Purchase order template

What a purchase order is

A purchase order, or PO, is the document a buyer sends to a supplier to order goods or services. It lists what you want and how many, the price you expect to pay, where the goods go and when you need them. Once the vendor accepts it, both of you work from the same numbers, and the PO number becomes the reference that ties the order to the packing slip and the vendor's invoice.

Plenty of smaller companies order by email or by phone. A written PO gives you a record of what was agreed, which matters when a shipment arrives short or an invoice comes in above the price you were quoted.

How to fill out this purchase order form

1. Your company. Enter your company name and address, and add your logo if you want it on the document. Tick Remember my company details and this browser fills them in next time.
2. Purchase order. The page suggests the next PO number after the last one you downloaded here, so change it if your numbering is different. Add the date you need the goods by and the vendor's quote number, if they sent one.
3. Vendor and ship to. Enter the supplier's details. The ship-to address matches your company address until you untick Same as my company address, and the ship-to province sets the sales tax.
4. Terms. Choose the payment terms, how the goods ship, the shipping terms and the currency. Choose Custom in any list to type your own.
5. Items. Add one line per part with its quantity, unit and unit price. Each line total and the order total update as you type. Untick Taxable on any line that is exempt.
6. Totals and approval. Add a discount or a shipping charge if there is one, check the tax, and enter the name of the person who approves the order.

When the preview looks right, download the PDF to email to your vendor, or download the Excel file to keep a working copy. Save this order keeps a draft in this browser so you can finish it later.

What goes on a purchase order template

A PO needs enough detail for the vendor to ship the right goods without calling you, and for your team to check the delivery and the invoice against it later. This template has these fields:

• PO number and date. The vendor quotes the number on every packing slip and invoice, so give each order its own.
• Your company, the vendor and the ship-to address. Add a receiving note, such as dock hours, if your deliveries need one.
• Required-by date. The date the goods must arrive, which gives the vendor a firm target.
• Payment terms. Net 30 means payment is due 30 days after the invoice date. 2/10 Net 30 adds a 2% discount if you pay within 10 days.
• Shipping method and shipping terms. Shipping terms such as FOB origin, or an Incoterms 2020 rule such as EXW or DDP, record what you and the vendor agreed about who arranges the freight.
• Line items. Part number, description, quantity, unit, unit price and line total.
• Totals. Subtotal, discount and shipping, then each sales tax on its own line, then the total with its currency.
• Notes and approval. Delivery or packing instructions, and the name and signature of the person who authorized the purchase.

Purchase order template in Excel and Google Sheets

Download Excel gives you an .xlsx file filled in from the form, with working formulas. Each line total multiplies the quantity by the unit price and rounds to the cent. The subtotal adds the lines, and each tax multiplies the taxable amount by the rate in the cell beside it. If you change a quantity or a price in the spreadsheet, the totals follow.

The item table ends with blank rows that carry the same formulas, so you can add lines in the file itself. The file opens in Microsoft Excel and LibreOffice Calc. To use it in Google Sheets, upload it to Google Drive and open it with Sheets.

Purchase order template in PDF

Download PDF builds a letter-size PDF on your device. The text in it is real text, so your vendor can search it and copy part numbers out of it. A long order continues onto a second page with the column headings repeated. Email the PDF to your vendor as it is, or print it and sign it by hand.

Print sends the same purchase order to your printer. To save a PDF from the print window instead, choose Save as PDF as the printer.

GST, HST, PST and QST on a purchase order

The Canada Revenue Agency explains that the rate of GST or HST depends on the place of supply, and its examples tax goods at the rate of the province they are delivered to. This template starts from the ship-to province for that reason. If you pick the goods up at the vendor, the same page has an example where the place of supply is the province where the goods are picked up, so choose that province under Sales tax. You can change the setting, choose no tax, or enter up to two custom rates, for example a US state sales tax.

Each tax is worked out on the same price before tax, so no tax is charged on another tax. Revenu Québec says QST is calculated on the selling price excluding the GST. The B.C. small business guide says that, with limited exceptions, you charge PST on the price before adding the GST. Manitoba says RST is calculated on the selling price before the GST is applied.

Each tax sits on its own line with its own rate, so you can check it against the vendor's invoice line by line. Each tax is rounded to the cent, and half a cent rounds up, which is the rule Revenu Québec describes for GST and QST. The same page says the rates of 9.97%, 14.97% and 14.975% must not appear on the document attesting to the sale, so this template prints the QST rate as 9.975% and never prints a combined rate.

Bon de commande in French or both languages

Switch the document language above the preview to English, Français or Bilingual. The French labels follow the Office québécois de la langue française model for a bon de commande, such as Nº de commande, Fournisseur, Prix unitaire and Total général. The taxes read TPS, TVH, TVP, TVQ and TVD, and amounts are written as 1 234,56 $. The PDF and the Excel file use the language you choose.

Quebec's Charter of the French language covers order forms available to the public in section 52, and invoices, receipts and similar documents in section 57. Whether either one applies to the purchase orders your company sends is a legal question, so ask the Office québécois de la langue française or your lawyer if you are unsure.

Modèle de bon de commande en français

Remplissez le formulaire, choisissez Français au-dessus de l'aperçu, puis téléchargez votre bon de commande en PDF ou en Excel. Chaque taxe, comme la TPS et la TVQ, s'affiche sur sa propre ligne selon la province de livraison. Ce que vous tapez reste dans votre navigateur.

Purchase order vs invoice

A purchase order comes from the buyer before the goods ship, and it says what you intend to buy and at what price. An invoice comes from the vendor after the goods ship or the work is done, and it asks you to pay. When the invoice arrives, your team compares it with the PO and with what was received. This check is often called a three-way match, and it catches a wrong price or a short shipment before the money goes out.

Two other documents sit on either side of the PO. A quote comes from the vendor before you order and states the price they offer, which is why this template has a field for the vendor's quote number. A sales order is the vendor's own record of your PO once they accept it.

What stays in your browser

What you type stays in your browser. The preview and both files are built on your device, and nothing you enter is sent to ThriveAI. The first time you download a PDF, your browser fetches the PDF library, jsPDF and its table plugin, about 140 KB compressed, from a public CDN at cdn.jsdelivr.net. The first Excel download fetches the ExcelJS library, about 260 KB compressed, from the same CDN. After that, your browser usually reuses its saved copy.

This page keeps the last PO number you downloaded or printed in your browser so it can suggest the next one. If you tick Remember my company details, it also keeps your company details and logo, along with the approver's name and title. If you press Save this order, it keeps the whole order until you start a new one. All of it stays on this device, and none of it reaches a server. The page uses PostHog to count visits and button clicks and to record how visitors move through the page. The form, the preview and the status line are hidden from PostHog, so it never records what you type. PostHog's own scripts load from us-assets.i.posthog.com.

When a business outgrows a purchase order template

A template works well while one person places a few orders a week. It starts to strain when several people buy from the same vendors and nobody can see what was paid last time. At that point most companies move purchasing into their ERP or accounting system, where the PO and the invoice share one record.

Past that, the work that takes the time is deciding what to order and when, from stock levels and supplier lead times. Our guides to AI for supply chain and AI for manufacturing cover how smaller manufacturers and distributors handle it. ThriveAI builds private AI systems that draft purchase orders from those signals for a person to review and approve.