Purchase-order redaction is the removal of buyer and contact PII from a PO. A UK company's order forms must already show its registered name, its registered number, and its registered office, a duty in CA 2006 s.82 and the trading-disclosure regulations made under it. Those company particulars are public. The requester's name, direct line, and delivery address are not, and those are what you clear.
When this applies
A PO names the buyer, the requester, and a ship-to address. Late payment on it carries statutory interest of 8% above the Bank of England base rate under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, so the paperwork travels between finance, audit, and sometimes solicitors. You clear the personal fields before it goes for spend analysis.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Load the order into anonym.plus on your device.
- The tool flags buyer, requester, and contact fields.
- It catches the ship-to address.
- Confirm the flags and keep the line items.
- Swap or black out the IDs.
- Save the clean order on your machine.
What you need to provide
- The PO (PDF, DOCX, CSV, or scan).
- A field map for known ID columns.
- An operator (Replace keeps line items readable).
PII entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | requester → [BUYER] |
| Company | ORGANIZATION | supplier → [SUPPLIER] |
| Location | LOCATION | ship-to → [ADDRESS] |
| Contact | EMAIL_ADDRESS | buyer email → [EMAIL] |
| Contact | PHONE_NUMBER | buyer tel → [PHONE] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | order date → [DATE] |
Compliance achieved
- Keeps the registered particulars CA 2006 s.82 and the trading-disclosure regulations put on an order form.
- Clears the requester, direct line, and ship-to address, none of which sits on the public register.
- Leaves the payment terms behind the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 readable.
- A field map catches known ID columns at once.
- Local-only work — nothing is uploaded.
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Limitations & cautions
A ship-to address can hint at the buyer even after names go. Broaden it where the analysis allows. Bulk CSV orders mix tidy columns with free-text notes, so review those notes too.
Frequently asked questions
What must a UK order form already show?
CA 2006 s.82 and the trading-disclosure regulations made under it require a company's registered name, registered number, place of registration, and registered office address on its order forms and business letters. That is company information, not personal data, so it can stay. The named requester behind it is a different matter.
Can the line items stay?
Yes. Line items, quantities, and prices stay, and only buyer and contact data changes. Keeping them is the point of a PO sent for spend analysis.
Is the ship-to address removed?
By default, yes, because a precise delivery address is location data and often identifies a site or a person. Keep a broad region via an allow-list where the analysis genuinely needs one.