Purchase Requisition Form
Asks internally for approval to buy, before any order is placed.
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| Requisition no. | [number] |
| Raised on | October 14, 2026 |
| Department | [department] |
| Raised by | [name] |
| Required by | [date] |
| Item | Qty | Est. unit cost | Est. total |
|---|---|---|---|
| [add one line per item] | |||
| Estimated total | $ 0.00 |
Justification
[why this is needed]
What is a Purchase Requisition?
A purchase requisition is the internal request that comes before a purchase order: someone in the business says what they need, why, and roughly what it costs, and someone with budget authority approves it. It matters because it is the point where spend is controlled. Skip it and the first the finance team hears of a commitment is the invoice, by which time the money is already gone.
The requester is whoever needs the thing — a lab technician who needs reagents, a site supervisor who needs scaffold hire, an office manager replacing three laptops. The approver is their budget holder, and above a threshold, a second approver. Procurement then converts approved requisitions into orders, consolidating where several requests point at the same supplier. In small organisations the same person may raise and approve, which defeats the purpose; even a two-person business benefits from writing down what was bought and why before the card comes out.
Requisitions are an internal control, so the rules that bind them are mostly your own — but not entirely. Public bodies and organisations spending grant or donor money often have procurement thresholds written into law or the funding agreement: above a stated value you must seek competing quotes or tender. In India, government buyers work within GFR and GeM procedures; in the EU and UK, public contracts regulations set advertising thresholds; US federal grantees follow the uniform guidance procurement standards. Check the threshold that applies to your organisation before it bites.
A requisition is not an order and creates no obligation to the supplier. Nobody outside your organisation should ever see it, and a supplier who starts work on the strength of one is at risk. It is also not a budget: approval on a requisition confirms that this spend is sanctioned, not that the money exists in the code you quoted, which is why finance still checks the budget line. And it does not replace a specification — for anything technical, the requisition points at a spec or drawing rather than describing the item in a phrase.
What to put in a Purchase Requisition
These are the details this template asks for. Anything left blank is marked in red on the preview so you can see what is still missing.
| Field | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Issuing organisation | For example: Maple Grove Homeowners Association |
| Organisation address | For example: 1420 Kinnear Road, Columbus, OH 43212 |
| Requisition no. | For example: PR-2026-0074 |
| Requesting department | For example: Operations |
| Claimant name | For example: James Whitfield |
| Required by | Free text |
| Items requested | One per line: Description | Qty | Estimated cost |
| Why it is needed | For example: The current scanners fail roughly once a week and each failure stops the picking line for… |
How to write a Purchase Requisition
Describe what you need, not the brand
Write the item so a buyer could source it: quantity, unit, specification, and the standard it must meet. Twelve 5-litre containers of ISO 32 hydraulic oil beats twelve tins of oil. If only one product will do, say so and give the reason — compatibility with existing kit, a warranty condition — because a sole-source justification is what stops procurement substituting something cheaper.
State the business reason and the cost code
One sentence on why this spend is needed now, and the cost centre, project code or grant it belongs to. Replacing the failed compressor on line 2, cost centre OPS-114. Approvers reject vague requisitions because they cannot tell whether the spend is theirs to approve, and a wrong code means the charge lands on someone else's budget and comes back.
Put a realistic estimated value on it
Give your best estimate per unit and in total, with the currency, and say where the estimate came from — last year's invoice, a supplier's website, a verbal quote. The estimate decides which approval level applies, so a deliberately low figure that avoids the second signature is a control breach, not a shortcut. Mark it estimated so nobody treats it as a quoted price.
Say when you need it by
Give a required-by date and what happens if it slips: production stops on 3 April, the audit cannot start, nothing happens until June. Buyers use that to decide between the cheap supplier with a four-week lead time and the expensive one who can ship tomorrow. A blank date, or every requisition marked urgent, means the queue gets worked in the order it arrived.
Route it for approval and keep the record
Send it to the budget holder, and to a second approver if the value crosses your threshold. Record who approved it and when — a name and a date, not just a tick. Then attach the approved requisition to the purchase order that comes from it, so the three documents in the audit trail, requisition, order and invoice, all reference each other.
Common mistakes
- Splitting one large purchase into several small requisitions to stay under an approval threshold, which is a control breach that audit finds easily and treats seriously.
- Raising the requisition after the goods have been ordered, so the approval is a rubber stamp and the organisation has no way to stop spend it did not want.
- Describing the item by brand name only, leaving procurement unable to source an equivalent when the named product is discontinued.
- Leaving the cost code blank, which parks the requisition in a queue until someone chases and pushes the delivery past the date you needed it.
- Understating the estimated value to dodge the second signature, which makes the eventual invoice an unapproved commitment nobody will sign off.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a purchase requisition and a purchase order?
A requisition is internal and asks permission to buy; a purchase order is external and commits the organisation to a supplier. The requisition is approved by your budget holder, the order is issued by procurement and accepted by the supplier. One is a request, the other is a contract. Suppliers should never be sent a requisition, and should not act on one if they receive it by mistake.
Who should approve a purchase requisition?
The budget holder for the cost centre being charged, with a second approver above a value threshold your organisation sets. The approver should not be the requester — separation of duties is the whole point. For grant or public money, check whether your funding agreement or procurement rules name a specific approver or require competing quotes above a stated figure before anyone signs.
Is a purchase requisition legally binding?
Not on the supplier — it is an internal document and creates no obligation outside your organisation. Internally it is evidence that spend was authorised, which matters in audit and in any later dispute about who agreed to what. The binding commitment is the purchase order once the supplier accepts it, or the contract that sits behind it.
Do small businesses need purchase requisitions?
Anywhere more than one person can spend money, yes, even if the form is a single page. The value is not bureaucracy, it is that somebody other than the requester sees the spend before it happens and the reason is written down. If you are a sole trader, the same record still helps at tax time by tying each purchase to a business reason.
Can a purchase requisition be rejected?
Yes, and it should be when the spend is not budgeted, the justification is thin or the specification is unusable. A good rejection says which of those it is, so the requester can fix and resubmit rather than guess. Keep rejected requisitions rather than deleting them — the pattern of what gets refused is useful when budgets are set for next year.
This page explains general practice and is not legal advice. Requirements differ between countries and, in some cases, between states — check what applies where the document will be used.