What a cargo survey report must contain: a checklist

A cargo survey report has to show who instructed you to do what, what you did and with which method, what you found, what you measured, and what you could not check, and it has to be signed and dated. A report that covers those eight points can be used as evidence when a figure is disputed. One that omits them gives the other side something to attack. This article lists the eight parts and what makes each one stand up. It describes what a report needs; it does not reproduce any body's form.

The four main reports and the documents that belong to them

In practice a cargo survey ends in one of four main reports: a loading report, a discharge report, a transfer report or a sampling report. The other documents are parts of these: the liquid cargo inspection (LCI), the bill of lading, the weight certificate, the photo report and a letter of protest. Which of them belongs to a job depends on the transport mode and on where the cargo goes, within the EU or international. They hold the same information in a different format. The documents per transport mode are listed in cargo documents by transport mode. The eight parts below apply to each of them.

1. Identification

The report must identify itself and every object it is about. FOSFA's code of practice for member superintendents (Annex III) and GAFTA's standard (section 9.2) both ask for a unique identification of the report and its date of issue, and for the issuer to be identifiable; GAFTA also asks for any subcontractors used to be named. Add the vessel or tank, the cargo as declared, the parties and any contract number you know. Identify the job so that an inspection report and a certificate from the same attendance can be traced to each other, which GAFTA's standard also asks for.

2. Scope and instructions

Say who appointed you, on whose behalf, and what you were asked to do, summarised in a few lines. FOSFA's Annex III includes the principal's instructions among its standard items, and its code tells the superintendent to remain within the contract terms and not to assume responsibilities that are not covered by the instructions.

The reason is practical: instructions that can be read as a wider duty can widen your liability, and a scope line that says what you did not do protects you. The claims example is in how to price a cargo survey.

3. Method and standard applied

State which standard or contract rule you worked to, and which instruments you used. FOSFA's code names ISO 5555 for sampling oils and fats. For draught surveys, see draft survey report.

This line has legal weight: a determination made by a method other than the one the contract prescribes can be held not binding (the case is in inspection certificate and inspection report). If you deviate from a prescribed method, say so and say why.

4. Observations and conclusions, kept apart

An observation is what you saw, measured or sampled. A conclusion is what it means: the tank is suitable, the hold is clean, the cargo is in apparent good order. Write them in separate places, and give a conclusion only when your instructions ask for one.

GAFTA's code is a good example of how narrow a conclusion can be. A superintendent instructed to inspect a hold checks and reports whether it is clean, dry and free from foreign odour, loose rust, paint or other contaminating matter, and suitable to receive the cargo in these respects only (section 6.1). The words "in these respects only" define the conclusion. Copy that habit: a conclusion that names its own limits cannot be stretched by someone else.

5. Measurements and calculations

Give the raw readings and the calculation, not just the result. For oils and fats, FOSFA's Annex III expects the tank measurements behind a weight to be certified along with it. Show the units, the instrument and its calibration status, the time of each reading, and each correction applied.

A reader who can repeat your calculation will rarely dispute it. Checking the arithmetic before you sign is the last useful act. The statement of facts gives the times that the measurements belong to, and the weight certificate is the document that states the result.

6. Photographs

Neither FOSFA's code nor GAFTA's standard makes photographs a mandatory item of a report. GAFTA lists photographs among the evidence that can be shown to an auditor. Photographs support an observation only if each one can be tied to it, so give each a number, a date and time, the place, and a caption that says what it shows, and keep the originals.

7. Exceptions and reservations

Everything you could not check belongs in the report, and in plain words. FOSFA's code gives two examples. Where a tank cannot be entered, a very limited inspection can be made from the deck manholes; where pumps and lines are closed off, the superintendent must rely on the ship's information and report accordingly. The report should say "inspected from the deck manhole only" or "lines not accessible; previous contents as stated by the ship". A reservation is also the place for disputes you noticed at the time, such as a stoppage or an objection by the ship or the terminal.

8. Signature and date

The report ends with the name of the person who attended, a signature and the date of issue. GAFTA's standard (section 9.2) also asks for a signature, and asks that internally produced records are signed by the person who carried out the task, or, for electronic records, carry that person's name. It also says corrections or additions after issue must be recorded so that the report or certificate that was replaced can be identified (section 9).

The GAFTA floor, in the order a report is used

Section 9.2 of GAFTA's standard is the shortest statement anywhere of what a superintendent's report or certificate has to carry. It is written as a list of requirements, not in the order anyone reads a report, so it is worth reorganising before you build it into your own template. What follows is our regrouping; for GAFTA's exact wording, read section 9.2 itself.

Begin where the reader begins, with substance. The report has to say which load compartments and which goods you actually inspected, and it has to give the results of that inspection. Those two belong in one breath, because a result without its object is unusable: a moisture figure means nothing if nobody can tell which hold or which parcel it came from, and a tribunal that cannot place a number will discount it. This is also where the standard refuses to let you absorb other people's work into your own. Where you used a subcontractor, the results that came from that subcontractor have to be identified as theirs. A dispute that turns on a single figure always ends up asking who produced it, and a report that blurs that boundary hands the other side its first question. See working with subcontract surveyors.

Next comes everything that lets a reader pick the document up two years later and place it. The report has to identify the superintendent who issued it and name any subcontractor used; it has to carry its own unique identification and its date of issue; and it has to state the date or dates on which the inspection was carried out. Keep the issue date and the inspection dates apart, because they are different facts and the interval between them is one of the first things a claim handler measures. The unique reference earns its keep later: it is what allows a correction or an addition to point at the document it replaces, instead of quietly standing in for it.

The report then closes formally. It needs a signature, or some other indication that the person or company standing behind it has approved it; an unsigned report is a draft, whatever it says at the top. And where your job was to test the goods against a specification or a contract term, the report has to state whether they conform. That statement is owed only where conformity is part of what you were asked to determine. If it is not, do not manufacture one, because a conformity statement written outside your instructions is precisely the sentence that gets quoted back at you.

Treat all of this as a floor rather than a specification. The eight parts above go further, because the method, the reservations and the evidence behind each figure are what separate a report that survives a dispute from one that merely satisfies an audit.

What makes a report usable as evidence, and what weakens it

Strong reports share a few habits:

• they reflect the actual and true findings, which is GAFTA's first requirement of any report (section 9.1);
• every statement can be traced to a measurement, a sample record or a photograph;
• the scope, the method and the limits are written down;
• corrections are visible.

Weak reports mix facts with blame, leave out the method, round figures without saying so, or are backdated or overwritten after a dispute starts. Records of certificates, reports and instructions are kept for a minimum of seven years under GAFTA's code (section 5.1), which covers most disputes that start late.

For how the report and the certificate differ, see inspection certificate and inspection report.

A template you can use today

Our survey report template follows these eight parts in Excel and PDF, and is our own design.

Practical rule

Before you sign, read your report as the lawyer for the other side would, and mark every sentence that is not backed by a number, a record or a photograph. Cut it or add the evidence.

Run your survey company on FOSS

A template helps with one report. A survey company needs the same structure on every job, whoever attends. FOSS, the Field Operational Services System, carries a job from nomination to certificate, lets you enter values offline on board, applies the calculation methods used in the sector, generates reports in your own house style and keeps an audit log of who entered each value. Run your survey company on FOSS: see how it works.