In running a business, you will deal with purchase orders and invoices on a daily basis like ERP software. These two things will always be present in your daily life at the office. Unfortunately, there are still many people who do not understand the difference between these two terms.
Although the content is more or less the same, purchase orders (PO) and invoices have a number of fundamental differences between them. To avoid embarrassing yourself when dealing with a vendor because you using the wrong term, you need to read this article first.
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Table Of Content
Understanding Purchase Order
PO is a commercial document issued by the buyer to the seller. The contents of the PO generally include details of the items you want to buy from the seller. This detail usually consists of the item name you want to buy, amount, color, price, etc. that are deemed necessary.
Buyers are required to list everything they want to buy from the supplier completely and clearly. This is important to avoid confusion between the supplier and the buyer. You wouldn’t want your supplier to send the wrong items, do you? If both parties have agreed on the contents of the purchase order, then this document will be a contract that binds both parties legally.
Read more: The Importance of Purchase Order (PO) in Business
Definition of Invoice
The buyer sends the purchase order to the supplier, and the invoice is the opposite. An invoice is a document that the supplier makes for the buyer. The contents of the invoice document are more or less the same as the PO documents. It’s only the purpose that different. Purchasing management systems help you make it easier.
The invoice is proof of order to collect payments to buyers for sold goods/services that have. Just like PO, invoices legally bind the seller and buyer. At this stage, the invoice indicates that the buyer owes the seller.
There are two ways to deliver invoices that are usually done by sellers to buyers. First, send the invoice to the buyer when the item reaches the buyer, generally when it approaches maturity. The second way is when both parties have agreed on the purchase order and the buyer has completed the order.
The following are the differences and similarities between purchase orders and invoices:
Difference:
- Purchase orders (PO) are made by the buyer and are aimed at the seller, while the invoice is made by the seller for the buyer.
- The contents of the PO are complete details of ordering goods/services you want to buy. Whereas invoices are details of billing of goods/services sold to buyers.
- The seller sends the purchase order when the buyer orders goods/services. The seller sends an invoice at the due date of the order payment when they send the goods/services.
Equation:
- Both documents are equally binding on buyers and sellers legally.
- PO and invoice are both proof that there are buying and selling transactions between buyers and sellers.
- The contents of the PO and invoice have almost the same information, which is about buyers and sellers, addresses, telephone numbers, and so on.
Conclusion
Purchase orders and invoices are an integral part of daily activities in your company. If until now you are still having trouble making purchase orders and invoices correctly, you can use the purchasing system from HashMicro.
This easy, practical, and complete purchase software has proven to increase the efficiency of the purchasing process in several companies in various countries, such as Indonesia, Singapore, and other countries.
If you want to automate other business aspects of your company in one system, you can implement an ERP system from HashMicro. This ERP software is customizable and has been used by well-known companies such as The Face Shop, Nature Republic, Wendy’s, Baskin-Robbins, and many more.
