A Functional Purchase Request process that small to medium sized business can put in place at no cost that provides; Electronic Delivery and Routing,Approvals, Ability to Add Attachments, Time Stamp on Approvals,
Easy Electronic Storage For Audit, multi-site use
and easy implementation
Value Proposition canvas- Customer needs and pains
Purchase Request Process For Small to Medium Sized Company
1. Purchase Request and Approval Process
For Small to Medium Sized Enterprise
A Purchase Request Process that Includes:
Electronic Delivery
Electronic Routing
Approvals
Ability to Add Attachments,
Time Stamp on Approvals,
Easy Electronic Storage For Audit,
Global Implementation in Days and NO ADDED COST
UPDATE Integration Path With Enterprise or
SaaS Based Finance Systems
2. Executive Summary
• Companies that need a functional purchase
request system can put one in place for no cost
using MS Excel and Outlook that provides
– Electronic Delivery and Routing,
– Approvals,
– Ability to Add Attachments,
– Time Stamp on Approvals,
– Easy Electronic Storage For Audit,
– Global Implementation in Days
– Possible integration to SaaS or Enterprise Finance
3. Typical Purchasing Process
Request Approve Negotiate
Purchase
Order
Receive Match Pay
Requestor
generates
with
backup
and
budgetary
price
Per Sig
Authority
Requestor
Responsible
Upon
Approval
Final
terms and
price
negotiated
PO issued
by person
delegated
Purchase
Authority
Connection
to
Approved
Request
Physical
Items on
System
Services by
Requestor
PO,
Receipt,
Invoice
Per PO
Terms
Scope of proposed process
4. Detailed Process
• Open Purchase Request excel template
• Enter Information
• Copy and paste onto Outlook email
• Attach to email relevant quotation and or other backup
• Add appropriate approvers.
• Go to “Options” and Enable voting button – approve or reject
• Look in your SENT folder file for status of approvals
• When all approvals obtained forward, as an attachment, to internal
only email PurchaseRequest@companyname.com (request
delivery receipt when opened)
• Purchase Request@company.com will be reviewed by Finance/
Purchasing Team
– confirm signature levels, budget status
– take action based on company policy for amount and type of spend
5. Create Purchase Request Template and make
available to users
• Excel Works well
• Information is more important than exact format
Requestor Department Date of Request Vendor Description Total Cost In Budget
Bill Kohnen Supplier $-00
Justification Include Justification
Details
Vendor Contact Name Mike D
Vendor Contact E mail mike@dell.com
Vendor Contact PH 555-5555
Item Quantiy Unit of Measure Description Unit Cost Total Cost Delivery
1 EA xxx $-00 $-00
2
3
4
5
Purchase Request
11. Sending as
attachment will
make sure
everything form
original is included
Send Tracking Message to internal company purchase
request e-mail address as an attachment
12. Send Tracking Message to internal company purchase
request e-mail address as an attachment
13. The Forwarded Message will show approvals with Date Stamp as
well as detailed request and attachments
14. Next Steps
• Finance Review to Confirm Information
• Forward for next steps per company policy
• Move Copy to Finance shared folder for
storage and future reference for audit
15. • Some companies wanted integration with Finance
systems for PO creation
• Since Requisition is simply an Excel template it is
simple to map the fields to Finance systems
• Not surprisingly this is easier with new Cloud based
SaaS Finance systems
• It does require additional discipline with the request
format
• Still majority of small companies will not need this
16. Additional Things to consider
• Achieve copy vs. all access copy
– Finance can move approved copy to a restricted
access folder for audit record retention
– Could have a public location where requestors can
see their history and all others
• Status
– Generally the person making the request would
get a copy of the purchase order to know the
request was completed.
17. Additional Things to consider
• Could Add unique number to request:
– At request creation
• Get from Finance – Finance Assigns numbers in blocks
to departments
• Our just use date, requestor initials and number of
requests for day Ex. 41514BK1
• Link purchase request to PO # issued
– After purchase order issued add PO # onto
Request before achieve
18. Summary
• Implementation is simple
• Provide better user experience, more control
and better efficiency
• Process can sustain higher level of activity
than initially designed for
• Possible to integrate with Finance System as is
• With no infrastructure cost it is easy to
migrate to an integrated SaaS based solution
when ready