Ce guide n'est pas encore traduit dans votre langue — voici la version anglaise.
When a business buys from another business, the same transaction can generate two different documents, one from each side — and they're easy to mix up because they often cover nearly identical information.
Purchase order: the buyer's document
A purchase order is issued by the buyer, confirming what they're ordering and authorizing the purchase on their own end. It's their internal commitment, sent to the seller as notice of an approved order.
Sales order: the seller's document
A sales order is issued by the seller, in response to a purchase order (or any confirmed order) — internally confirming that the order has been received and accepted, and will be fulfilled. It's your side's record that the sale is happening, used to trigger fulfillment, scheduling, or production.
Why a business might issue both
For larger or repeat B2B transactions, it's common for both documents to exist for the same deal: the buyer's purchase order authorizes their spend, and the seller's sales order confirms acceptance and kicks off fulfillment on the seller's side. They typically reference each other — the sales order citing the buyer's PO number — so both companies' internal systems can match them to the same transaction.
When you only need one
Plenty of transactions don't need this level of formality on both sides. If you're the seller and the client doesn't issue formal purchase orders, a sales order (or simply the accepted quote) can serve as your own internal confirmation that an order is happening, without a corresponding PO from the buyer's side.
Where the invoice fits in
Neither document is a request for payment — that's still the invoice's job, issued once the order is fulfilled, ideally referencing both the sales order and the buyer's PO number if one exists. Our sales order generator and purchase order generator cover each side.
Same deal, same numbers, two documents — one confirming what's being bought, the other confirming what's being sold. Knowing which one you're looking at (and which one you should be issuing) keeps a multi-document transaction from turning into a paperwork tangle.