A delivery note is also known as a packing note. If you run a business trading in goods or products — as an entrepreneur, a self-employed person, an SME or a freelancer — you cannot avoid sending one with the goods you deliver.
It is a supplement to the invoice that accompanies the order.
What it is for
The definition is simple: it is a description of the contents of a package — the type of product, the quantity, and the details of who supplied it. It says what is in the box.
Its job is verification. Customers routinely use it to count the delivery in, checking the packing note against the order confirmation to confirm that what turned up is what was agreed. That single function is why it exists as a separate document from the invoice — the person receiving goods and the person paying for them are usually not the same person.
It is also a matter of appearances. A delivery that arrives with a clear note listing its contents reads as coming from an organised supplier, and one that arrives without leaves the customer to work it out.
Keep it in your administration
The packing note is part of the paperwork for the sale, not a disposable label. Together the invoice and the packing note make up the complete record of what was sold and what was delivered, so file the note with the rest of your administration rather than treating it as something that ends its life in the box.
Packing note vs invoice
| Packing note | Invoice | |
|---|---|---|
| Travels with | The goods | The billing |
| Read by | Whoever receives the delivery | Accounts payable |
| About | Contents | Money |
| Prices | Usually omitted | Always shown |
What it contains
- Your details and the customer’s, including the delivery address where it differs from billing.
- The order or invoice reference, so the note can be matched to the paperwork.
- The date sent, and a delivery date where relevant.
- The items — description, product code and the quantity in this shipment.
- Anything still to follow, if the order is going out in parts. A back-order line prevents a customer reporting a shortage that is not one.
- Room to check items off, since verification is the point.
Why prices are usually left off
The person opening the box often should not see what it cost — a warehouse team, a site, or your customer’s own customer in a drop-shipping arrangement.
Because designs are held per document type, removing prices from your packing note leaves your invoices completely untouched — see document design.
Creating one
There are two approaches. The manual one is to take the invoice you produced in Word or Excel, strip out the amounts and leave the quantities — a simple copy of the invoice that reuses the details you already typed.
The better one is to let your invoicing software do it. In Invoice Office a packing note is built from the same form as your other documents, so the customer and product details you already hold are reused rather than retyped, and the whole administration stays in one place. You can start one from Sales → Packing notes, from the customer receiving the delivery, or from the product you are shipping — the step-by-step is in the help desk: create a packing note.
If you ship regularly it is worth setting up the packing note design specifically, since the columns you want on it are rarely the ones you want on an invoice.