Procurement App Overview

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 Admin → Apps → All Apps.
• 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

1. Turn Procurement on for your organisation in the Apps Marketplace, then open Procurement → Setup → Settings to review the defaults below.
2. Optionally create approval workflows at Setup → Approval Workflows. Without one, a submitted requisition at or above Manager Approval Required At (default 500 in your default currency) waits for the requester’s manager or a Procurement admin, and one below it is approved on submission. Mark one workflow as the default so every requisition that doesn’t match a conditional workflow still routes through it.
3. 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).
4. If you plan to use budgets, create them at Finance → Budgets with a cost center and date range (Show Budget Summary Cards in Settings, on by default, puts their totals on the dashboard). A requisition is charged to the budget in its Charge to field, which starts on its cost center’s own budget, and reserves and commits against it automatically.
5. For supply ordering (the employee self-service catalog), confirm Enable Supply Ordering is on in Settings. Add inventory items at Warehouse → Inventory so warehouse stock appears in the catalog, or configure vendor integrations at Setup → Vendor Integrations to include vendor catalog items.
6. 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 charged to a budget (its Charge to field, which starts on the cost center’s own budget), 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. When several conditional workflows match, the one with the highest minimum amount is used first (so an amount escalation is never skipped), then the one with the most department, category and asset-purchase rules, then the narrowest amount range. 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

1. Go to Requisitions → Pending My Approval.
2. Open a requisition to review the line items, total, vendor, and budget status.
3. 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

1. Open an approved standard requisition.
2. Click Convert to PO. The system creates a draft purchase order with the same line items and vendor.
3. 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

1. 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.
2. Go to Finance → Invoices and create a new invoice. Link it to the PO. Submit for approval.
3. 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 Agent	On	Lets users work with Procurement through Ask AI
Auto-approve purchase requests	Off	When on — and the Automation Hub master switch in AI Operations is on too — the Procurement agent’s automatic actions approve submitted requests at or below its own ceiling that no approval workflow owns
Agent Auto-approval Ceiling	500	The most the agent may auto-approve (default currency)
Only auto-approve approved vendors	Off	When on, a request naming a vendor that is not active on your vendor book is never auto-approved; requests with no vendor are unaffected
Remind approvers about stalled requests	Off	When on — and the Automation Hub master switch is on — the agent reminds approvers on a workflow-routed request after Remind After (hours) (default 24)
Require Manager Approval for Requisitions	On	When off, submitting a requisition approves it unless an approval workflow owns it
Manager Approval Required At	500	Requisitions at or above this amount need a manager’s approval; below it they skip that step
Require 3 Quotes Above	5000	Purchases above this amount require three vendor quotes
Require a separate approver	Off	When on, nobody can approve a requisition, supply order, purchase order, invoice or invoice variance they raised themselves
Auto-create PO from Approved Requisition	Off	When on, an approved requisition automatically generates a draft PO
Three-Way Match Variance Tolerance Ceiling (%)	5	How far an invoice may differ from its PO and receipt before it needs a variance approval
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)
Default Currency	USD	Currency used on new requisitions, POs, and budgets
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
Roles Allowed to Approve Invoices and Release Payments	Manager, Admin, Super Admin	Who works accounts payable
Roles That Can Work the Fulfillment Queue / View Inventory / Issue and Move Stock	None beyond admins	Warehouse access by role
Show Budget Summary Cards	On	Shows budget totals on the Procurement dashboard
Notify on budget thresholds	On	Notifies budget owners when a budget crosses an alert threshold
Send weekly spend alerts	Off	Every Monday, tells Procurement admins about possible duplicate invoices, fast-rising spend and budgets that are nearly used up
Enable Supply Ordering	On	Shows the Order Supplies catalog
Enable Barcode Scanning	Off	Adds the warehouse Scan page and printable item and bin label sheets
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
Inventory Costing Method	Manual	How an item’s unit cost is maintained when a purchase order is received
Enable Low Stock Alerts	On	Fires an alert when an inventory item’s stock crosses below its reorder point
Auto-create a draft PO when an item reaches its reorder point	Off	When on, a low-stock alert also drafts one purchase order per vendor; nothing is submitted or sent
Enable Email Notifications (Master Toggle)	On	Master switch for all procurement email notifications (in-app notifications are not affected)
Approval Pending (email)	On	Emails an approver when a requisition is waiting on them
Approval Progress (email)	Off	Emails the requester as each approval level signs
All Approvals Complete (email)	On	Emails the requester when every approval level is complete
Purchase Order Emails	On	Sends email on PO approval and issuance events
Invoice Emails	On	Sends email when an invoice is approved or not approved

6. More help

• Procurement FAQ — specific setup, operating, and troubleshooting questions.
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Procurement from these articles.