Purchase requisition system: Streamline procurement with automated workflows

There’s often an approval process attached to the requisition, which may lead to a purchase order. These systems fall into the same category as procurement software.

Requisitions are made by completing a requisition form, either paper or digital. The information gathered by the form includes all the relevant details needed by approvers to make the decision and by purchasers to create a purchase order.

Why is purchase requisition important?

A purchase requisition system is essential for a company, as it serves multiple critical functions:

• Risk mitigation and compliance — Standardizing the requisition process helps organizations comply with both internal policies and external regulations, reducing the risk of non-compliance and potential penalties.

• Preventing unauthorized spending — By enforcing an approval process before purchases are made, companies can eliminate unnecessary or redundant expenditures, ensuring financial resources are used efficiently.

• Budget control and financial oversight — With a structured requisition system, companies can ensure that purchases align with budget constraints. This proactive approach prevents overspending and keeps financial planning on track.

• Strengthening vendor relations — A well-organized purchase requisition system allows procurement teams to better manage supplier interactions, negotiate more effectively, and coordinate lead times, contributing to a more efficient supply chain.

• Enhancing procurement efficiency — By consolidating purchase requests, organizations can take advantage of bulk purchasing opportunities, leading to cost savings. Additionally, it streamlines the procurement workflow, reducing last-minute, unstructured purchases.

• Ensuring operational continuity — Departments rely on a requisition system to communicate their needs effectively, ensuring they receive essential goods and services in a timely manner to maintain smooth operations.

• Providing transparency and accountability — Every purchase request, approval, or denial is documented, creating an audit trail that enhances transparency and can be useful for internal audits or regulatory reviews.

• Supporting forecasting and strategic planning — Examining purchase requisitions allows companies to predict future spending trends, helping finance and procurement teams make informed decisions about budgeting and long-term planning.

Common types of requisitions

• Job requisition

• Material requisition

• Payment requisition

• Supply requisition

Benefits of a purchase requisition system

By automating the requisition process with a workflow automation platform, businesses can realize numerous benefits.

• Streamline and speed up the requisition process by reducing manual entry and request handling.

• Reduce requisition errors and re-work.

• Reduce the risk of improperly approved requisition requests, purchase orders, hires, etc.

• Improve process compliance with request and approval audit trails.

• Reduce purchase request cycle times.

• Provide a unified, personalized requisition experience for employees.

• Track requisition status (completed, pending, or in progress, etc.) in real time.

• Reduced license overhead for enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, etc.)

• Identify and remove process barriers or bottlenecks.

• Drastically reduce paperwork and associated costs and waste.

The difference between purchase requisitions and purchase orders

Both purchase requisitions and purchase orders are critical for your procurement process, but they serve different purposes and are used at different stages.

A purchase requisition is an internal authorization that initiates the procurement process. A purchase order is a formalized agreement that confirms the buyer’s intent to purchase.

So, in short, a purchase requisition is used to generate a purchase order.

Requisition process example: PPE requisition

In this example, an employee or manager wants to request personal protective equipment (PPE). The workflow includes a request form and an automated process that routes the form.

While this example is fairly straightforward, its form and process can be customized to work however your business needs it to work. You might add additional questions to the form to get more detail, for instance. You could route the request differently, perhaps to another layer of approval or a different department. The possibilities are endless.

Personal protection equipment requisition form example

Personal protection equipment requisition process example

Integration with finance systems

Whether your business would like to pull a list of available items from an ERP system or push approved requests into an accounting system, you can integrate these systems directly into your requisition process.

With its open API and AWS Lambda integration, Nutrient Workflow provides opportunities for customers to integrate their requisition system directly within their existing enterprise infrastructure.

The tools to design your own custom purchase requisition system

We also offer a variety of tools to help you customize your system.

Process builder

Our visual process designer interface lets you design custom requisition workflows using drag and drop. Automatically assign tasks and route information based on your organization’s unique workflow. Set alerts, reminders, and escalations to keep work moving forward.

Form designer

Easily create responsive, web-based forms to capture requisition information. Include a wide variety of field types, form logic, templates, and layouts to ensure the correct data is captured and routed every time.

Self-service portal

Provide a unified frontend experience that allows users to submit requisition forms, complete approvals, and track process status. Collaborate in real time about work being performed. Provide visibility by role to see which tasks are completed, pending, or in progress for a great user experience.

Process tracking and reporting

Track and maintain an audit trail of all your requisitions and approval workflows, including form data, users, and tasks performed. Follow team progress and use KPI scoreboards to track the overall efficiency and drive improvements. Build custom reports to analyze and share with stakeholders.

Process integration (API)

Create workflow applications with process integration in existing enterprise systems. Our open architecture and standalone web service allow other applications to initiate a workflow, complete a list of tasks, update process statuses, and conduct other bidirectional activities. Connect everything with Nutrient Workflow.

Interested in automating your requisition process?

If you’re interested in learning more, you can schedule a 30-minute live, guided demonstration or try Workflow Automation free for 14 days.

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