Order form

An order form is the paper (or the printable) that turns a product fundraiser into a list the treasurer can total. It is not a donation page and it is not a permission slip. If nobody will write on it, you do not have a catalog program. You have a brochure.

This template is for committees running an order-taker: families ask people they know, write the items, collect payment the way policy allows, and return the form by a close date you chose because of when the money — and the order — must be in. The preview is blank of school names. Fill [GROUP NAME] yourself. The download emails you the file. Use the form at the bottom; we send the document to that address. Downloads are not sales leads.

Who this form is for

Elementary schools, PTAs, scouts, bands, and teams that still need a paper trail beside, or instead of, an online cart. Online stores exist — Double Good is one virtual-store shape — and some families will only check out on a phone. Other families will only fill a line on paper at a kitchen table. A committee that pretends the second group has disappeared will undercount. Print the form for the second group. Link the store for the first. Do not run both in a way that double-enters the same order.

It is not for a gift ask. If the person is donating, use the donation letter. Mixing “or just give money” onto an order form without a treasurer method for that gift is how cash lands in a shoebox with no item and no receipt. If you allow a donation line, say where it goes, who counts it, and that it is not an item.

The dates that belong on the page

Two dates, and they are not the same. The date families must return the form to the committee. The last-safe-order date — the date the committee must place the consolidated order so the program still works for when the money or the items have to be in hand. The second date is not a shipping promise. We do not print delivery lead times. If a brochure wants a transit slogan, leave it off the school form. Families need the date that is safe for the group.

If those two dates are reversed in someone’s head, you will collect forms after you needed to order. Write both in committee first, then print. If the money is needed before any honest last-safe-order date, a product form is the wrong tool this cycle. Look at a donation campaign or shrink the goal. Clock beats catalog.

What the form has to capture

Seller name (the participant), and an adult contact that is not a teacher’s classroom phone. Buyer name and a way to reach them if an item is wrong — according to policy, that may be a phone or an email, and it may be limited. Item, quantity, price, line total. Payment method the group is allowed to take. A signature line if your policy requires an adult to acknowledge the order. A due date in type large enough to see without a speech.

Profit dollars belong in the committee worksheet, not as a headline percentage on the form. Buyers purchase an item at a price. The group’s profit is a back-office line. Printing “we keep X%” on the form is how you start an argument with a person who only wanted pretzels. Keep percentages off the flyer. If you share the math, share profit dollars per person asking in the parent packet, smaller, under the dollar goal.

Item names and prices must match the current program sheet, not last year’s memory. If prices are not verified, do not print the form yet.

Money handling

Follow school and organization rules on who may hold checks or cash. Students should not be a till. Friends, family, and neighbors can write a check to the account name you print, or pay the way the online cart allows. If cash is forbidden, say so on the form instead of discovering it in a Friday envelope. If cash is allowed, name the adult it goes to the same day, not “sometime next week.”

Teachers are not customer service for missing payments or wrong SKUs. Print a committee email. Route product problems to the program’s customer service when they are the program’s problem, and to the committee when they are a handwriting problem.

Online cart plus paper

If you offer both, put a bold line on the paper form: do not also enter this order online, or do not also write it on paper if you already checked out. Double orders are not enthusiasm. They are a return you will staff later. Give each seller a seller number or name that appears in both systems if the program supports it, so you can see collisions.

If the whole sale is a virtual store with no paper, you may still want this form as a backup for a buyer who will not check out online. One page, one seller, attached to a promise that the committee will enter it. That is labor. Count it. If you cannot enter those orders, do not offer the backup.

Form preview

Lines are the point. Reproduce them in your editor as a table if you like. Do not add a school mascot where a total should be.

[GROUP NAME] — ORDER FORM
Return to [ADULT ROLE] by [FORM DUE DATE]
Committee places the order on [LAST-SAFE-ORDER DATE]
Money must be in hand for our purpose by [DATE THE MONEY IS NEEDED]
Do not treat any date on this page as a delivery promise.

Seller (participant): ________________________
Adult contact name: __________________________
Adult phone or email: ________________________

Buyer name: _________________________________
Buyer phone or email (if policy allows): ______

Item name (from current list) Qty Price each Line total
______________________________ ____ __________ __________
______________________________ ____ __________ __________
______________________________ ____ __________ __________
______________________________ ____ __________ __________
______________________________ ____ __________ __________

Subtotal: ______________
Payment: [ ] check payable to [ACCOUNT NAME] [ ] other allowed method: __________
Cash: only if policy allows. If not allowed, this box is blank on purpose.

If this order was already placed in the online store, do not submit this page.
If this page is the order, do not also check out online.

Adult signature (if required): ______________________ Date: __________

Questions: [COMMITTEE EMAIL OR PHONE]
Product issues that are not handwriting: [PROGRAM CUSTOMER SERVICE — if applicable]
Teachers and the front office are not the till.

How to total without heroics

One person enters. A second person spots a sample of forms against the spreadsheet. Discrepancies get a call to the adult contact, not a note in a student’s backpack that reads like a debt collection. If a form is unreadable, it is not an order yet. If payment does not match the total, it is not an order yet. Kind and strict can occupy the same sentence.

When you place the consolidated order, keep a copy of the export and the paper until distribution is done or until ship-to-buyer has been confirmed in the program’s system. Then follow your record-retention rules. We do not invent those rules. Ask the treasurer.

Sort night, if you have one, is easier when the form’s seller name matches the bag label. Print seller names the same way every time. Nicknames on forms and legal names on bags are how a box sits in a hallway. If you have no sort night because fulfillment is ship-to-buyer, say that on the form so nobody arrives at the gym on Saturday.

Mistakes that look small on paper

A form with no seller name is an order you cannot bag. A form with a first name only in a school of three Ashleys is the same problem. Require last name, or a seller number issued at kickoff. A form with item nicknames (“the usual tin”) is not an SKU. Copy the name from the current list. A form dated after the due date is a conversation with the adult, not a quiet add-on that blows the last-safe-order date for everyone else.

If the program changed prices after you printed, stop using the old stack. A handwritten override on fifty forms is how the spreadsheet and the vendor invoice disagree. Print again. The cost of reprinting is smaller than a night of reconciling. If you cannot reprint, write the new price in a bold strip across the top and initial it in committee so every volunteer says the same sentence at the table.

Permission to carry a form is a different page. Do not print a mini-waiver at the bottom of the order form. Use the permission slip first. A buyer signature on an order is not a parent’s yes for a minor to sell. Keep the genres apart so a missing waiver does not hold a paid order hostage — and so a paid order does not get treated as consent.

Get the file

Enter your email in the form below. We email you this order form as a file. You will still need to paste current item names and prices from the program you chose. This download is not a product order and not a sales call. For a plan with headcount and profit dollars, use get started.