Online purchase order template
- Committed across the year
- $8,436
- Value of one release
- $703
- Budget headroom after the commitment
- $1,564
- Releases the budget cap covers
- 14
Nothing in these worksheets is a figure we found somewhere. Every number comes from the inputs you enter and the method stated on the page: the discount comes off the line total before tax, tax is charged on the goods and not on shipping, and the budget check is your own remaining balance less your own estimate. The defaults are a worked example, not a recommendation and not a benchmark.
The figures above start from a worked example ($8,436). Change any input and the answer updates as you type.
Download the Online purchase order template worked example (CSV)
A blanket order is one agreement drawn down in releases, and it is the arrangement small businesses fall into without deciding on it: the same order to the same supplier, monthly, at an agreed price. The trouble is that nobody adds it up. Enter the units on each release, the agreed unit price and discount, how many releases a year, and the budget cap for that supplier. The sheet returns the value of one release, the annual commitment, the headroom left against the cap, how many releases the cap covers, the discount earned across the year and the total units. On the worked example a $703 release taken monthly commits $8,436 against a $10,000 cap, leaving $1,564 of headroom and covering 14 releases in total.
One release looks small, twelve is a commitment
$703 is a routine order that nobody would escalate. Twelve of them is $8,436, which in most small businesses is a number that would have required a conversation had it been asked for at once. That gap between how a blanket order is approved and what it actually commits is the reason to total it before agreeing it.
The cap tells you when the arrangement runs out
A $10,000 cap covers 14 releases of $703, so a monthly arrangement runs into the cap in the fifteenth month rather than at the year end. Knowing which month that falls in is the difference between renegotiating deliberately and discovering it when an order is refused.
The discount is worth totalling too
A 5% discount is $37 on one release and $444 across the year. That is the number to quote when the supplier proposes a price rise, and it is also the number to weigh against the flexibility you give up by committing to a blanket order in the first place.
Online purchase order template: common questions
What is a blanket purchase order?
One agreement with a supplier covering repeated deliveries at an agreed price, drawn down in releases rather than ordered afresh each time. It saves raising an order every month and commits you in exchange.
Should a blanket order have a cap?
Yes, in value or in units, and preferably both. Without a cap the agreement has no natural review point, and a price that was competitive when it was agreed simply persists.
How is this different from a standing order?
In practice, very little for a small business. The useful distinction is that a blanket order names a total commitment and a price, which is what makes it reviewable, while a standing order often names neither.
Requly Pro
Keeping the orders
The worksheet prices one order on one day. Pro remembers it: the requisition it came from, the number it was issued under, who approved it, what has been received against it and which invoice it was matched to.
- Download the order as a file you can send to a supplier
- Send the order out without the Requly watermark on it
- Come back to this order with the figures still in it
- Put your own logo on the orders your suppliers receive
- Take every requisition and order out at once, as a file
- Send the purchase order to the supplier without leaving the record
- Not used by Requly: nothing here takes a payment from your suppliers
- Match orders against the bills your books already carry
$49per month, whole team
Start Requly Pro PricingRequly Pro is $49 a month and renews on the same date each month at the same $49 until you cancel. There is no introductory rate, no minimum term and no automatic step up in price. If the price ever changes you keep the price you signed at.