Order

A distinction must be made between a legal and an economic definition of an order. According to the German Civil Code, an order is a contract concluded between a client and a contractor. The contractor undertakes to provide the contractually agreed service free of charge.

In an economic context, this is usually not the case. Instead, an explicit consideration is demanded for the provision of the service, typically a monetary fee. In the following, the term "order" always refers to this form of "customer order".

As a rule, an order is preceded by an offer. This offer, which is submitted to the interested party by the company, then forms the basis of the order. By being commissioned by the client, a contract comes into being by which the contractor undertakes to provide the service defined in the order. In return, the client also provides the service defined for him, usually in the form of payment.

An order is therefore a contract initiated by the client and confirmed by the contractor, in which the contractor undertakes to provide a certain scope of services. With the scope of the service, the scope of the order usually also differs.

In a simple online ordering process, for example, the order data is limited to a brief overview at the end of the order. If, on the other hand, it is an order for a complex service in the B2B sector, the associated document can quickly become very large. However, certain typical elements can always be found in it, regardless of the size of the order:

Addresses of client and contractor
Order number and date
Items ordered as part of the order with prices and quantities
Total value of the order
Terms of delivery and payment

It is common practice to acknowledge a customer order again by means of an order confirmation. The order confirmation is not formally a "legal document", but a declaration of intent or intention to fulfil the order as placed by the customer. In the simplest case, the order confirmation can be made verbally (as is often the case in retail), by e-mail (for online orders) or by post.

For more complex services, the order is also the basis for a project. For this reason, the sales order is often also called a project order. Some software tools therefore offer an integrated solution with which not only orders can be managed. They also allow the user to create projects automatically on the basis of orders and to book them with recorded working hours.

Back to glossary