Side by side
| Purchase requisition (PR) | Purchase order (PO) | |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Ask for approval to buy | Place the order with a supplier |
| Raised by | The person or department that needs the item | The purchasing team |
| Goes to | Approvers inside the company | The supplier |
| Commits the company? | No | Yes, once the supplier accepts it |
| Typical contents | Items, quantities, estimated prices, reason, attachments or quotations | PO number, supplier, items, agreed prices, delivery and payment terms |
| When | Before anything is bought | After the PR is fully approved |
How a PR becomes a PO
- Request. Someone raises a PR with the items, quantities and estimated unit prices, and attaches any quotation.
- Approval. The PR passes the company's approvers, for example the department head, the purchasing head and, for larger amounts, senior management.
- Order. The purchasing team turns the approved PR into a PO, confirms the supplier and the final prices, and sends it.
- Close. When the purchase is completed, the final prices are recorded so the next PR for the same part can be compared against them.
Why keep them separate?
Separating the request from the order is a basic spending control. The people who need something are not the same people who commit money to a supplier, and every order can be traced back to an approved request. It also gives a place to check the price and the budget before the company is committed.
Where paper PRs go wrong
- The requester can't see which approver is holding the form.
- The last price paid for the same part is not on the form, so increases are missed.
- Changes made after the first signature are hard to spot.
The Avantix Procurement Portal handles the approval half online: PRs (and quotation or special approvals) go through the approval workflow. Once approved, the Purchasing Team starts procurement, which gives the order the next PO number, and records the final prices that feed price monitoring.