What Must a Bag Order Confirmation Put in the Specification?

Programmes rarely fail at the dramatic moments. They fail quietly, at the point where two people remember the same conversation differently, and the order confirmation is the document that prevents that. A quotation is an offer; a confirmation is an agreement. The difference is not formality, it is that a confirmation is the thing a planner, an inspector and an accountant will each read, and each of them needs a different field from it. This piece sets out the twelve fields, why each one is there, and what to do when the confirmation disagrees with the quote.

What Is an Order Confirmation, and What Is It Not?

It is the written record of what was agreed, issued after the quotation is accepted and before production starts. It is not the quotation, and it is not the proforma invoice, though it frequently sits inside or alongside both. A quotation says what the seller will do for a price; a confirmation says what both parties have agreed will happen. Where the two disagree, the confirmation is normally the later and therefore the governing document, which is why it has to be read rather than filed.

It is also not a purchase order in the buyer sense, though a buyer purchase order can serve the function. What matters is that one document exists that both sides have seen and accepted, and that it carries the twelve fields. Where a buyer and a seller each hold a different document, each believing theirs is the agreement, the programme has no agreement at all — it has two documents and a future argument.

Which Twelve Fields Must Be in Writing?

Twelve, and the list is not arbitrary: each field corresponds to a person who will need it later. The planner needs the windows and the triggers. The inspector needs the standard and the class list. The accountant needs the price, the currency, the payment event and the charge treatment. Whoever receives the goods needs the packing specification and the document set. A confirmation with eight fields is a confirmation that will generate four questions.

How Do You Reference the Specification?

By revision and date, and by attachment. "Built to specification revision 3, dated 12 April, attached" is a reference that can be checked. "As discussed" is not, and "as per the sample" is only as good as the sample being sealed, labelled and retained. The revision number matters because specifications change during sampling, and a confirmation issued after a change but referencing the pre-change revision is a confirmation for the wrong bag.

Where the specification is long, list the fields that matter most in the confirmation itself: the critical dimensions, the material references, the closure and the branding method. The long document is attached; the confirmation carries the fields a dispute would turn on. That duplication is deliberate, and it is the difference between a document that resolves a disagreement and one that has to be interpreted.

How Do You State Quantity and Tolerance?

Per style and per colourway, with a stated tolerance and a stated treatment of the difference. Production rarely lands exactly on the ordered number, and the tolerance clause decides whether a shortfall is a breach or a normal outcome. A tolerance of a small percentage, with the difference invoiced on the delivered figure, is the common arrangement and it is worth writing down rather than discovering.

One nuance that catches buyers: an over-run. Where a run finishes slightly over, the buyer is sometimes asked to take the extra units, and sometimes the extra units are shipped anyway. State which applies, and state who pays for them. Where the buyer has a warehouse constraint or a retail pack size, an over-run is not a bonus; it is a storage problem with an invoice attached.

How Do You State the Windows and Their Triggers?

As windows with named start events, and then as calendar dates where the start event has already happened. Sampling runs 6-10 working days from written sign-off of the tech pack; bulk runs 35-50 days from written sample approval. Both belong in the confirmation, and both should carry the trigger, because a window without a trigger is not a commitment. Where the sample is already approved at the point of confirmation, convert the window to dates.

Add the holiday question. A window quoted across a period when the line is closed contains days on which nothing moves, and naming them at confirmation stage prevents the conversation six weeks later. Where the buyer has a downstream commitment, state it, because a desk that knows the consequence can propose a plan rather than a hope.

What Must the Payment Clause Carry?

The instrument, the split, the event, the currency, the charge treatment and the beneficiary. On this programme the term is T/T 30/70 on FOB Xiamen, and the useful version of the clause ties the balance to a passed final random inspection at AQL 2.5 under ISO 2859-1 at General Inspection Level II, or to an agreed remediation. The clause should also say what happens when the balance is late, because production slots are planned in advance.

Instrument

T/T or documentary credit, named

Split

30% on confirmation, 70% at the defined event

Event

What triggers the balance, named precisely

Currency

Stated, with who bears movement

Charges

Which side bears which bank charges

Beneficiary

Name, account, bank, matching the invoicing entity

What Must the Inspection Clause Carry?

The standard, the level, the class list, who books, who pays, and the consequence of a fail. Six fields, and the fifth and sixth are the ones most often omitted. A clause that says "inspected at AQL 2.5" without naming the level, the defect classes or the consequence is a clause that will be argued about at the release gate, which is precisely the moment the buyer has the least time to argue.

The class list deserves particular attention, because it is what turns a standard into a decision. Critical, major and minor defects need definitions in the context of the product: what counts as a critical on this bag, at what size a scratch becomes a major, and how many minors are tolerated. The inspection cluster sets out how that list is built in writing the inspection checklist into the RFQ, and it is worth reading once before the first order.

What Does the Document Set Need to Include?

The documents that will be needed at the customs entry and at goods receipt, listed now rather than requested later. The set varies by market and by end use, and naming it in the confirmation converts a future scramble into a scheduled deliverable. Where a document has to be issued by a third party, it also has a lead time, and that lead time belongs in the schedule rather than in the last week.

What Does the Buyer Owe the Confirmation?

Three things that are rarely stated and that make the document work. The buyer owes a decision on the sample within a stated period, because the bulk window is calculated from written approval. The buyer owes the deposit on the date the confirmation states, because the slot was reserved against it. And the buyer owes a single named contact for approvals, because an approval that waits on an internal discussion is a delay the schedule cannot absorb.

Stating those three in the confirmation is unusual and it is effective. It makes the document reciprocal rather than one-sided, and it gives the buyer something to point at when an internal delay threatens the date. A confirmation that records only the seller obligations tends to be treated as a seller document, and it is then the seller who decides which of its clauses are live.

How Do You Handle Changes After Confirmation?

In writing, with the effect stated before the change is implemented. The rule that works is short: any change to the specification, quantity or schedule is agreed in writing, with the effect on price and on the completion date stated, before the change is made. That rule protects both sides, because it prevents a casual request becoming an expected absorption and prevents a desk from making a change the buyer did not ask for.

There is a category of change that is not the buyer choice: a material that becomes unavailable, a hardware item discontinued, a test requirement that changed. Those need the same treatment — written, with the effect stated — and they additionally need an approval right for the buyer, because a substitution is not an administrative detail. A substitution that changes performance invalidates any test run on the original material.

Who Signs, and What Makes a Signature Valid?

Someone with authority on each side, and the authority question is internal to each party. On the buyer side it is the person who can commit the money and accept the goods; on the other side it is the person who can commit the schedule and the price. A confirmation signed by someone without that authority is a document that will be disowned at the first difficulty, and the disowning is usually plausible.

A name, a role and a date are enough; a scanned signature is not required and adds nothing. What does add something is the acceptance being explicit: a reply that says "confirmed" against the document, rather than silence after it was sent. Where a buyer receives a confirmation and does not respond, the practical position is ambiguous, and ambiguity favours whoever drafted the document.

What Happens When the Confirmation and the Quotation Disagree?

Raise it immediately, in writing, and before any payment. A discrepancy found at confirmation stage is a correction; the same discrepancy found at invoice stage is a dispute. The common ones are the quantity, the Incoterm, the packing specification and the validity — and the packing specification is the sneakiest, because it rarely changes the total and therefore rarely gets noticed.

Should the Confirmation Cover One Order or the Whole Programme?

One order, with the programme described separately, and the distinction matters for reorders. A confirmation is a document about a quantity, a price and a set of dates, and those are specific to an order. A programme is a longer arrangement: the specification, the reference sample, the tooling, the colour standard and the reorder terms. Both are worth having, and conflating them is what produces the common problem of a reorder being quoted as though it were a first enquiry.

The practical form is a confirmation for the order and a short programme note beside it, recording the specification revision, the sealed reference sample, the tooling ownership and the reorder quantity position. The note is one page and it is the document that makes the second order a short conversation. Where a buyer runs several styles, the note is what turns a set of orders into a programme with a memory.

What Should the Buyer File With the Confirmation?

The quotation it confirms, the specification revision it references, the sample approval record, the proforma invoice, and the payment confirmation once it exists. Five documents and one folder, and that folder is what the programme runs on. Where a dispute arises later, the folder is the evidence; where a reorder is discussed, the folder is the brief; and where a colleague takes over, the folder is the handover.

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