Overview

Amazon Business orders come with specific requirements around packing slips and purchase order (PO) numbers that differ from standard consumer orders. Understanding these requirements is essential for sellers who fulfill their own orders, as missing or incorrect documentation can lead to delayed payments and undeliverable packages.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Packing slips are mandatory for Business orders — Every package shipped for an Amazon Business order must include a packing slip. Business buyers use these documents to reconcile orders and process payments.
• PO numbers must appear on labels and packing slips — When a business customer provides a purchase order number, sellers need to include it on both the shipping label and the packing slip to ensure proper delivery routing.
• Amazon auto-appends PO numbers to the recipient name field — For seller-fulfilled orders, Amazon automatically adds the PO number to the recipient name field in order reports, making it available on shipping labels without extra seller effort.
• Missing documentation causes real problems — Without a correct packing slip or PO number, packages may be undeliverable to the end customer and payment processing can be significantly delayed.
• The auto-append feature can be disabled — Sellers who already handle PO numbers through their own systems can turn off the automatic appending through Seller Central's order report column settings.

How to Identify Business Orders

Amazon provides two straightforward ways to determine whether an incoming order is a Business order. First, sellers will see a distinct Business order badge displayed within the order details in Seller Central. Second, sellers can enable an optional column called "isbusinessorder" in their order reports, which flags each order as either a standard consumer purchase or a Business transaction. Recognizing Business orders early in the fulfillment process is important because it triggers the additional documentation requirements that business buyers expect.

Printing and Including Packing Slips

Business customers rely on packing slips to verify that shipments match their purchase orders and to process internal payments. A missing or inaccurate packing slip can create reconciliation headaches for the buyer and ultimately delay the seller's payment. Amazon offers a built-in packing slip generation tool within Seller Central for sellers who do not already produce their own. Sellers can access this through the order management section, and it will automatically populate relevant order details. For sellers using third-party fulfillment software, it is critical to ensure that packing slip templates include all required Business order fields, including the PO number when one has been provided.