What Is a Purchase Requisition?
Before anyone orders from a supplier, someone inside the business has to ask for the goods.
A purchase requisition is an internal request to buy goods or services. A staff member or team raises it. It lists what is needed, how much, by when and about what it will cost. In Indian offices, hospitals and kitchens it is often called a purchase indent. In most businesses, nothing is ordered until someone approves it.
How a Requisition Moves From Request to Order
That fork in the diagram is where most confusion starts. In India, the word indent is used for two different requests.
- A store indent asks for goods the business already has. The kitchen asks the store for 20 kg of rice, the store hands it over, and nothing is bought. Even the government uses the word this way. In Rule 209 of its General Financial Rules, 2017, one section of an office sends an indent to another.
- A purchase indent, or requisition, asks to buy something that is not in stock. It goes to whoever signs off on spending.
Once approved, the requisition becomes a purchase order for the supplier. Later, the delivery is checked in on a goods receipt note. The approval step can be as small as the owner saying yes on WhatsApp.
What Goes Into a Purchase Requisition
Give enough detail that the person who signs off can say yes or no without calling back.
| Field | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| PR number | So the order can quote it later |
| Raised by | Who asked, and for which branch |
| Items | What is needed, in plain terms |
| Quantity | How much, in the unit you stock |
| Estimate | Rough cost, before any quote |
| Needed by | The date that sets urgency |
| Reason | Low stock, new outlet, breakdown |
Notice there is no GST, no supplier signature and no agreed rate. Those come later.
Purchase Requisition vs Purchase Order
The two look alike on paper, but they face opposite ways.
| Aspect | Requisition | Purchase order |
|---|---|---|
| Goes to | Your approver | The supplier |
| Asks | May we buy? | Please supply |
| Prices | Estimates | Agreed rates |
| Binding | No | Yes, once accepted |
In short, the requisition gets the money approved, and the purchase order spends it.
Purchase Requisition Example
A supermarket branch in Ujjain’s Freeganj area is running low before the Raksha Bandhan weekend. Its manager sends this requisition to head office.
Note: this is an invented example for illustration only. The store, figures and dates are made up.
Why Small Businesses Need a Requisition Too
Most guides on this topic are written for big firms with buying teams. A two-branch shop or a single kitchen does not need all that. It does need one habit: nobody buys without somebody else knowing.
Across the stores and kitchens we work with at Petpooja, the costly buys are often the unplanned ones, like a rush order made over the phone at any rate the supplier named, because stock ran out and nobody asked for it two days before. A requisition, even a handwritten one, puts a name, a number and a date on every buy.
Keep the internal approval workflow light, though. For most small businesses, one approver below a set amount and two above it is probably plenty.
Check Stock Before Every Requisition
A good requisition starts from real stock numbers, not a guess made at the storeroom door.
For restaurants, Petpooja POSS puts inventory on item-wise auto deduction, with low-stock alerts and day-end inventory reports. For retail businesses, Petpooja Invoice offers real-time stock tracking and centralised inventory management. Its plans also list Warehouse Management and Purchase Automation.
Still on paper? Start with our stock and inventory template. For kitchens, our restaurant inventory guide shows the day-to-day routine.
Pull this week’s low-stock list and check how many of those items have a requisition behind them.
Frequently Asked Questions
Mostly, yes. A purchase indent and a requisition are the same request. A store indent is different, because it only asks for goods already in stock.
No. It is an in-house request that never reaches the supplier. The purchase order is what commits you, once the supplier accepts it.
It depends on the amount and the size of the firm. In a small shop the owner usually approves everything. A chain might let branch managers approve up to a set limit and send bigger requests to head office.
Not on a requisition. Section 16(2)(a) of the CGST Act links the credit to a tax invoice, a debit note or another tax-paying document named in the rules. A requisition is none of these, and it carries no GST.
