Purchase order template: what a designer's PO has to carry
A purchase order template built for interior design orders — sidemark, finish codes, COM, freight terms, deposit and acknowledgement tracking, with line items. Free CSV, no email required.
By Idan Mann, founder of NYA
The short answer
A purchase order is the numbered instruction that buys the goods. This template carries the header a vendor needs — account, ship-to, sidemark, freight terms, deposit — plus line items with finish and COM detail, so an order can be placed and later audited from one document.
A purchase order exists so that a disagreement six months from now can be settled by reading rather than remembering. Raise one only for what the client has already approved in writing, number them sequentially, and never let a line onto a PO that did not come off an approved proposal.
Header — what each field carries
| Field | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| PO number | Unique and sequential. This is the spine of the audit trail — the number that ties acknowledgement, invoice, delivery and payment together. | PO-2026-0148 |
| PO date | The date you issued it, which is not the date the clock starts. That is the deposit. | 2026-07-31 |
| Vendor | Who you are buying from, which is often a showroom or rep firm rather than the manufacturer. | Vitra USA |
| Your account # | So the discount applied is the one you negotiated rather than a default. | TR-88214 |
| Vendor contact | A named person and their email. Orders that go to a general inbox are orders nobody owns. | s.reyes@vitra.example |
| Bill to | Your firm — you are the buyer of record, not the client. | Bergman Studio LLC, 14 Wharf St |
| Ship to | Your receiving warehouse, not the job site. A site delivery is a signature from whoever happened to be there. | Metro Receiving, 900 Industrial Way |
| Sidemark | Client and room. The only field on the paperwork that tells a warehouse which project a pallet belongs to. | Bergman / Living Rm |
| Freight terms | Who owns the goods in transit and who files the damage claim. Agree it here, not after the crate arrives crushed. | FOB factory, prepaid & add |
| Requested ship date | What you are asking for, against which the acknowledgement will tell you what you are getting. | 2026-10-23 |
| Deposit paid | Amount, date and method. Production does not begin until this clears — the lead time starts here. | $2,400 — 2026-07-31, ACH |
| Balance terms | When the rest is due and against what event: shipment, delivery, or net days. | Balance due prior to shipment |
| Acknowledgement received | Date received and checked. An unchecked acknowledgement is an order you have not actually placed. | 2026-08-04, checked JB |
Line items — what each field carries
One row per item. Copy the specification fields from the spec sheet rather than retyping them — retyping is where wrong finishes are born.
| Column | What goes in it | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Line | Sequential within this PO. | 1 |
| Qty | How many of this exact configuration. | 2 |
| Item + model # | Description plus the full model number including its variant suffix. | Lounge chair, AC-402-L |
| Finish / fabric codes | Exactly as the vendor writes them, with the grade. | OAK-NAT-04 / F-220 Grade C |
| COM | Yardage, fabric and where it is shipping from. Note whether it has already left the mill. | 6.5 yd Kravet 34567-11, shipped 07-29 |
| Unit net price | The agreed price per unit — what you expect to be invoiced. | 2400.00 |
| Extended | Qty × unit net price. What you expect this line to be invoiced at, before freight. | 4800.00 |
| Lead time | As quoted for this line. Different lines on one PO frequently have different lead times. | 12 wks |
The three dates that are not the same date
- PO date — when you issued it.
- Deposit cleared — when the vendor's lead time actually starts.
- Acknowledgement date — when the vendor confirmed what they will build, and the last point a correction is free.
Common questions
- Does a purchase order need to be signed?
- Not usually by the vendor — their acknowledgement is the acceptance. What matters far more is that the PO exists before the goods do, is numbered, and references an approval you can produce.
- One PO per vendor or per item?
- Per vendor per shipment, generally. Items that ship together belong on one PO; items with very different lead times are often cleaner apart, because a single PO tends to be tracked, invoiced and deposited as one thing.