What a purchase order actually needs

A purchase order is the buyer's document. It is the moment the intention to buy becomes a commitment to buy, and once the supplier accepts it, both sides are working from the same list at the same prices.

The required parts

• A unique PO number — this is what the supplier will quote on the invoice, and what your accounts team will match against.
• The date raised.
• Buyer details and supplier details, in full.
• Itemised goods or services: description, quantity, unit price.
• The total.
• A delivery date, and a delivery address if it differs from the buyer address.
• Terms — payment period, and anything conditional.

The PO number is the part people under-rate. Three-way matching — order, delivery note, invoice — only works if the number is on all three. A missing PO number is the most common reason an invoice sits unpaid while everyone waits for someone else.

Quote, PO, invoice

A quote is the supplier saying “here is what it would cost”. A purchase order is the buyer saying “yes, supply that”. An invoice is the supplier saying “that has been supplied, now pay”. Three documents, three directions, and mixing them up is how a payment ends up a month late.

Numbering, honestly

A document generator that runs entirely in a browser tab cannot keep a sequence between visits, because it stores nothing between visits. Ours pre-fills a number you can overwrite, and that is the truthful limit of what it does.

It generates documents. It does not keep a register. If you need one, keep the PDFs somewhere consistent — or use an accounting system, which is what one is for.

For a handful of orders a month, a folder and a consistent number format is genuinely enough. For more than that, the register matters more than the document, and this is the wrong tool.

Supplier pricing stays yours

What you pay your suppliers is commercially sensitive, and there is no reason for it to travel. Everything here stays in the tab — nothing is saved, sent or logged.