How to write an order form

To write an order form, list what can be ordered with the price of each choice, ask for quantities next to the items they multiply, collect delivery or pickup details as choices the business can honour, capture who is buying and how they will pay, and close with the terms and a single tick. Put every price and every extra charge inside the option that carries it, so nothing appears for the first time on the invoice. Finish with a confirmation screen that says exactly when the order counts as accepted, because the form itself records a request, not a sale.

The product table

An order form is built around one question: what do you want? There are three good ways to ask it, and the right one depends on how many things you sell.

A short list of packages. The catering order form for a fictional Brisbane caterer offers five packages as radio buttons, from a working lunch at $24.50 per head to morning tea at $9.50. Five options fit on a phone screen, and the price sits inside each label, so the customer sees it at the moment of choosing.

A table of line items. When customers order many products, a table with named columns replaces a stack of repeated fields. The wholesale product order form for trade accounts uses one table with item code, product, size or variant, and quantity. A table’s rows are fixed when you build the form and every cell is a plain text box, so name the columns precisely and set enough rows for a normal order.

Structured options for a made to order item. The custom cake order form asks for a size as radio buttons that state how many each cake serves, then a small table for flavour by tier, then a single photo of a cake the customer likes. The table works here because every tier needs the same two answers.

Quantities and options

Quantities belong in number fields, next to the item they multiply. The catering form asks for a headcount straight after the package, because the kitchen multiplies one by the other. On a classic form a number field can carry a minimum and a maximum, which is a sensible guard against a headcount of 4,000 typed by accident.

Extras are where totals go wrong. The exhibitor stand booking form handles them well: furniture, power and screens are checkboxes, each with its price in the label, and items sold by count, such as extra exhibitor passes at $28 each, are number fields with the unit price in the question. Nothing is priced later.

Dietary needs in the catering form arrive as a count table with two columns, need and number of people, so “vegan 3, gluten free 2” reaches the kitchen as numbers rather than a paragraph.

Delivery and pickup

Ask for delivery details as choices the business can honour, not as wishes. The catering form offers three delivery windows (thirty minutes before serve time, sixty minutes before, or set up on site, which adds $60) instead of a free text box that would collect “8.55am sharp please”. The serve time itself is a time picker, with 12 or 24 hour display.

Collection matters as much as delivery for anything that comes back. The same form asks whether platters are collected the same day, the next working day, or replaced by disposable platters at an extra $2 per head.

For goods, split the method from the address. The wholesale form asks for a delivery method (standard, express, or pick up from the warehouse), a delivery address, a requested delivery date, and then whether billing goes to the same address, with a second address field labelled for use only if different. Wording a follow up question “if different” lets people skip it without any cleverness in the form.

Payment terms and prices

Prices on an order form are a legal matter as well as a design one. The ACCC says businesses must display a total price that includes taxes, duties and all unavoidable or pre-selected extra fees, and it describes drip pricing, where fees are added as a purchase goes on, as a practice that can mislead. Businesses must be upfront at the start of a purchase about the types of fees that will apply and when. The catering form’s intro says prices include GST, and every extra carries its price where it is chosen.

The terms the customer ticks need the same care. Consumer Affairs Victoria notes that a contract can be entered by clicking an I agree button on a web page, and that the Australian Consumer Law bans unfair terms in standard form contracts with consumers and small businesses, including terms that penalise one party but not the other. The ACCC adds that consumer guarantees cannot be taken away by anything a business says, including a no refunds sign. So write terms that a reasonable customer could read and accept: the catering form’s single tick says changes are free until 2 pm the working day before and cancellations inside that time are charged in full. None of this is legal advice.

On a form, payment is a hand over, not a field. Either the business confirms the order and sends an invoice, or the customer is sent to a payment page after submitting.

Confirmation

A submitted order form is a request. Say so. The catering form’s thank-you screen tells the customer the order is not confirmed until an email arrives with the tax invoice attached, and repeats that headcount changes are free until 2 pm the working day before. The wholesale form promises a confirmation with pricing and a despatch date within one business hour.

Behind the screen, decide how the order reaches the people who fill it. Email alerts send each order to one address, such as the kitchen or the dispatch inbox, with the answers written into the message. A webhook posts the order once, with no retry, to an order system that must be ready to receive it. Each response can also be downloaded as a PDF for the job file. Baymard Institute, which has tracked online checkouts for 14 years, puts cart abandonment at about 70 per cent and reports that its usability testing keeps finding the checkout’s own design and flow to be a cause, often because people cannot work out how to complete a field. An order form is a checkout by another name, so the clearer these last screens are, the fewer orders are lost at the end.

The fields, in order

The table at the end of this article lists all 17 fields of the catering example, the component each uses and what it is for. Read it as a sequence: the business details and delivery address first, then the date, time, package and quantity, then the extras and terms. If you sell to businesses, keep the ABN and purchase order number, which the purchase order number note explains. If you sell to individuals, drop both.

Common mistakes

Prices that appear only on the invoice. A delivery fee nobody saw on the form is exactly the surprise the ACCC’s pricing guidance warns against.

Free text where a choice belongs. Delivery times, sizes and packages should be options, not sentences.

A total the form cannot compute. Do not label a field “Total” and expect the form to fill it. Collect quantities, then state the total in the confirmation.

Terms behind a link nobody opens. Put the cut off and cancellation charge in the words being ticked.

No purchase order field for trade buyers. An invoice that cannot be matched waits in a queue. Once the order is confirmed, the quote, proforma and tax invoice post covers which document follows.

Build it

The table input page shows the table field: named columns, a row count from one to twenty set when you build, optional row numbers, and one export column holding the filled rows. The tutorial on every form field and when to use it covers the rest of an order form’s parts: radio buttons and checkboxes for packages and extras, a number field with minimum and maximum values for quantities, date and time pickers, an address field, short and long text, and a paragraph block for anything the customer must read before choosing.

Build it as a classic form, and switch the layout to paginated if it runs long; the catering example already groups its fields into three steps. For the finish, write a thank-you screen that says when the order is confirmed, and choose from the add-ons: email alerts to one address, a webhook that posts once, and a redirect to a payment page.