Purchase Requisition: Stock vs Spend Lanes, Form and Approvals

• A purchase requisition is an internal request approved before purchasing sends a purchase order to the supplier. Run it as two lanes: stock requisitions approved on quantity, spend requisitions approved on rupees.
• A stock requisition needs five stock facts: item code, stock on hand, quantity on order, reorder level and lead time. None of the four templates we compared carried item code, stock on hand or reorder level.
• Set approval bands from your last 12 months of purchase orders, not from a template, then test them for split orders.
• Skip the requisition only where an earlier approval already covers the purchase: system-triggered replenishment within a quantity cap, releases against an approved framework agreement, and spend purchases under Band A with a recorded manager's confirmation.

A purchase requisition is an internal document that authorises the purchasing department to buy items or services. A purchase order is the external document purchasing then sends to the supplier. The requisition asks permission inside your company. The purchase order commits you to the supplier (Microsoft Learn, Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, updated September 2026).

One private Indian materials-management site uses the term indent for the same document (materialsmanagement.in). We recommend that the head of the requesting department checks the requisition before it goes to purchase.

The flow is short: need identified, request drafted, request reviewed, request approved, purchase order raised. In Microsoft's documentation the statuses are Draft, In review, Approved and Closed, with Rejected and Cancelled as exits. A rejected line can be corrected and resubmitted. Only an approved line can be cancelled. Lines can also be reviewed one by one, so one rejected item need not hold up the rest.

A stock requisition replenishes items you hold and is judged on quantity, cover (how many days current stock will last) and lead time. A spend requisition buys things you consume and is judged on rupees and budget. Microsoft's Dynamics 365 formally separates the two; our recommendation is to apply the same logic in your own procedure.

In Dynamics 365, a requisition with a purpose of replenishment states demand "as a quantity instead of a monetary amount", and budget-control rules do not apply to it. It can be met by a purchase order, transfer order, production order or kanban (a card-based replenishment signal). A consumption requisition covers items or services used internally and is always met by a purchase order (Microsoft Learn).

Our recommendation is to write this split into your procedure even if you never buy software. The stock lane runs on rules, and the spend lane runs on judgement. One form for both makes the stock approver either approve blind or reject just to ask questions. Before approving a stock requisition, also check whether another warehouse already holds the item. A transfer can settle some replenishment requisitions without a purchase.

Every requisition needs ten core fields: number, date, requester, department, description, unit, quantity, estimated unit price and total value (₹), needed-by date and suggested supplier. Stock requisitions add five stock facts. Spend requisitions add four budget facts. Both end with an approval block and the purchase order number once one exists.

In November 2026 we compared the field lists of four published requisition templates, from Kladana, Spendflo, Weproc and Drip Capital. We counted a field only when it appears as a standard field on the template, not as an optional addition. Our counts:

Here is the form we recommend. The same fields work as columns in a spreadsheet or lines in an emailed purchase order request. For the supplier lead time, see Inventory Lead Time.

Set the bands from your own last 12 months of purchase orders. Template bands come from other companies' spending. Yours should come from your own value spread, so most orders clear in one step and only the large ones reach senior approvers. The method below is our recommendation, not a standard.

1. Export 12 months of purchase orders with date, supplier and value, and count them (N).
2. Sort by value, lowest first.
3. Set the Band A limit at the value below which roughly 70 to 80 per cent of orders fall. These percentages are our recommendation.
4. Set Band B to cover the next 15 to 20 per cent and Band C for the rest.
5. Share of orders in a band = orders in the band ÷ N.

An illustration, not a standard: with 200 orders sorted by value, 75 per cent is the 150th order. If that order is ₹40,000, Band A is up to ₹40,000. Taking the next 20 per cent for Band B, the band covers the 151st to the 190th order, and the value of the 190th order in your own sorted list becomes the Band B limit. The remaining 10 orders (5 per cent) fall in Band C.

Run two tests before you adopt the bands:

• Load test. Divide the Band C count by 12 to get requests per month. Pass if the Band C approver can clear that many within two working days. Fail if not, and raise the Band B limit.
• Split-order test. Scan the 12 months for one supplier with several orders within seven days, each below the Band A limit but together above it. Pass if there are none, or each has a reason. A fail means people are splitting orders to avoid approval, so tighten the rule.

For stock-lane requisitions, approve on quantity: compare the requested quantity with your calculated order quantity (Economic Order Quantity) and with lead-time demand (expected usage while the supplier delivers).

Skip the requisition where an earlier approval already covers the purchase. Our recommendation has three cases. In every other case, raise a requisition.

• System-triggered stock replenishment at or below a pre-approved quantity cap. The reorder level and cap are the approval. Anything above the cap becomes a stock requisition.
• Releases against an approved framework agreement. A blanket purchase order covers repeat calls on one supplier at agreed terms.
• Spend lane items under Band A, if your owner agrees. A manager's written confirmation is enough, but record it so the split-order test can see it.

Planned demand is another route into the stock lane. Material requirements planning turns a production plan into the requisitions that feed it.