Free packing slip template and maker

What a packing slip is and why it has no prices

A packing slip is a sheet of paper that travels inside the parcel and tells the person who opens it what should be in there: each item, and how many of it. It doesn't ask for money and it doesn't show what anything cost, because its job is different from an invoice's. The invoice is meant for whoever pays, and it usually goes to them by email or to an accounts department. The packing slip is meant for whoever unpacks the box, who may be a warehouse worker, a receptionist or someone receiving a present, and that person wants to know one thing: is everything here?

Leaving the prices off is deliberate, and it helps in more than one way. A gift recipient sees what they've been sent without seeing what it cost the person who sent it. In a business delivery, the box is often opened by someone who checks goods in but has nothing to do with paying for them, so a sheet with only items and quantities is quicker to read and harder to misread. It also keeps the money side in one place: the invoice is the only document with amounts on it, so there's no second set of figures to keep in line with the first. If the customer needs the prices, they're on the invoice, which you send to them separately.

When to send a packing slip

A packing slip is useful whenever goods are shipped rather than handed over, but some situations call for one more than others. With online orders, the customer compares the slip with the contents and spots a missing item straight away rather than days later, and when they get in touch you both have the same list in front of you. With wholesale deliveries and other shipments to businesses, the receiving team usually checks incoming goods against their own purchase order, the document they sent you when they ordered. A slip that quotes their PO number and lists the same items in the same units lets them tick the delivery off quickly and pass it on to whoever approves your invoice.

Partial shipments are where a packing slip really earns its place. When part of an order is ready and the rest is still on its way to you, you send what you have, and the slip shows exactly what this parcel contains, so the customer doesn't assume the missing item was forgotten. A short note such as "Item 3 follows separately" answers the question before anyone has to ask it. The same goes for an order split over several boxes: one slip per box, each listing its own contents, saves the receiver from opening every box to find one item.

Gifts shipped straight to someone else are the other clear case. The buyer pays and gets the invoice, while the recipient gets the parcel with a packing slip that lists the items, perhaps with a short message from the buyer, and no prices at all. On the slip, the customer is the buyer and the delivery address is the recipient's, so it's clear both who ordered the parcel and who it's for.

What goes on a packing slip, with an example

A packing slip is short, but it has to identify the shipment well enough that the receiver can match it to an order and check each line. These are the details to put on it, roughly in the order they appear on the page:

• Your business name and address, so the receiver knows who the parcel is from.
• The customer's name and address, and a separate delivery address if the goods go somewhere else.
• The order or invoice number the shipment belongs to, plus the customer's own reference, such as their PO number, if they gave you one.
• A packing slip number and the dispatch date, the day the parcel leaves you.
• Each item, with a clear description, the quantity and the unit.
• Any notes the receiver needs, such as an item that follows later, how to return something, or a message with a gift.

Most of these explain themselves, but two deserve a word more. The order or invoice number is the thread that ties the parcel to the paperwork: when the customer's accounts team later gets your invoice, they can see that it matches goods that were checked in and accepted. The unit matters because "4" on its own could mean four single items or four boxes of twelve, and the person counting can only guess which you meant. Writing "4 boxes" or "20 m" removes the doubt.

Here is how it looks in practice. Say a small ceramics studio ships an order to a café on invoice INV-041, and the café wants the goods delivered to its second location. The studio's packing slip, PS-12, is dated the day the parcel leaves and shows the café as the customer, the second location as the delivery address, INV-041 as the order number and the café's own reference, PO 3318, so their manager can check the parcel against what they ordered. The lines look like this:

Below the lines, a note reads "Serving platters: 2 of 4 shipped, the other 2 follow separately." There are no prices, no totals and no tax anywhere on the page. The café's manager counts the cups and bowls, reads the note, and knows exactly what is still to come without having to call the studio and ask.

Packing slip vs invoice, delivery note and packing list

The difference between a packing slip and an invoice comes down to who reads them and what they're for. An invoice is a request for payment and a record of the sale: it shows prices, tax and a total, it has a due date, and the customer's bookkeeping depends on it. A packing slip records what was physically sent and says nothing about money, which means it can't stand in for the invoice, however complete its item list is. For most orders you make both from the same lines: the invoice goes to the buyer, and the packing slip goes in the box. If you're still setting up your invoices, the free invoice template page explains what one needs.

In British English the same document is more often called a delivery note or a despatch note. The name changes but the content doesn't: items and quantities, the order they belong to, and no prices. Some businesses have the person who receives the goods sign a copy and send it back as proof of delivery, which is an arrangement between the two businesses rather than a different kind of document.

A packing list is where the words start to mean different things. In everyday use it's just another name for a packing slip, and many people use the two interchangeably. In international shipping and freight, though, a packing list usually goes further: it describes each package in the shipment, often with its weight and dimensions, so the forwarder, the carrier and customs can see how the goods are packed. A plain packing slip doesn't do that. For goods that cross a border, the details a customs declaration is built on, such as the value, the tariff code, the country of origin and the weight, go on a commercial invoice, which the maker can also make, with the number of packages and the weights on it.

Making a packing slip in the maker

The quickest way is to start from the invoice you've already made for the order. Open the invoice, or the proforma invoice if the customer pays before you ship, and choose Create packing slip: the maker makes a new packing slip with the same customer and the same lines and quantities, puts the invoice number on it as the Order no., and leaves the prices off. Custom fields such as the customer's PO number carry over too. If there's no invoice yet, or you're sending something that isn't a sale, such as samples or a replacement part, you can start a packing slip on its own and type the items in.

The steps are much the same either way:

1. Open the invoice or proforma for the order and choose Create packing slip, or start a new packing slip with the button on this page.
2. Check the customer, and add a Deliver to address if the parcel goes somewhere other than the customer's own address, such as a gift recipient or a second site.
3. Set the dispatch date, called the ship date in US English, to the day the parcel leaves.
4. Check each line against what's actually in the box, changing the quantity or removing the line for anything that ships later.
5. Download or print the PDF and put it in the parcel, or, with a free account, send it by email or as a link the same way you send an invoice.

Packing slips have their own number series, PS-1, PS-2 and so on, so they never take a number from your invoices, and they're listed in their own Packing slips tab in the overview. A packing slip made from an invoice doesn't count toward a free account's monthly limit, because it's a follow-up to a document you've already made rather than a new one. The whole slip can be in any of the 20 invoice languages, so a German customer gets a Lieferschein, a Dutch one a Pakbon and a French one a Bon de livraison.

It's worth knowing what the maker leaves to you. It doesn't keep stock levels, make picking lists or connect to an online shop or a carrier, so each packing slip is one you make yourself, usually straight from the invoice. The label on the outside of the box is a separate job: OpenLabelMaker's free shipping label maker prints shipping and address labels, so the slip goes inside and the label goes on top.