No matter what sphere of business you are in, you have most likely come across a purchase order. Purchase orders (POs) are the official documentation used between two parties to send and receive goods. The purchase order process can be quite involved and require the work of receptionists, procurement officers, people from the finance team, managers and/or the CEO. With so many people, it is necessary to have a streamlined and ordered process.
Multiple sign-offs used to mean lots of printing, signing and faxing. The next iteration of this process involved printing, signing and scanning to send through email, which some businesses still use. The pandemic, like most crises, has forced lagging businesses to modernize, with the increase in remote working causing a shift to purely online creation, editing, e-signing, sharing and storage of documentation. Not only is working with documentation online practical, it is allowing businesses to save time and boost their profit margin, with greater transparency to boot.
In this article we’ll take a look at what a purchase order involves, see where you can get a handy purchase order template, and how it can be customized, shared and stored to meet the needs of your operation.
What does a purchase order involve?
Before we look at the purchase order format, it’s best to broadly understand the purchase order process and what the PO itself should include. Generally speaking the following steps are encountered:
- Creation – Based on a formal or informal request (depending on your organization), a purchase order will be created.
- Internal approval – A purchase order may need to be overseen and approved by the procurement team, finance team or senior managers.
- Dispatch – The purchase order is now sent to the vendor through regular mail, email or a link to a shared cloud storage location.
- Vendor approval – Once the vendor accepts the purchase order it is now a legally binding document.
- Delivery of goods and due diligence – The goods arrive, but you must check against more than one piece of documentation that everything is accounted for and as described.
- Storage of documentation – Any documentation pertaining to the purchase now needs to be stored in a secure but accessible location.
While this may seem formal, it is the best way to make sure everything is tracked and that both parties are clear about the terms and conditions of the transaction. To this end, the purchase order should contain all salient information, such as PO number, item quantity, a detailed description of the items, price, item SKU (Stock Keeping Unit), date of purchase and payment terms (including things such as payment due date).
Where can I get my hands on a sample purchase order form?
The short answer, lots of places. A quick search on the internet will reveal a world of PO templates that you can utilize, mostly in PDF, Word and Excel formats. While Word and Excel documents can seem handy to use, it is well known that the formatting of these documents can render differently from device to device, depending on which program or browser is being used. This is why the industry standard is PDF, as it is easy to use, professional and maintains formatting no matter the device. Especially with purchase orders, the unclear display of a row of numbers could lead to some serious misunderstandings.
With the above information in mind, one great purchase order template doc is supplied by Lumin PDF, a company that provides PDF editing software with cloud integration. With a free Lumin PDF account, the purchase order template in PDF form is completely customizable and able to be shared, edited, signed and sent easily, with no printing required.
Lumin PDF makes the construction of purchase orders more efficient
To remain competitive in today’s fast-paced globalized world, the efficient processing and storage of documents is key. Lumin’s simple purchase order template and accompanying editing software makes the handling of POs easy and we’ll demonstrate how.
Imagine you get a request from your manager to put together a purchase order for some goods. You go to Lumin PDF’s website and download their sample purchase order. With Lumin PDF linked to your GoogleDrive, you now have a “live” document which auto-saves. You tweak the PO format with Lumin PDF’s editing tools, adding your company logo and making the text specific to your purchase. When it’s ready, all you have to do is share the link with your manager, the finance team and any other relevant parties.
They can make their own changes directly in the document in real-time, or leave comments stating which parts should be altered before final sign-off. Everyone having looked at the document, a final e-signature can be provided by the boss, with the PDF purchase order sent in a matter of minutes.
In that scenario, you can see that many parties can view and make changes to a PDF purchase order form template in real-time and with complete transparency. With the rise of remote working it is without doubt that cloud editing and storage is the best way forward.
Is my purchase order template in Word compatible with Lumin?
You may have already downloaded and opened a purchase order letter format in Word, but have decided you want to take advantage of Lumin’s features. Fortunately, at any point in the process of editing, you have the ability to convert your purchase order format from Word to PDF. A purchase order template in Google docs can also just as easily be converted.
Purchase orders the easy way
Hopefully you now have a better idea of what a purchase order contains and how to construct it. Sample letters to suppliers for purchase orders are not difficult to come across, but incorporating them into a system that allows ease of use, solid formatting, sharing and proper oversight takes more work. Lumin PDF is here to make purchase order documentation straightforward and easy to use in the workplace.
