--- title: "Wholesale Order Forms: From PDF and Spreadsheet to Online Ordering" url: https://www.uncap.com/post/wholesale-order-form author: "Denis Dyli" published: 2026-11-12 updated: 2026-11-12 summary: "A wholesale order form is the supplier's ordering document: account and ship-to details, a PO number, each SKU with pack size, price and quantity, totals and payment terms. PDF and spreadsheet forms work for a small catalog at one price level, but prices go stale, versions multiply by tier and every order is retyped. On Shopify B2B, each field becomes a setting: company locations, catalogs, quantity rules for case packs, PO numbers, payment terms and quick order lists. Kooks moved hand-processed wholesale orders onto a Shopify B2B store with wholesale portals and reported 22% higher conversion." --- # Wholesale Order Forms: From PDF and Spreadsheet to Online Ordering > A wholesale order form is the supplier's ordering document: account and ship-to details, a PO number, each SKU with pack size, price and quantity, totals and payment terms. PDF and spreadsheet forms work for a small catalog at one price level, but prices go stale, versions multiply by tier and every order is retyped. On Shopify B2B, each field becomes a setting: company locations, catalogs, quantity rules for case packs, PO numbers, payment terms and quick order lists. Kooks moved hand-processed wholesale orders onto a Shopify B2B store with wholesale portals and reported 22% higher conversion. A wholesale order form is the document a business buyer uses to order from a supplier in bulk: who is ordering, which SKUs, how many, where to ship and on what terms. Most start as a PDF or a spreadsheet. Moving the same fields online lets each buyer order against their own prices and rules. Last updated: November 12, 2026. ## What a wholesale order form is A wholesale order form is the supplier's ordering document. A manufacturer, distributor or brand hands it to retailers, dealers, contractors or other trade accounts, and the buyer fills it in to place an order. It travels as a printed sheet at a trade show, a PDF attached to the [line sheet](/post/line-sheet), or a spreadsheet the buyer saves and sends back. It is close to a [purchase order](/glossary/purchase-order), and the two often describe the same order from opposite sides. The purchase order is the buyer's document, with the buyer's PO number. The order form is yours, laid out with your SKUs, your pack sizes and your rules. A good order form asks for the buyer's PO number so the two can be matched later. What makes an order wholesale is the buyer and the rules. The buyer is a business ordering in quantity to resell or to use in its own work. The rules are the ones a retail cart never shows: trade prices, case packs, order minimums, payment terms and approved ship-to addresses. The same document goes by several names. A bulk order form usually means one page where a buyer enters quantities for many items at once. A quick order form is the same idea, often built for buyers who already know their item numbers. Behind both sits a wholesale ordering system: whatever takes the order from the buyer to your warehouse and your books, whether that is a person retyping a spreadsheet or a B2B store. ## The fields every wholesale order form needs A wholesale order form needs enough to identify the account, fill every line correctly and bill on the right terms. Group the fields the way a buyer thinks about the order. - Account. Business name, account number, ordering contact, email and phone. - Addresses. Bill-to address and the ship-to location for this order, chosen from the account's approved locations where you can. - Order references. The buyer's PO number, order date and requested ship or delivery date. - Product lines. For each line: SKU , description, variant (size, color, finish), pack size, unit price, quantity and line total. - Ordering rules. Minimum order quantity, the case pack each item ships in, and any minimum order value, printed next to the lines they apply to. - Totals. Subtotal, any volume discount, freight terms and the order total. - Payment. The account's payment terms (net 30, for example) or the payment method for prepaid accounts. - Shipping. Preferred carrier or ship method and any delivery notes, such as liftgate or receiving hours. - Terms and approval. Your terms of sale and returns policy, plus the name of the person authorizing the order. Pack size and ship-to need the most care. With pack size, a buyer who reads a per-unit price as a per-case price, or orders 18 of an item that ships in 12s, creates a correction before the order can ship. With the ship-to, free-typed addresses on a form drift from the addresses in your ERP, and every new variation is a question for customer service. ## Why PDF and spreadsheet order forms break PDF and spreadsheet order forms work for a small catalog at one price level. They break as the business grows, and usually in the same places. **Prices go stale.** A PDF is frozen the day it is exported. When a price changes, every copy already sent still shows the old one, and buyers keep ordering from the copy they saved months ago. **Versions multiply.** Sell at three price tiers and you maintain three forms. Add contract pricing for key accounts and each one gets its own file. Every update has to reach every version. **Rules are suggestions.** A form can print "ships in cases of 12," but it can't stop a buyer from writing 18. Someone on your team catches it, calls the buyer and fixes the order. **Spreadsheets get edited.** Buyers insert rows, overwrite formulas and paste item numbers in the wrong column. The file you receive is not always the file you sent. **Every order gets retyped.** A form that arrives by email still has to be keyed into the ERP or order system by hand. Each retyped line is another chance for a wrong SKU or a wrong quantity, and the buyer has no confirmation until someone gets to it. Stock is the last gap. A form lists what you sell but says nothing about what is on the shelf, so a buyer learns about a backorder only after ordering. Paper still has a place. Trade shows run on printed forms, and some accounts will keep sending a spreadsheet for years. What matters is whether your team treats the form as the system of record or as one of several ways an order comes in. ## How to create a wholesale order form To create a wholesale order form, start from your product data. List every orderable SKU with its pack size, minimum and price for the tier the form is for, then lay out the fields above around that list. A free template can supply the layout. The data has to come from your own records. If you are building a PDF or spreadsheet version, a few choices make it hold up longer: - One form per price tier. Never put two price levels on one sheet and ask the buyer to pick. - Pack size and minimum on every line. Put them next to the quantity box, where the buyer is already looking. - Item numbers that match your ERP. If the SKU on the form isn't the SKU in your system, someone translates every order. - A version date in the footer. Your team can see at a glance whether the buyer is ordering from the current form. - A required PO number field. Your accounts receivable team will need it to match payment to the order. Then decide when the form stops being the system. A useful test is how many versions you keep in sync. If a price change means updating more than a handful of files, or your team spends real hours each week retyping forms, it is time to move ordering online. Our [wholesale catalog guide](/post/wholesale-catalog) walks through the same tipping point for the product data behind the form. ## Moving the order form online with Shopify B2B Moving to online ordering means each field on the form becomes a setting or a record, so the buyer can't get it wrong. On Shopify, B2B runs on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, and Shopify says "Your B2B customers must log in with customer accounts to access their wholesale information and assigned catalogs." Here is where each part of the form lands. - Account and addresses. Each B2B customer is a company with company locations, and Shopify says "Each location can have its own tax ID, tax exemptions, shipping address, billing address, pricing, payment terms, and contacts." - Prices. Catalogs "Create custom pricing and control the availability of products for your B2B customers," so each buyer sees their own tier. On the Basic, Grow and Advanced plans, Shopify allows "up to 3 active catalog assignments across active B2B markets." - Pack sizes and minimums. Quantity rules set "minimum, maximum, or increments that a variant can be ordered in." Shopify's example: products boxed in multiples of 10 get an increment rule of 10, "so customers must purchase 10, 20, 30, products at a time." Our post on order minimums, case packs and MOQs covers the setup. - Volume discounts. "You can add up to 10 price breaks per product which are applied to each variant." - PO number. Shopify lets B2B customers "add purchase order (PO) numbers to an order." - Payment terms. "Payment terms define how long a company has to pay for an order," set per company location. - Review before confirming. You can require orders "to be placed as drafts based on company location," so your team checks them before they are confirmed. The bulk-entry grid has an online version as well. Shopify's quick order list lets B2B customers "add multiple variants of a product to their cart in one click from the product description page," and easy reorders let them reorder "by duplicating a past order." Both are on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus plans. For how each one works in practice, and where a storewide SKU form comes in, read our guide to [quick order, reorder and sales rep ordering on Shopify B2B](/post/shopify-b2b-quick-order-reorder-sales-rep). ## Order form app, B2B store or buyer portal An online wholesale order form can be three different things, and the right one depends on how your buyers order. **An order form app.** A single-page form on top of your store lets buyers enter quantities for many products at once. It fits when your buyers mostly type in SKUs they already know and your pricing is simple. **A B2B store.** Shopify B2B with company accounts, catalogs, quantity rules and payment terms covers most of what a paper form did, with the rules enforced at the cart. It fits most wholesalers and distributors selling a defined catalog to repeat accounts. Our [Shopify B2B wholesale setup guide](/post/shopify-b2b-wholesale-setup) lays out the build order. **A buyer portal.** When accounts want more than an order page (reorder lists, invoices, several users with their own permissions, spend limits), the order form becomes one part of a portal. [Uncap Portal](/products/portal) gives trade accounts "a self-serve home on Shopify, catalogs, pricing, reorders, invoices, and users," with "Reorder lists, saved preferences, and order history in one place." Some orders are not ready for a form at all. A buyer who needs a price worked out for a project, or an approval before ordering, needs a quote. [Uncap Quotes](/products/quotes) runs the configure, price, quote workflow inside the Shopify admin, and once a quote is approved "it becomes a Shopify order in one step." [Kooks Headers and Exhaust](/work/kooks) is a working example of the switch. Before the move, "Wholesale orders were processed by hand." Uncap built one Shopify B2B and D2C store with "Secure B2B portals with custom pricing, account management, and streamlined reordering," and the result was 22% higher conversion and 38% lower total cost of ownership. ## A rollout plan from paper to online ordering Here is the order of work we suggest when moving wholesale buyers from order forms to an online ordering system. **Step 1: Collect every form in use.** Gather the PDFs, spreadsheets and printed sheets your accounts actually order from. The differences between them show you every price tier and rule you need to rebuild. **Step 2: Clean the product data.** One record per variant, with SKU, pack size, minimum and the price for each tier. This is the same data the form needed, now in one place. **Step 3: Set up accounts and rules.** Create companies and locations, assign catalogs and payment terms, and turn pack sizes and minimums into quantity rules. **Step 4: Connect the ERP.** Shopify supports integrating "your enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, accounting systems, or other business systems with your B2B store," so orders land in the ERP without retyping and prices come from one source. **Step 5: Invite a few accounts first.** Start with buyers who order often, watch where they get stuck, then open it to everyone. Keep accepting the old form for a while, and enter those orders on the buyer's account so their history stays in one place. New accounts need a way in, too. Our post on [B2B credit applications](/post/b2b-credit-application) covers taking wholesale account applications online on Shopify B2B. ## Talk through your order form Uncap is a Shopify Platinum Partner that builds [Shopify B2B for wholesalers](/solutions/wholesale), manufacturers and distributors. If your buyers still order from a spreadsheet you emailed last year, send us the form. [Talk to Our Experts](/quote), and we will show you which fields become settings and which need a build. ## Frequently asked questions ### What is a wholesale order form? A wholesale order form is the document a business buyer fills in to order products in bulk from a supplier. It lists the buyer's account and ship-to details, a PO number, each SKU with pack size, price and quantity, the order total, and the payment terms. Suppliers send it as a PDF, a spreadsheet or an online form. ### What should a wholesale order form include? A wholesale order form should include the buyer's business name and account number, contact details, bill-to and ship-to addresses, PO number, order and requested ship dates, a product table with SKU, description, pack size, unit price, quantity and line total, order minimums, totals, payment terms, shipping method and your terms of sale. ### How do I create my own wholesale order form? Start from your product data: list every orderable SKU with its pack size, minimum and price for one price tier, then add account, address, PO number, shipping and payment fields around it. Make one form per price tier, use the same item numbers as your ERP, and put a version date in the footer. ### What is the difference between a wholesale order form and a purchase order? A wholesale order form is the supplier's document, laid out with the supplier's SKUs, pack sizes and rules. A purchase order is the buyer's document, with the buyer's own PO number. They often describe the same order, which is why a good order form asks for the buyer's PO number. ### What is a bulk order form or quick order form? A bulk order form or quick order form is a single page where a buyer enters quantities for many items at once instead of adding each one to a cart. On Shopify B2B, the quick order list lets B2B customers add multiple variants of a product to their cart in one click from the product page. ### Can wholesale buyers order online on Shopify without an order form app? Yes. Shopify B2B, on the Basic, Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, gives buyers company accounts with assigned catalogs, quantity rules for case packs and minimums, PO number fields, payment terms, quick order lists and reorders from past orders. An order form app adds a single-page entry grid on top. ### Is a PDF wholesale order form enough? A PDF wholesale order form is enough for a small catalog sold at one price level. Once you sell at several price tiers, change prices often, or retype many forms each week, every update has to reach every copy of the form. That is the point to move ordering online.