Business Documents
Purchase Order Generator
Create numbered purchase orders that tell a supplier exactly what you are ordering, at what price, and where to deliver it, so invoices can be matched on arrival.
Overview
Why use a free purchase order generator?
This free purchase order generator creates the document a buyer sends a supplier to authorise a purchase. Add the supplier, list what you are ordering at the agreed prices, set where it should be delivered and by when, and download a PDF.
A purchase order runs the opposite way to an invoice, and that catches people out. An invoice is written by whoever is owed money, after the work; a purchase order is written by whoever is about to spend it, before anything is delivered. On this document your business is the buyer and the counterparty is the supplier.
The reason it exists is matching. When the supplier's invoice arrives, the PO number lets somebody check that what is being billed was actually ordered, in that quantity, at that price. Without it, an invoice is a request to pay a figure nobody in the organisation has agreed to. That is why many companies will not process an invoice that does not quote a PO number.
Nothing is uploaded. The order is built in your browser and never transmitted; your own business details are remembered locally, and supplier details and prices are not stored at all.
Step by step
How to raise a purchase order
Identify the supplier
Add the supplier's details and a unique purchase order number.
Specify the order
List each item with its SKU, quantity and agreed unit price, then set the delivery address and date.
Approve and send
Fill in the authorisation fields, download the PDF and send it to the supplier.
What you get
- Sequential PO numbering
- Separate billing and delivery addresses
- Line items with SKUs and agreed pricing
- Requested delivery dates and shipping terms
- Approval and authorisation fields
- Download as a print-ready PDF
Background
What a purchase order is for
A purchase order is a buyer's formal offer to buy specified goods or services at specified prices. It is issued before delivery, it carries a unique number, and it is the point at which spending becomes authorised rather than merely discussed. Once a supplier accepts it, it generally forms a contract on the terms it states. That is why the quantities and prices on it deserve a second look before it goes out.
Its real work happens later, at the point of payment. The standard control is a three-way match: the purchase order says what was ordered, the delivery note says what arrived, and the invoice says what is being charged. Comparing the three catches the three ordinary failures: billed for more than ordered, billed for more than delivered, billed at a price nobody agreed. Take away the purchase order and there is nothing to check the other two against.
This is also why the PO number has to travel. It goes onto the supplier's invoice, their delivery note and their correspondence, so that a document arriving weeks later can be tied back to a decision made weeks earlier by someone who may no longer be in the room. A purchase order whose number never comes back is a control that exists on paper and not in practice.
The second job is separating where things go from where the bill goes. Goods are delivered to a site, a warehouse, a shop or a named person; invoices go to accounts payable, often at a different address entirely. Carrying both on one document is unglamorous and prevents a specific, expensive failure: a pallet arriving somewhere with nobody expecting it and no loading bay.
Finally, a purchase order is where approval becomes visible. Whoever signed it off is named on the face of the document, which converts a spending decision from something that happened into something attributable. That matters less in a business of two people and a great deal in one of two hundred, and it is the reason PO thresholds exist at all.
Not to be confused with
- An invoice
- Written by the seller after delivery, requesting payment. The purchase order is written by the buyer beforehand, authorising it. They describe the same transaction from opposite ends, and the PO number is what connects them.
- A quote
- The supplier's offer to sell at a price. The purchase order is the buyer's response accepting it. If you receive a quote and want to proceed, raising a PO against it is the ordinary way to say yes in writing.
- A proforma invoice
- A seller-issued document that looks like an invoice but requests nothing: usually used to arrange payment in advance or to clear customs. Confusingly similar in appearance to a PO and issued by the other party entirely.
- A delivery note
- Travels with the goods and says what is in the box. The second document in the three-way match, and the one that catches a short delivery before it becomes a disputed invoice.
- A purchase requisition
- An internal request to buy something, raised by whoever needs it and approved before a PO is issued. It never leaves the organisation; the purchase order is what the supplier sees.
- A blanket purchase order
- Covers repeated deliveries over a period against one agreed price, rather than a single order. Useful for consumables and regular services, and it needs a clear expiry and value limit or it stops being a control.
Reference
What belongs on a purchase order
A supplier's order desk reads three things first: who is ordering, what exactly, and where it goes. Everything else supports those, and the fields most often left blank are the ones that cause the problems.
A unique PO number
The reference everything else hangs on. It goes on the supplier's invoice, their delivery note and any query about the order, and without it the invoice cannot be matched to anything. Keep one continuous sequence.
Required
Your details as the buyer
Who is placing the order and who to contact about it. Include a tax registration number if your invoices need one, because the supplier will use these details to raise theirs.
Required
The supplier
Name, address and ideally a named contact. A purchase order addressed to a company generally and nobody in particular is the one that sits unactioned in a shared inbox.
Required
Line items with quantity and price
What you are buying, how many, and at what price: the agreed price, not the list price. These are the figures the supplier's invoice will be checked against, so a wrong one here becomes an argument later.
Required
SKUs or part numbers
The supplier's own reference for the item. A description alone leaves room for a substitution that is technically reasonable and practically useless, and the part number is what they actually pick from.
Optional
The delivery address
Where the goods physically go, which is frequently not where the invoice goes. Include the site, the receiving hours and a contact if the destination is anything other than a normal office.
Required
The date you need it by
Not the date the supplier plans to ship. Stating a required-by date gives both sides something concrete to manage against, and its absence is why so much procurement is chased rather than scheduled.
Optional
Shipping terms
Who pays for carriage and where responsibility passes. Plain words are safer than three-letter codes unless everyone involved knows which Incoterms edition applies, because those meanings have changed between versions.
Optional
Payment terms
When the supplier will be paid once they have invoiced correctly. Stating it on the order avoids the common situation where buyer and supplier each assume their own standard terms apply.
Optional
Who authorised it
The spending decision made attributable. An unapproved purchase order still commits the organisation, so naming the approver on the document is the point at which the control becomes real.
Optional
Tax treatment
Whether prices include tax, and at what rate. Getting this wrong produces an order total that does not match the invoice, which then fails the match for a reason that has nothing to do with the goods.
Optional
Who it helps
Who needs to issue purchase orders?
Small businesses starting to formalise buying
The point at which more than one person can commit money is the point at which purchase orders start to pay for themselves. They turn 'someone ordered this' into a document with a name on it, before rather than after the invoice arrives.
Anyone buying from a new supplier
A first order is where expectations diverge most: quantity, price, delivery, terms. Putting all four in writing before anything ships is far easier than reconstructing what was agreed once a disputed invoice exists.
Trades and construction
Materials go to a site and invoices go to the office, often for several jobs at once. The PO number is what lets a delivery be allocated to the right job, which is most of what makes job costing possible at all.
Agencies buying on behalf of clients
Pass-through costs have to be traceable to the client who authorised them. A purchase order per client keeps the chain intact from the client's approval to the supplier's invoice to the recharge.
Anyone whose supplier asks for one
Larger suppliers frequently require a PO before they will ship, because their own systems need it to raise an invoice. Producing one promptly is often the only thing standing between a decision and a delivery.
Bookkeepers and accounts payable
An invoice with a valid PO number can be matched and paid; one without has to be investigated. The proportion of invoices arriving with a reference is a good measure of how much of the month is spent chasing.
Do it properly
Best practices
Raise the order before the goods, not after
A purchase order written to justify an invoice that has already arrived is paperwork rather than a control. Its whole value is that it records what was agreed before anyone had a reason to remember it differently.
Ask the supplier to quote the PO number back
Print the request on the document. The number is only a control if it returns on the invoice and the delivery note, and most suppliers will do it as a matter of course when asked in writing.
Keep one continuous PO sequence
Sequential and unbroken, the same discipline as invoice numbering. Gaps make it impossible to tell whether an order is missing or was never raised, and per-supplier sequences make the whole set impossible to reconcile.
Put the agreed price on it, not the list price
The order is what the invoice will be checked against, so it has to carry the price actually negotiated. A PO at list price against an invoice at the agreed price fails the match for no reason.
State the delivery address in full, every time
Site, receiving hours, contact name. This is the cheapest field on the document and the one whose absence causes the most expensive failures: a delivery that arrives somewhere it cannot be unloaded.
Name the approver on the document
Spending that nobody is named against is spending nobody owns. Putting the authoriser on the face of the order is what makes the approval real rather than assumed.
Match all three documents before paying
Order, delivery note, invoice. Checking them against each other catches over-billing, short delivery and price changes, and it takes a couple of minutes against an invoice that might otherwise be paid in full without anyone reading it.
Avoid these
Common mistakes
Filling it in as though you were the seller
The buyer issues a purchase order. Your business goes in as the one placing the order and the counterparty is the supplier. Getting this backwards produces a document that reads as an order placed with yourself, and suppliers will simply return it.
Raising the PO after the invoice arrives
Issue it before the goods are ordered. A retrospective purchase order records nothing that was not already decided, and it cannot catch an over-charge because it was written from the very invoice it is meant to check.
Leaving the PO number off the request to the supplier
Ask explicitly for it on their invoice and delivery note. Without the number coming back, accounts payable cannot match the invoice, and the usual outcome is a payment delay that neither side wanted.
Using the billing address for delivery by default
Set the delivery address deliberately. Goods routinely go to a site, a warehouse or a person while the invoice goes to accounts, and a pallet at a head office with no loading bay is an entirely avoidable expense.
Putting an approximate price on the order
Use the agreed figure. The purchase order is the reference the invoice is checked against, so an approximate price guarantees a mismatch and turns every invoice into a query.
Using Incoterm codes nobody has agreed on
Write the terms in plain words unless both sides know which Incoterms edition applies. The codes have precise meanings that have changed between versions, and an unqualified 'FOB' causes more disputes than it settles.
Treating the order as an internal note
Send it to the supplier. An order that stays in your own system authorises spending internally and tells the supplier nothing, so they invoice against whatever they thought was agreed instead.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
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