VICS bill of lading generator

The VICS bill of lading is the retail industry's standard shipping document, published by the Voluntary Interindustry Commerce Solutions Association so that retailers, carriers, and suppliers could move freight on one shared paperwork format instead of hundreds of house forms. If you ship into retail distribution centers, their routing guides very likely name it.

Underneath, it is still a straight (non-negotiable) BOL: the carrier's receipt, the contract of carriage, and the instruction to deliver to one named consignee. What VICS adds is a fixed layout and a GS1-based identification system — a 17-digit shipment identification number encoded as a GS1-128 barcode, plus SID/CID location identifiers — so a receiving dock can scan your freight off the trailer and match it to the advance ship notice without retyping a thing.

DockBOL provides a standards-aware VICS/GS1 mode: switch modes at the top of the generator and the identifier box, barcode, and layout follow the VICS conventions while the rest of your shipment data stays put. Need the everyday form instead? See the straight bill of lading generator.

The heart of the VICS form is one number: a 17-digit GS1 shipment identification number (GSIN) that uniquely names this load worldwide. Here is exactly how DockBOL builds it:

A barcode is just data a machine can read. GS1-128 is a dialect of the common Code 128 symbology that opens with a special marker (FNC1) announcing “GS1-formatted data follows,” then labels each piece of data with an Application Identifier — a short number, conventionally written in parentheses, that says what the next digits mean.

AI (402) means “a 17-digit shipment identification number follows.” So the data stream inside the barcode is 402 + your 17 digits — the AI itself is never part of the number, which is why the human-readable line under the bars shows the digits grouped without it. When the DC's scan gun reads AI (402), its system knows it has captured the shipment ID and can match the freight to the right ASN or purchase order automatically.

DockBOL draws the barcode as true vector GS1-128 with the quiet zones scanners require — no fonts, no stretched images — and prints the carrier's PRO number as a separate ordinary Code 128 barcode, since a PRO is the carrier's identifier, not a GS1 shipment ID.

One thing on this form cannot be invented by software: your own GS1 Company Prefix, licensed to your company from GS1 US or your national GS1 member organization. The prefix is what makes the shipment IDs you build globally unique. If you already ship to retail DCs, your company almost certainly has one — ask whoever manages EDI or your GS1-128 carton labels.

A VICS BOL takes minutes when the details are at hand. Everything the generator asks for, grouped the way the form is organized:

Don't know your NMFC item or freight class? Leave it blank and confirm it against the current NMFC (NMFTA ClassIT) or with your carrier before tendering — a guessed class is how reweigh-and-reclass invoices happen. DockBOL calculates density from dimensions, but never invents a classification for you.

This is page one of a VICS BOL filled in DockBOL (sample data). The 17-digit shipment ID sits in the header in grouped, human-readable form with its GS1-128 barcode beneath it — alongside the ruled party blocks with SID/CID, the carrier box with its PRO barcode, the commodity table, freight terms, and signature lines.