How to Raise a Purchase Requisition: A Practical Guide
A purchase requisition is how an employee formally asks the business to buy something. It is not an order, it’s the request that comes before the order. Done properly, it stops the two most expensive purchasing failures: people buying things the company didn’t need, and people buying from the wrong supplier at the wrong price. The Purchase Requisition Form turns “I need a new monitor” into a documented, costed, approved request that finance can act on.
This guide covers internal requisitions for goods and services, office supplies, equipment, subscriptions, contractor work. If your company uses purchase orders, the requisition is the step that triggers the purchase order.
Note: procurement rules, spending thresholds, and documentation requirements vary by jurisdiction and by company policy. The approval limits in this guide are examples, set your own to match your business.
When to Use This
Use a requisition for any purchase that isn’t covered by an existing contract or routine supply arrangement. Ordering printer toner under the standing office-supply contract doesn’t need one; buying a $450 label printer that isn’t in the catalogue does. As a rule of thumb: if it requires a spending decision, it requires a requisition.
Raise it before committing to anything, before telling a supplier “we’ll take it,” before signing a quote, before handing over a company card. A requisition raised after the purchase is just paperwork after the fact, and it defeats the control entirely. Finance should reject retrospective requisitions on sight, or the habit will spread.
Use one requisition per distinct need. If the marketing team needs a camera and the warehouse needs shelving, those are two requisitions with two justifications and two budget lines, even if they’re submitted on the same day. Bundling unrelated items makes approval harder and budget tracking messier.
How to Fill It Out
Section 1: Requester and department details. Full name, department, date of request, and a contact number or extension. Include the cost centre or budget code the purchase will be charged to, this is the single most commonly skipped field, and without it finance has to chase the requester before anything can move.
Section 2: Item description and specifications. Describe exactly what is needed, with enough detail that a buyer could source it without asking questions. “Laptop” is useless. “15-inch business laptop, minimum 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, for the new accounts hire starting 14 April” is actionable. For services, describe the scope: what will be delivered, by when, and to what standard.
Section 3: Quantity and estimated cost. Quantity, unit price, and total estimated cost for each line. Base estimates on real quotes where possible, at least one supplier quote for anything over your internal threshold (commonly $500), two or three quotes above a higher one ($2,000 is typical). Attach or reference the quotes. “About $300, I think” is not an estimate; it’s a guess.
Section 4: Business justification. Why is this needed, and what happens if it isn’t bought? Two to three sentences is enough. “The existing label printer has failed; the warehouse is hand-writing shipping labels, which caused two misdeliveries last week costing $180 in reshipping” justifies itself. “It would be nice to have” does not, and writing the justification forces the requester to make that distinction before anyone else has to.
Section 5: Required date and delivery details. When the item is needed by, and where it should be delivered. An honest required date (“before the trade show on 3 June”) lets purchasing prioritise properly. Artificial urgency, everything marked “urgent”, just trains approvers to ignore the field.
Section 6: Budget confirmation. Confirm the budget line exists and has sufficient funds remaining. The requester checks the budget first; the budget holder confirms. A requisition against a budget that was spent in March will be rejected in May, and discovering that early is exactly the point.
Section 7: Approvals. Signature lines for each required approval level, filled in the sequence your policy defines, typically the requester’s line manager, then the budget holder, then finance or a director above a threshold. Include the date each approval was given. No purchase order is raised until every required signature is in place.
Common Mistakes
1. Vague specifications. “Office supplies, $200” invites the wrong items, the wrong quality, and a second order to fix the first. Specify exactly what’s needed the first time. The ten minutes it takes saves days of returns and reorders.
2. Skipping the quotes. Requesters who “know the supplier” and skip competitive quotes cost the company real money over a year, suppliers price-discriminate against loyal, unquestioning buyers. Even a quick check of two alternatives keeps pricing honest.
3. No budget check. Requisitions submitted against exhausted budgets waste everyone’s time and create awkward conversations with suppliers who were promised orders. Check the budget balance before submitting, not after the approval comes back declined.
4. Retrospective requisitions. Buying first and filing the form after is the most common way purchasing controls die. If it happens repeatedly with the same people, it’s not an oversight, it’s a habit, and it needs a direct conversation, not a tolerance.
Who Needs to Sign Off
The requester’s line manager approves first, confirming the need is real and the specification is right. The budget holder approves the spend against their budget. Finance or a director approves above the spending threshold (set your own; a common split is manager up to $500, director up to $5,000, managing director above that). For IT equipment or software, IT should also confirm compatibility and security standards before purchase.
How Often to Review and Update
Review the requisition process quarterly: are approval thresholds still right for the business’s size? Are certain categories generating excessive requisitions (a sign the catalogue or contract range needs extending)? Review the template annually and align it with your purchase order form so the two documents hand off cleanly, item descriptions and budget codes should flow from one to the other without retyping.
Download the free Purchase Requisition Form template.
Disclaimer: this guide is general information, not legal or financial advice. Procurement documentation and spending-authority rules vary by jurisdiction and sector. Always check your local regulations and your company’s own financial policies before committing to purchases.