Procurement
1. What it is
Procurement manages the full purchasing cycle: employees submit purchase requisitions, approvers review them through configurable multi-level workflows, approved requisitions convert into purchase orders sent to vendors, and finance records invoices and payments against those orders.
- Enablement: Procurement requires a license. An admin enables it from the Apps Marketplace.
- What it is not: Procurement does not manage vendor profiles or scorecards — that is Supplier Hub (the vendor management app). Procurement references the same vendor records but does not own them.
2. Standing it up
- Go to Procurement → Setup → Settings and confirm Enable Procurement App is on.
- Create at least one approval workflow at Setup → Approval Workflows. Without a workflow, submitted requisitions sit in Pending Approval with no one assigned to act on them. Mark one workflow as the default so every requisition that doesn’t match a conditional workflow still routes somewhere.
- Under Settings → Permissions, check which roles can create requisitions (all four roles are allowed by default) and which roles can approve purchase orders (Admin and Super Admin by default).
- If you plan to use budgets, turn on Enable Budget Tracking in Settings, then create budgets at Finance → Budgets with a cost center and date range. Requisitions linked to that cost center will reserve and commit against the budget automatically.
- For supply ordering (the employee self-service catalog), confirm Enable Supply Ordering is on in Settings. Add inventory items at Receiving → Inventory so warehouse stock appears in the catalog, or configure vendor integrations at Setup → Vendor Integrations to include vendor catalog items.
- Verify the setup by having a test user create a requisition. It should appear in the approver’s Pending My Approval queue and, once approved, be convertible to a purchase order.
3. How it fits together
Requisitions vs purchase orders
A requisition is a request to buy something. A purchase order (PO) is the commitment to a vendor. Requisitions are internal; purchase orders are external. One requisition can produce multiple purchase orders when supply-order items come from different vendors.
Requisitions move through these statuses: Draft → Pending Approval → Approved → Converted to PO (for standard requisitions) or Approved → Fulfilling → Fulfilled (for supply orders from warehouse stock). A requisition can also be Rejected or Cancelled at any point before a PO progresses past Draft.
Purchase orders move through: Draft → Pending Approval → Approved → Issued to Vendor → Received → Closed. A PO can only be closed once it is both fully received and fully paid.
Worked example: A manager submits a requisition (PR-00012) for 50 boxes of gloves at $8 each, totalling $400. The approval workflow routes it first to the department head, then to a budget owner. Both approve. The requisition status becomes Approved. An admin converts it to PO-00003, assigns the vendor, and issues the PO. When the shipment arrives, the admin marks it received, logs the vendor’s invoice (INV-00005), records a payment, and closes the PO.
Standard requisitions vs supply orders
Standard requisitions are created by navigating to Requisitions → New Requisition and filling in line items manually. The requester picks a vendor, enters item details, and submits. An admin later converts the approved requisition into a PO.
Supply orders are created through the Order Supplies catalog. Employees browse warehouse inventory and vendor catalog items, add them to a cart, and submit. The system creates a requisition automatically with the source type set to supply order. When a supply order is approved, purchase orders for vendor-sourced items are generated automatically — one PO per vendor. Warehouse-sourced items go to the Fulfillment Queue instead, where warehouse staff pick, pack, and ship them.
Budgets and reservations
A budget ties a dollar amount to a cost center and date range. When an employee submits a requisition linked to a budgeted cost center, the system reserves that amount. When the requisition is approved, the reservation is committed. When it is rejected or cancelled, the reservation is released. This prevents over-commitment before money is actually spent.
If a budget has Enforce hard stop turned on, a requisition that would exceed the available balance cannot be submitted at all — the employee sees a message naming the budget and its remaining amount.
Budgets fire alerts at three configurable thresholds (default 75%, 90%, and 100% utilization). The budget owner receives a notification each time a threshold is crossed. Alerts are de-duplicated within a 24-hour window.
Approval workflows
An approval workflow defines who must approve a requisition and in what order. Each workflow has one or more levels, and each level specifies an approver type: a role (e.g. Manager), specific named users, the budget owner, the department head, the requester’s direct manager, or members of a department or location.
Workflows can be conditional — triggered only when the requisition amount falls within a range, belongs to certain departments, involves certain item categories, or is flagged as an asset purchase. If no conditional workflow matches, the default workflow is used. Each business can have one default workflow.
An approver who will be unavailable can set up an approval delegation — a date-bounded handoff to another user. Delegations can be scoped by amount, department, or category.
Stations
Stations are an opt-in feature for organisations that route supplies to fixed delivery points (e.g. ambulance stations, plant locations). Each station has a unique station number, a name, and exactly one cost center. When stations are enabled, the supply-order form shows a station picker instead of a freeform delivery location, and the cost center is derived automatically.
Inventory items can carry per-station ordering limits (maximum per order, maximum per period) so a single station cannot over-order.
Three-way matching
When an invoice is linked to a purchase order and approved, the system performs three-way matching: it compares the invoice total against the PO total and computes a variance percentage. If the variance is within the tolerance (default 5%), the invoice is marked Matched. If not, it is flagged as a Discrepancy for review.
4. Running it
Reviewing and approving requisitions
- Go to Requisitions → Pending My Approval.
- Open a requisition to review the line items, total, vendor, and budget status.
- Click Approve to advance the requisition to the next approval level (or to Approved if this is the final level). Click Reject and provide a reason to return it to the requester.
Admins can approve any in-progress requisition even if they are not a designated approver at the current level.
Converting a requisition to a purchase order
- Open an approved standard requisition.
- Click Convert to PO. The system creates a draft purchase order with the same line items and vendor.
- Review the PO, then submit it for approval. Once approved, issue it to the vendor.
For supply orders, vendor POs are generated automatically on approval — no manual conversion step.
Receiving goods and recording invoices
- Open an issued PO and click Mark Received. For POs linked to inventory items, stock quantities are incremented and a transaction is recorded automatically. Partial receipts are supported — the PO stays in Issued status until every line is fully received.
- Go to Finance → Invoices and create a new invoice. Link it to the PO. Submit for approval.
- Once the invoice is approved, go to Finance → Payments to record the payment (Check, Wire transfer, ACH, Credit card, or Other). When the payment clears, the invoice and PO payment statuses update automatically.
Running reports
Go to Insights (admin only) for:
- Spend Intelligence — AI-generated insights on spending patterns.
- Analytics — spend by vendor, department, and month; budget utilization; approval funnel and average approval time.
- Chargeback Report — spend broken down by cost center and delivery location, with CSV export. Supports quarterly and custom date ranges.
- Inventory Summary — stock levels, values by category, and low-stock items, with CSV export.
- Order History — supply order activity over a configurable period, with CSV export.
- Shipped Equipment — serial number history showing which physical unit shipped where, with CSV export.
5. Settings
All settings are at Procurement → Setup → Settings.
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Procurement App | On | Master toggle for the entire app |
| Enable Procurement Agent | On | Lets users interact with Procurement through Ask AI |
| Require Manager Approval for Requisitions | Off | When on, requisitions require manager sign-off (separate from workflow-based approvals) |
| Require Finance Approval for Purchase Orders | Off | When on, POs require finance team sign-off |
| Auto-create PO from Approved Requisition | Off | When on, an approved requisition automatically generates a draft PO |
| Auto-approval Threshold | Not set | Requisitions below this dollar amount can be auto-approved |
| Require 3 Quotes Above | Not set | Purchases above this dollar amount require three vendor quotes |
| Default Currency | USD | Currency used on new requisitions, POs, and budgets |
| PR Number Prefix | PR | Prefix for requisition numbers (e.g. PR-00001) |
| PO Number Prefix | PO | Prefix for purchase order numbers (e.g. PO-00001) |
| Roles Allowed to Create Requisitions | Member, Manager, Admin, Super Admin | Which roles see the New Requisition button |
| Roles Allowed to Approve Purchase Orders | Admin, Super Admin | Which roles can create, edit, approve, and issue POs |
| Enable Budget Tracking | Off | Shows budget dashboards and ties requisitions to budgets by cost center |
| Enable Vendor Performance Ratings | Off | Enables vendor rating features |
| Enable Supply Ordering | On | Shows the Order Supplies catalog for all users |
| Eligibility User Attribute | Not set — falls back to the practice level user field | Which user field is matched against inventory item eligibility tags to control catalog visibility |
| Delivery Locations | Not set | Pre-defined delivery locations shown in the supply order form |
| Units of Measure | each, box, case, pair, roll, pack, set, kit | Available units when creating inventory items |
| Enable Low Stock Alerts | On | Fires an alert when an inventory item’s stock crosses below its reorder point |
| Enable Email Notifications (Master Toggle) | Off | Master switch for all procurement email notifications |
| Approval Pending emails | Off | Sends email when a requisition is awaiting approval |
| Purchase Order Emails | Off | Sends email on PO approval and issuance events |
6. More help
- Procurement FAQ — specific setup, operating, and troubleshooting questions.
- Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Procurement from these articles.