Construction Purchase Order Template for Subcontractors: Free PDF Download

This post shares a free purchase order template for subcontractors in the construction industry. Below, we’ll provide a link to download the template for your business.  

While this template offers a consistent format for documenting your purchase orders, keep in mind that PDF templates have key limitations:

• Creating purchase orders in a PDF is manual, time-consuming, and error-prone, requiring you to enter each line item while cross-referencing information from various websites, apps, or documents.

• PDF purchase orders are disconnected from your inventory management system (whether that’s Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or other inventory software). 

• PDFs lack integration with your project management system, job costing spreadsheets, and other tools used throughout a project.

These limitations can significantly impact your operational efficiency and bottom line.

In addition to sharing our free purchase order form below, we’ll discuss how ServiceTitan’s construction management software centralizes purchasing and inventory workflows for contractors. 

Download Our Free Construction Purchase Order Template

The form includes the following sections to fill out:

Purchase Order Information

• Purchase Order Number

• Date Issued

• Project Name

• Project Address

Supplier Information

• Supplier Company Name

• Contact Person

• Phone Number

• Email Address

• Mailing Address

Subcontractor Information

• Company Name

• Contact Person

• Phone Number

• Email Address

• Mailing Address

General Contractor Information (For Reference)

• Company Name

• Contact Person

• Phone Number

• Email Address

• Mailing Address

Order Details

• Material/Equipment Description

• Specifications and Standards

• Quantity

• Unit Price

• Total Price

Delivery Information

• Delivery Address

• Delivery Date

• Special Instructions

Payment Terms

• Total Order Amount

• Payment Schedule

• Initial Payment & Due Date

• Balance Payment & Due Date

• Payment Method

• Conditions for Payment

Change Orders

• Change Order Procedure

• Additional Costs

Insurance and Compliance

• Insurance Requirements

• Licenses and Permits

• Safety and Compliance

Signatures

• Authorized Subcontractor Representative

  • Print Name

  • Date

• Authorized Supplier Representative

  • Print Name

  • Date

• Additional Terms and Conditions

Using this form template can help capture all necessary details and send them to suppliers when making purchases. However, as mentioned earlier, PDF forms have key limitations regarding efficiency and integration with other tools you use for inventory, project management, and business operations.

Below, we’ll discuss how construction management software like ServiceTitan can help contractors address these and other challenges.

How ServiceTitan Improves and Centralizes Purchasing and Inventory Management For Contractors

ServiceTitan’s cloud-based construction management platform provides robust inventory tracking capabilities, enabling you to easily view and track purchase orders, adjustments, transfers, item quantities, requisitions, replenishment, warranties, and more. 

Pricebook items that business owners and managers activate as inventory items are automatically tracked on our platform. 

We’ll break down how inventory is managed from our desktop platform. Then, we’ll walk through the features of our inventory app, which streamlines workflows with mobile barcode scanning.

Item Overview: Easily View and Drill Down Into Inventory Details by Item

In the Item Overview section, users can get a 10,000-foot and granular view of their inventory from one place. They can see high-level metrics such as:

• Inventory valuation

• Total negative items

• Total items

They can also see a comprehensive view of their equipment and materials, including:

• Item name

• Item code

• Item description

• Inventory type

• Inventory tags

• Total quantity (available, on hold, on order, on hand) 

• Average cost per unit

• Total value 

In addition, contractors can easily drill down into individual inventory items for specific details. For example, they can see each job where that item has been used, how many times it’s been used overall, and more.  

Inventory Templates: Standardize & Automate the Allocation of Construction Materials and Equipment to Specific Locations

Once inventory items have been enabled in their pricebook, contractors can use inventory templates to define the expected equipment and material items that should be in stock at given locations (job site, office, storage, company truck, etc.). This includes setting minimum and maximum quantities for each item.

This feature is particularly useful for subcontractors who do a lot of commercial work — reducing the inefficiencies and confusion that often come with handling a diverse array of equipment and materials.

Create and Manage Purchase Orders with Ease

Whenever a vendor replenishment is initiated, an appointed person will be notified to create a purchase order for the request. (Users can either generate a purchase order only or create and send it simultaneously.)

In cases where multiple inventory items need resupplying simultaneously, users can easily handle that as well.   

Purchase orders can be sent as a PDF, CSV file, or both. Many contractors use the “Mark as Sent” field when ordering items outside of the ServiceTitan platform, such as by calling a vendor or placing an order on a vendor’s website.   

Optimize Purchase Orders Further with Procure-to-Pay 

With our Procure-to-Pay upgrade, companies can choose to have ServiceTitan auto-send purchase orders to suppliers. This eliminates the need to create a separate PO, allowing contractors to save time and further streamline the procurement process. 

Procure-to-Pay also provides automated, real-time updates to the cost and availability of pricebook items.

Efficiently Track Purchase Orders

ServiceTitan inventory provides at-a-glance statuses of all purchase orders, including whether it’s pending, sent, partially received, received in full, or canceled. 

In addition, our Aging column displays when each purchase order was sent. This makes it easy to identify delays and follow up with the relevant warehouse or vendor to see what’s behind these issues.

Pending purchase orders can be edited easily. If a project manager wants to change the source of one or more items, push out or bump up a “Required By” date, or send supplies to a different location where they’re more urgently needed, these adjustments can be made easily.  

Track and Manage Vendor Billing & Invoicing

Our Receive Shipment feature allows contractors to attach tickets and receipts to their purchase order paperwork. These become automatically available to the accounting team, so there’s no risk of misplacing or missing crucial documentation during a busy workday. (Read more on our QuickBooks accounting software integration.

Furthermore, ServiceTitan automatically stores data and documents associated with every purchase order on the same platform. Since this storage is centralized in the cloud, office staff never have to chase after misfiled or lost documents. 

ServiceTitan users can update invoices by adding purchase order items directly to the invoices. There’s no need to worry about whether the supplies will be billed to the right client. By cutting out steps between invoicing and billing, this feature can help business owners drastically improve their efficiency while giving them peace of mind. 

It also provides a significant advantage when the scope of work expands throughout a construction project, requiring different inventory items and/or greater quantities than were originally estimated. 

For clients who have highly specific approval, billing, and payment protocols, contractors can manually create the necessary documents using templates already integrated into their process.

To further improve workflow efficiency, our Update Pricebook function automatically adjusts user pricebooks with any price changes that occur during a job, ensuring their pricebook  remains accurate.

Invoices received from vendors are automatically mirrored in bills generated within ServiceTitan. Contractors and/or their employees can pay them directly from the Accounts Payable section. Our software ensures that the proper vendors receive checks in the correct amounts.

Easily Manage Returns and Adjustments (with Fewer Mistakes)

To manage item returns, ServiceTitan users can view a separate Credits section that displays every return that’s in process, allowing construction companies to efficiently track what they’re owed and protect their bottom line. 

Our platform also makes it simple to correct discrepancies between inventory items that are actually on hand versus what’s reflected in the system.

ServiceTitan Adjustments allows subscribers to easily tweak serial numbers, quantities, item types and locations, and more. These can be done by line item or using a spreadsheet template across multiple items and fields to automatically transfer changes across the board to an inventory count. 

Our users have found that this provides vastly greater efficiency because these adjustments would otherwise require spending many hours editing individual line items. 

Additionally, we offer an Inventory Counts feature, which provides a range of highly specific inventory verification counts:

• Cycle Count: Suggested for trucks with customizable inventory templates.

• Item Count: Best for confirming stock levels of a single item across storage locations. 

• Full Inventory Count: Preferred for periodic inventory counts of the warehouse.

These capabilities enable contractors and warehouse managers to focus their time and energy elsewhere, minimizing overhead costs and reducing the manual labor hours.

Use Barcode Scanning with ServiceTitan’s Inventory Mobile App (Available on the App Store and Google Play)

Available for download on the App Store (iOS) and Google Play (Android), the ServiceTitan Inventory App integrates with the ServiceTitan Inventory Module, enabling mobile barcode scanning to streamline workflows like receiving purchase orders, transferring items between locations, and performing inventory counts.

By digitizing traditional inventory processes, companies can accurately record each action, reducing the likelihood of errors that can arise from manual entry. Furthermore, teams benefit from real-time updates that are accessible from the office, field, or warehouse. 

With the ServiceTitan Inventory App, businesses can maintain accurate inventory records effortlessly, leading to better financial accuracy and freeing up resources for other priorities.

Other Features for Construction Project Management

So far, we’ve focused on the purchasing and inventory-specific features that construction companies can benefit from in ServiceTitan. However, the value of investing in a holistic construction management platform lies in the integrated and comprehensive set of tools that help subcontractors run their operations more broadly.

In this section, we’ll cover a few more features that help contractors manage their projects.

Project Dashboard: Manage Projects from One Place

In ServiceTitan, all construction projects are managed from the project overview dashboard. 

This page allows you to: 

1. View all of the basic project information (project name, contact information, customer phone number, etc.).

2. View and log tasks for the project. 

3. Access project financials including project job costing and expense details that update automatically throughout a project.

4. Initiate key actions such as generating an estimate, purchase order, application for payment, invoice, and more.

5. View team members involved in the project.

6. Access an audit trail including events, notes, and project documentation.

Project Financials: Automate Job Costing

As you move throughout a job — creating purchase orders, logging labor hours at the construction site, processing change orders, receiving progress payments, and so on — ServiceTitan automates your financial data collection and KPI calculations.

So, instead of constantly needing to update a series of spreadsheets every time labor costs and material costs are incurred, this is done automatically for you in real-time, based on work that’s completed on-site and entered into the system. 

Furthermore, you can view a detailed breakdown of your actual costs versus your budgeted costs. This will automatically update as you accumulate expenses from materials, equipment, and labor hours. It will display your margins in dollar and percent form to help you track your job costs and profitability throughout your project. 

You can also access a table breaking down your expenses in further detail:

You can click on any line item to see the exact source of that expense (e.g., which technician logged those hours or which purchase orders and vendors supplied a set of materials). This allows you to easily check your numbers and feel confident in the sources of your data.

Get a Personalized Walk-Through of ServiceTitan Construction Management Software

PDF purchase order templates may work in the short term, but PDFs come with significant limitations in terms of efficiency and integration with the tools you use to run your business.

Using advanced construction management software like ServiceTitan enables contractors to reduce errors and optimize their inventory and business processes, leading to increased profitability.