A purchase requisition is the internal request an employee or department raises to obtain approval before anything is ordered. It circulates entirely inside the company, unlike a purchase order, which is sent to the supplier and commits the business externally.
Six stages separate a need from a payment, and the requisition is the second. The sequence is fixed, and each stage creates a document the next one is checked against:
- a need is identified by a team or a budget owner
- a purchase requisition is raised and routed for internal approval
- an approved requisition becomes a purchase order sent to the supplier
- delivery is recorded on a goods received note
- the supplier issues an invoice, matched against the two documents above
- payment is released once the match and the approvals clear
The requisition typically carries the requester, the cost centre, the budget line, a description of what is needed and an estimated amount. Its approval workflow is where spending authority is actually applied, by amount threshold, by category or by department.
The requisition is the cheapest point at which to say no, and the gap is wide. Declining a 5,000 euro requisition takes one click and no consequence. Disputing the same 5,000 euros at invoice stage means the goods are delivered, the supplier is legally owed, and resolution runs through weeks of correspondence. Most finance teams nonetheless concentrate their control effort at invoice stage, which is the most expensive end of the chain.
Shifting effort upstream is what purchase-to-pay automation is for, and it shows up directly in procure-to-pay cycle time and in budget versus actual analysis.
