A purchase order form is a necessary tool for every business. It helps to improve financial and inventory control, manage incoming orders, and streamline the procurement processes. In this article, we will see in detail what is a purchase order form, what is necessary to include there, and how to create one for your business in a couple of minutes.
What is a purchase order form?
A purchase order form is a template that is used for a purchase order. Generally speaking, it is a written agreement between the buyer and the seller about quantity, quality, time of delivery in the form of a document. It is mostly used at the B2B market when wholesaler, manufacturer, or retailer sells a high number of products at once.
Products & Services
An order form is used when businesses purchase both products and services. For example, you need to print out a brochure as a part of your marketing campaign. A printing agency will ask you to fill out a document where you will tell how many brochures do you need, what type of paper the agency should use, etc.
Online & offline
We have defined a purchase order as a document. However, it does not mean that it should be printed out. Lots of businesses that are operating online use a digital purchase order form. The difference is that in the online world it can be used for people, not just companies. Imagine the last time you bought cloth online? You need to select a size, color, and quantity before submitting. In other words, you are filling up an order form.
What to include in your order form?
Based on the Purchase Control article, a general order form should contain the following fields.
- Information about the seller – the name of the company, address, contact info.
- Information about the buyer – the name of the company/person, address, contact info.
- Purchase order number – a unique numerical identifier of the order.
- Information about the products – quantity, characteristics, etc.
- Pricing – total and for each particular product.
- Shipping details – when a product will be shipped, approximate date of arrival, address for delivery.
After filling up a form, the customer usually received a confirmation via email, message, or even a phone call, if a seller needs to confirm any details.
How to create an order form?
Catalog Machine is online software that allows you to create an order request form ready for printing or design a catalog with an embedded order form. Let’s see how you can create a PDF purchase order form in 3 Steps.
Step 1.
After logging in to the system, go to Catalog and click Crete New on the top right corner.
Select the Blank option on the very left. Click Create your catalog.
Step 2.
Now you need to select a proper layout.
Click More types on the right part of your screen.
Select Order form from the appeared page layout options.
Now you need to select a template that suits your business needs: with product images, wholesale or static order forms. All of them are fully customizable, so no worries if you need to add extra information or change the design.
Step 3.
Customizing order form.
Add products you would like to include.
You can add products one by one, all products at once, or a group (collection or category).
After adding, you can click Update Products to finish creating. The other option is to select Fields and Design to add more or delete some product fields and change the design.
Play around with the available options to find the one that you like the most.
To preview how it will look like a PDF document or download it to your device, go to View/Download, PDF section, and select the option you need.
Adding an order form to an existing catalog
… is even more comfortable.
Go to the catalog, click on the Orders on the left sidebar.
Here you can enable orders right from the catalog.
As you can see from the image below, it will appear here once someone makes an order.
Advanced Settings
Configure order request settings from the Order Requests page.
- Custom caption for the button and order form
- Enable product prices and totals for order requests
- Enable product variants (displayed for products that have variants) with fields
- Fill in the order form header and footer.
- Add custom fields
- · Select product fields that will be added to a notification email, presented at the order request form for your client and order request details page for you.
- Configure a notification email sent to your customer
Order Request List, Details, and Management
Go to the Order Requests page from the right sidebar to access the list and details pages.
On the list page:
- Manage simple order request life-cycle: Accept, Reject or Close order requests or delete them. These actions are available from list and details pages.
- Filter orders by text, status, products, and dates
- Export orders in CSV format
Order Details
Click on Order ID to access the Order Request Details.
You can add your notes on the Order Request Details page.
Manage order numbers
Change order request number by clicking on it and entering the number that will be synchronized with your system. After that, all new orders will be automatically enumerated using your system (ex. Renamed last order is 1234, the next one will be 1235). The system recognizes only the numerical part of the order name. So, if you name the order ABC1234, the next one will still be 1235.
Now you know what a purchase order form is, why you need it, and how you can easily create one with Catalog Machine.