduction "to allow for bulking": 12.5% for 75 mm and 63 mm, 10% for 45 mm and 26.5 mm, and 5% for 22.4 mm down to 6.7 mm and for fine aggregate. Stone filler is measured in tonnes, and stacks are marked with whitewash immediately after measurement (MoRTH 5th revision, clauses 520.3 and 520.5).

For reconciliation, that means:

• Compare like with like. Reconcile a bill in tonnes against net weights, and a bill in cubic metres against volumes. Convert only with a factor your purchase order agrees.
• Agree which weighbridge governs, the supplier's, a public one or your own, and what difference is acceptable.
• Stack separately and mark measured stacks, as MoRTH requires, so a stack is neither mixed with another source nor measured twice.

Reconcile monthly, by supplier and by location

Once a month, or whenever a supplier's bill arrives:

1. Total what you received from that supplier in the bill period, by material, grade and unit, from your receipt records across every receiving point.
2. Match each bill line to deliveries by paper number and date. Mark anything billed with no matching receipt, and anything received but not billed.
3. Check where it went. Split the supplier's loads by plant, stockyard and stretch. Loads billed to this package but unloaded on another package, or another project, show up here.
4. Check the rates against the purchase order.
5. Work out every difference before approving. Most have an ordinary explanation (see the next section). The ones that don't are the ones that matter.
6. Record the outcome: paid in full, short-paid with the reason, or held pending papers. Tell the supplier which deliveries were disputed and why.

A reconciliation format you can copy

Use two sheets. The first is the delivery register, one row per load:

Date	Supplier	Vehicle	Material / grade	Net quantity and unit	Paper numbers	Unloaded at	Status
14 Oct	Supplier A	MH12 XX 0000	GSB grade II	24.8 t	Challan 512, slip 3381, pass 0942	Ch 12+400 to 12+600, LHS	Accepted
14 Oct	Supplier B	MH12 XX 0001	20 mm aggregate	26.1 t	Challan 77, slip 3390, pass 0951	Plant stockyard	Accepted

Keep a photo of the papers with each row. The second sheet is the monthly summary, one row per supplier, material and grade:

Supplier	Material / grade	Unit	Received	Billed	Difference	Rate: PO / billed	Action
Supplier A	GSB grade II	t	3,412.6	3,448.0	−35.4	₹640 / ₹640	Ask for slips for 2 loads; 1 load went to package 2
Supplier B	20 mm aggregate	t	1,212.6	1,212.6	0	₹1,150 / ₹1,190	Pay the quantity; query the rate

The figures are illustrative. Difference is received minus billed. Add the ordered quantity from the purchase order if you track balance against the order, and a pivot by "Unloaded at" for step 3. Keep units separate: never add tonnes to cubic metres in the same cell.

Why the numbers don't match

• Loads tipped at a chainage with nobody recording them. The supplier has the slip; you have nothing. Ask for the slip, and check it against the stretch engineer's daily report before accepting it.
• Loads that went to another package or project, where one supplier serves several of your sites in the same region.
• Internal transfers counted as deliveries, so the same material appears twice: once from the supplier, once from the stockyard.
• Rejected loads still on the bill. MoRTH requires material to come only from a tested and approved source, with anything non-conforming rejected and removed (clause 520.4). Your receipt record should say rejected, with the reason and a photo.
• Gross weight without tare. A slip showing only the loaded weight isn't a net quantity. Get the tare before the load is counted.
• Weight, volume and stack disagreeing, for the reasons above.
• Grade or rate mismatch: 20 mm billed where 10 mm arrived, or an old rate on a new order.

Then check what you received against what the work used

Matching the supplier's bill tells you whether you're paying for what arrived. It doesn't tell you whether what arrived went into the work. That's the second half of the cost control.

Government clients already run this check on material they issue. CPWD's conditions, for example, calculate the theoretical quantity of issued material at completion, or at any intermediate stage if it doesn't reconcile. Steel is taken as the design quantity, including authorised laps and chairs, plus 3% cutting wastage, compared diameter by diameter. The permitted variation on those theoretical quantities is small: bitumen up to 2.5% over and nil under, steel ±2% for each diameter, section and category, cement ±3% on works put to tender at up to ₹25 lakh and ±2% above that, and nil for all other materials (CPWD GCC 2023, Clause 38 and Schedule F, IIT Kanpur copy).

Run the same check on what you buy. Each month, for each major material:

1. Opening stock plus received this month, from your delivery register.
2. Less closing stock, counted or measured at the plants, stores and stockyards.
3. Equals consumed, which you compare with what the work done should have used: the layers laid, the concrete poured and the steel fixed that month, at their design or mix quantities, plus an allowance for wastage you've agreed internally.

A gap beyond that allowance is material wasted, over-used in the work, or gone. Either way it's cost, and on a linear project spread over tens of kilometres, it's found only if someone looks for it every month.

Royalty: the cost hiding in the source papers

Sand, stone aggregate, moorum and earth are minor minerals, and the state charges royalty on what's quarried. A linear project uses them in large volumes, from many quarries and pits. On government works, the state makes sure the royalty is collected: the works department deducts it from the contractor's running bill, unless the contractor can prove it was already paid at source. Most delivery reconciliations never look at this, because the proof isn't in the supplier's bill. It's in the transit pass that travelled with each truck.

How the deduction works

Each state sets its own rules. Rajasthan's are a clear example (Short Term Permit guideline under rule 51 of the Rajasthan Minor Mineral Concession Rules, 2017):

• Where the contractor opts for deduction, the works department deducts royalty from every running bill at 3% of the bill amount for road construction and widening (1.5% for repairs and other works), plus a contribution to the District Mineral Foundation Trust of 10% of the royalty deducted.
• Material without proof isn't accepted. Every state government procuring entity must ensure that bills for royalty-bearing material come with "a substantial proof of royalty payment", failing which "the material shall not be acceptable".
• On highways and railways, royalty is paid up front. For national and mega highways, four- and six-lane roads and railway track work, contractors pay the royalty with the permit, or buy material with a royalty-paid rawanna (Rajasthan's transit pass) from existing leases.
• Excess use is charged at double. Using more than 10% and up to 25% over the permitted quantity costs twice the royalty on the excess; beyond 25%, the excess is treated as unauthorised.

The Supreme Court has upheld this kind of deduction. In 2016 it upheld Rajasthan's earlier circular, which deducted royalty from contractors' bills (then 1.75% on road works) and refunded it "on production of bills showing payment of royalty". The stated aim was to keep illegally mined mineral out of government works (State of Rajasthan v. Deep Jyoti Company, 2016). Other states run their own versions. Odisha's Works Department, for example, proposed in 2019 that contractors who can't produce the transit pass and purchase receipt should have the cost of the raw material recovered as well as the royalty deducted (Works Department letter, November 2019).

On MoRTH road works, the contractor's rates for aggregate supply include "all royalties, fees, rents where necessary" (clause 520.6). The royalty is your cost either way. What decides whether you pay it once or twice is the paperwork.

The impact

• You pay royalty twice. Material bought from a licensed quarry already carries the royalty in its price. If the transit passes and receipts for those loads can't be produced when the bill is checked, the royalty is deducted again from your bill. Where the rules allow a refund, you get it back only when you produce the papers, and until then it's your cash held by the client.
• The amount is large against the margin. On a Rajasthan road contract under the deduction option, 3% of the bill plus 10% of that for the District Mineral Foundation Trust is 3.3% of every running bill. Against an operating margin of around 10.7% (ICRA), that's close to a third of it.
• It compounds on a linear project. Loads from many quarries, each with its own transit pass in a driver's hand, received at points spread over tens of kilometres. Every pass that isn't collected is royalty you may pay again.

What to do

• Collect the transit pass for every load of sand, aggregate, moorum and earth, and keep it with that load's delivery record, not in a separate file.
• Check it against the load: the quarry or lease, the vehicle, the quantity and the date, within the pass's validity.
• Total the proof by month, by material, against the quantities in your running bill for the items that use them. The gap is the royalty at risk of deduction.
• Know your state's rules and the option your contract or permit uses, and claim refunds as soon as the papers are in hand.

Where Velora fits

Velora doesn't match purchase orders, invoices or payments; that stays with your commercial team. It covers the record the cost control depends on, which on a linear project is the part that's scattered. Field Intelligence reads the WhatsApp groups your plant, store and stretch teams already use and logs each delivery by supplier and date, with the challan and invoice photos and the source messages attached. Where the same delivery is reported twice, you can merge the two so the quantities and papers stay on one record. Your team reconciles from one complete record instead of rebuilding it at month-end from chats and registers along the stretch. Our team is working on a monthly deliveries report by supplier.

Frequently asked questions

Is material reconciliation a site job or a commercial job?

Both, with different roles. The site makes the delivery record complete: every load, its papers, where it was unloaded and whether it was accepted. The commercial or billing team reconciles it against supplier bills and against what the work used, on a fixed cycle, with differences signed off by the project manager before payment. Treated only as site reporting, it never gets read as money.

Why is material reconciliation harder on road and linear infrastructure projects?

Because there is no single gate. Material arrives at plants, stores, stockyards and straight onto the chainages, across tens of kilometres, and is received by many different people. The weighbridge is usually elsewhere, material is moved again after it arrives, and one supplier bill covers loads delivered all along the stretch.

What documents do I need to reconcile a supplier bill?

The purchase order, your own receipt record for each load, and the supplier's invoice. Behind each load, keep its delivery challan or delivery note, its weighbridge slip, and where they apply, its e-way bill, its mineral transit pass and the manufacturer's test certificate, with a photo of the papers and where the load was unloaded.

Why do works departments deduct royalty from contractor bills?

Sand, aggregate, moorum and earth are minor minerals, and the state charges royalty on them. On government works, the works department deducts royalty from the contractor's running bill unless the contractor proves it was paid at source, usually with the transit pass and purchase receipt for each load. In Rajasthan, for example, the deduction is 3% of the bill amount on road construction, plus 10% of that for the District Mineral Foundation Trust. If the material was bought royalty-paid and the papers are lost, the contractor pays royalty twice.

How are aggregates measured on MoRTH road projects?

Aggregate supplied to site is stacked by size and by quarry source, and paid in cubic metres from stack measurements, after a deduction for bulking: 12.5% for 75 mm and 63 mm, 10% for 45 mm and 26.5 mm, and 5% for smaller sizes and fine aggregate (MoRTH Specifications for Road and Bridge Works, 5th revision, clause 520.5). Stone filler is measured in tonnes.

Is an e-way bill needed for construction material deliveries in India?

Generally yes, when a registered person moves goods with a consignment value above ₹50,000, under rule 138 of the CGST Rules 2017. Some goods and states are exempt, so check what applies to your material and route.

How much difference between the supplier's quantity and ours is acceptable?

For material you buy, whatever your purchase order agrees, including which weighbridge governs. For client-issued material on CPWD works, Schedule F sets the variation on theoretical consumption: for example up to 2.5% over and nil under on bitumen, and ±2% on steel.

How do I check material consumption against work done?

Each month, take opening stock plus material received, less closing stock, to get material consumed. Compare it with what the work done that month should have used, at design or mix quantities plus an agreed wastage allowance. A gap beyond the allowance is waste, over-use or loss. CPWD runs the same check on material it issues, under Clause 38 of its conditions.