The moment your garments leave your building, you have converted a purchasing decision into a custody problem. It is a manageable one, but only if both sides agree the protocol beforehand. This is the checklist we work through with programs that supply their own goods.

Four weeks out: pick the samples

Pull two or three jerseys from the same production lot as the main quantity. Not last season's, not a similar style — the same lot. Polyester is not a single material, and two garments that look identical can behave differently under a platen because they came from different mills or carry different finishing chemistry.

Send them for a heat test. The vendor should be establishing tolerable temperature, dwell time, and pressure, and checking for dye migration and sublimation ghosting. Ask for the result in writing, and ask what happens if the lot fails. A vendor without an answer to that second question has not thought about it.

Three weeks out: reconcile the roster against the inventory

If you are running a roster, this is the moment to check that the size demand matches what is actually in the cartons. A roster asking for eleven extra-larges against nine in stock is a purchasing problem with a three-week solution and a zero-week solution, and you want the three-week one.

At the same time, run the names against the character ceiling. Roughly nine characters is the practical limit on a jersey back. Every roster of any size has two or three surnames that exceed it, and the time to decide how to treat them is now, in an email, not at a press with someone waiting.

Two weeks out: lock the art and the layout

Supply the numeral style, any marks, and the colorways as usable files. Late art is the most common reason a prep line grows on a quote, and it is the most avoidable. Once approved, the layout gets locked into the intake system so every ticket produces identical geometry.

Shipping: pack it so it can be counted

Pack by size and colorway, one carton per grouping where the quantities allow, and put a packing list inside and outside each carton. A pallet of mixed sizes has to be sorted before a single press runs, and somebody is billing you for that time. Sorted goods go straight to the staging table.

Include a master list: total units, breakdown by size and colorway, and a named contact who can authorize decisions.

Load-in: count in, on the record

Goods should be counted in against the packing list at load-in, with any discrepancy raised immediately while it can still be traced to a carton or a courier. A count that happens "later" is a count that becomes an argument. This should take twenty minutes and it is worth every one of them.

On the floor: know the damage terms

Agree in advance that any garment damaged in application is documented the same day with a stated cause and reported at teardown. Agree who pays: vendor error should be vendor cost. Agree the reprint allowance for guest-side typos, and what happens beyond it. All three fit in a short paragraph and all three prevent a bad conversation.

Teardown: count out and collect the file

Unpersonalized surplus comes back in the cartons it arrived in, with a count that matches the sheet. You should also receive:

Units personalized, total and by size
Reprint log with causes
Remaining inventory by size and colorway
Documented damage with reasons
An export of every name, number, size, and location applied

That last file is the one people forget to ask for and the one they need three months later when someone questions a budget line or a uniform allocation.

One habit worth adopting

Photograph a representative carton before it ships and again when it comes back. It takes a minute, it costs nothing, and on the rare occasion something goes wrong in transit it turns a dispute into a claim.

How we handle client-supplied garments → Team and league builds →

Handing over jerseys you already own: a checklist.