Order confirmation

What is an order confirmation? 

An order confirmation serves as a confirming document for a commercial transaction – a sale – in which the purchased products or the agreed service are not delivered immediately, but only after a waiting period, e.g. because the goods are made to measure.

Order confirmations in practice

An order confirmation therefore counts as an agreement between the buyer and seller. In principle, an order confirmation is binding on both parties. They must comply with the agreement as stated on the document: the products or services described must be traded within the stated period at the agreed price. In principle, the seller cannot change the agreed price once the order confirmation has been signed. In principle, the buyer-customer cannot simply withdraw from the purchase either. The order confirmation therefore gives the business owner certainty that the agreed sale will go ahead. In principle, because there are a few nuances, more on which below.

What does an order confirmation state?

A professionally drafted order confirmation describes some essential arrangements regarding an agreement and must therefore state at least the following:

• name, address and company number of the business / name and address of the customer
• a date and sequence number of the document
• a description that makes clear which product/service is involved (in sufficient detail)
• unit price, quantity and total price
• the amount of any deposit paid and, linked to it, the remaining balance to be paid
• the date or period of delivery of the product or service
• the signatures of both parties: the business and the customer

Sellers of second-hand cars have the additional requirement of attaching a formal description of the car and its characteristic parts to the order confirmation.

Order confirmation signed = obliged to pay?

Not always … if a consumer has signed an order confirmation during, for example, a distance sale, they have a 14 calendar day cooling-off period in which they can cancel the purchase free of charge. Through this right of withdrawal, the buyer can render the order confirmation void. This regularly happens with purchases via an online webshop, which would not be possible if the buyer had viewed and bought the product in your showroom.  

A business owner can also still cancel an order confirmation if there is a manifestly obvious mistake. Suppose the seller writes down € 700,- for a new kitchen instead of the correct € 7.000,-. This is clearly an unintentional typo, which is not binding, although it will cause some dissatisfaction and require some awkward discussion. So always be careful when stating a price on an order confirmation, because if you type € 6.000,- instead of € 7.000,-, the consumer could well perceive this as the correct price and the court might well agree. There are other nuances: an order confirmation can mention price revisions. Note that these must be precise; it is therefore not enough to say “we may revise the price if the factory applies different rates”. And this also applies the other way round: more and more clauses give consumers the right to withdraw from a purchase in the event of long waiting times.

Order confirmations in onFact

In onFact you can easily create an order confirmation that contains all the necessary information fields. Read here how to activate and use this document type.