Purchase Order (PO) PDF Generator

When a business buys from a supplier, a verbal agreement or an email thread is easy to lose track of. A purchase order turns the request into a document with a number: what is wanted, in what quantity, at what price, where it is to be delivered and by when. The supplier can confirm it, deliver against it and invoice against it, and the buyer can check all three. This page produces such an order as a PDF.

What goes on an order

The order names the buyer and the vendor, and a ship-to address if the goods go elsewhere. It carries a unique PO number and the order date. Each line gives a description, a quantity and the agreed price. At the foot are the totals, the delivery date, the payment terms and any instructions. The page lays all of these out in the same clean format as the other documents on the site, with your logo and accent colour if you wish.

The form

Fill in the buyer details once and they are remembered in this browser. Add the vendor and the ship-to address, then the PO number, the order date, the delivery date, the payment terms such as Net 30 days, and a vendor quote or reference. The items follow in a table you can add to. A box for instructions to the vendor ends the form, and the default text asks them to confirm the order and to quote the PO number on every delivery note and invoice.

A worked example

Press Sample for a coffee roaster ordering packaging. The order has two lines: 2,000 printed coffee bags at 0.42, which is 840.00, and 90 shipping cartons at 1.10, which is 99.00. The subtotal is 939.00, VAT at 20% adds 187.80, and the order total is 1,126.80. The vendor is a packaging company in Manchester, the goods ship to the roaster’s warehouse, delivery is due 14 days after the order date and the payment terms are Net 30 days. The PDF has two signature lines, one for the person authorising the order and one for the vendor’s acknowledgement. After the download the PO number moves from PO-0001 to PO-0002.

Why the number matters

A PO number is the thread that joins a purchase. When the goods arrive, the delivery note should carry it, and the supplier’s invoice should too. Without it, an accounts team may not know which order an invoice belongs to, and payment can be delayed. Number your orders in sequence, never reuse a number, and keep the PDF with the delivery note and the invoice when they come.

Amendments

If you change an order after sending it, issue a new document and say that it replaces the earlier one, rather than editing a PDF that the supplier already holds. A simple way is to add a note such as “Revised, supersedes PO-0041” and use the next number. That leaves a clear record of what was agreed and when.

Edge cases

A line with no description and no rate is left out. Quantities can be decimals. A discount can be a fixed amount or a percentage, and shipping is added after tax. The ship-to section prints with its heading even when you leave its boxes empty, so fill it in, repeating the buyer’s address if the goods come to you. Date fields print in long form, such as 19 November 2026.

Limits

The page does not send the order, track its status, check budgets or hold a history of orders, and it applies one tax rate to the whole order. Whether a purchase order is a binding contract depends on the country and on the terms on each side, so state your conditions of purchase, or refer to them, in the instructions box.

Related tools

• Quote Generator produces the offer that the order accepts.
• Packing Slip Generator is the supplier’s list of what was shipped against it.
• Invoice Generator makes the bill the supplier sends afterwards.
• Inventory Reorder Point and Safety Stock Calculator tells you when it is time to raise one.