Requisitions & vendors

Ask for parts and supplies, get the request approved, record the order, and receive stock against it — with vendors and purchase approvers.

When something runs short, raise a requisition rather than just phoning the supplier. The purchase is then asked for, approved, ordered, and received in one record, and the stock lands in Parts or Stores with its real cost. Click Requisitions under Maintenance in the sidebar.

The requisitions list

Three figures head the page: Awaiting approval (requests submitted and waiting on a decision), On order (the estimated value still to arrive), and Received this year (what was bought through requisitions). Tabs filter the list — Open, Awaiting approval, On order, Closed, and All.

Each requisition has a number (REQ-0001 and up) and shows its items, who requested it and when, the needed-by date, the vendor, the estimated total, and its status. Vendors in the header opens your supplier list.

The life of a requisition

1. Ask

Start a requisition from wherever the need shows up:

• Request parts on a work order, which ties the requisition to that job.
• Request more on a part or a stores item.
• Create requisition for N low parts (or low items) on the Parts and Stores pages, which drafts one requisition with a line for every item at or below its reorder point that is not already on order. Each line asks for the item's reorder quantity, or enough to reach twice its reorder point.
• + New requisition on the Requisitions page.

The first form asks for Needed by, Priority (low, normal, high, urgent), the Locomotive it is for if any, a Preferred vendor, and Notes for the approver — why it is needed, part numbers from the manual. You can add the first item straight away. Click Save draft.

On the draft's page, Add an item for each thing you need: pick a part or stores item, or leave the item blank and describe something you do not stock; then the Quantity, the Unit (it defaults to the item's own), and an Est. unit cost (it defaults to the item's current cost). The page keeps a running estimated total.

2. Submit

When the list is complete, click Submit for approval. Administrators — and any purchase approvers whose limit covers it — are notified and see it in their Approval Inbox.

3. Approve or reject

Whoever decides opens the requisition, adds an optional Note to the requester, and clicks Approve or Reject. The requester is told either way. A rejected requisition can be revised and resubmitted.

Administrators can approve their own requests; the page says so, and the record shows the same person asked and approved. Purchase approvers never approve their own.

4. Order

Once it is approved, record the order in the Record the order panel: the Vendor, the PO number, and the Expected date, then Mark as ordered. Print gives a clean requisition sheet to send the vendor, carrying their contact details and your account number with them.

5. Receive

When the box arrives, receive each line from the requisition's page: enter the Qty that arrived and the actual $ / unit, then click Receive. The quantity goes straight into Parts or Stores and the actual unit cost becomes the item's current cost. Receive part of a line if only some arrived; the requisition moves to partly received, and to received on its own once everything is in. Stock can be received against an approved requisition even before the order is recorded.

If the rest is never coming, an administrator or approver can Close short: what arrived stays received, and the outstanding quantity stops counting as on order. The requester or an administrator can Cancel a requisition up to the point anything has been received against it.

While a requisition is open, its outstanding quantity shows as On order on the part or stores item, so an item that has already been ordered reads on order rather than reorder.

Purchase approvers

Administrators can decide any requisition. An administrator can also make someone a purchase approver: on the person's page under Crew, in the App account panel, tick Approve purchases (requisitions) and, optionally, set Up to a dollar limit on the requisition's estimated total. Leave the limit blank for no limit.

An approver can approve, reject, record the order, and close short — within their limit. Two rules keep this honest:

• An approver never approves their own request. It goes to someone else.
• A limit needs prices. A requisition with any line that has no estimated cost cannot be checked against a limit, so it goes to an administrator or an approver without a limit. The page says so.

Approvers see the requisitions they can decide in their Approval Inbox, and are notified when one is submitted.

Receiving only through requisitions

An administrator can switch on Stock comes in only through requisitions under Settings → Books & purchasing. From then on the plain Receive stock and Record purchase panels on parts and stores are replaced by a list of the item's open requisitions and a Request more button, so every purchase has an approval and an order behind it. Receiving against a requisition works exactly as before, and fuel or water bought at the pump and logged without a store is still logged on the run or locomotive.

When a stocktake disagrees with the book, administrators use Correct the count on the part or store, with a reason. A correction is not a purchase and never counts as spending. See Settings & permissions.

Vendors

Vendors (from the Requisitions page) is your list of suppliers. Add one with + Add vendor: Name, Contact, Phone, Email, Website, Our account number with them, whether they are Active, and Notes. The list shows each vendor's open and total requisitions.

A vendor that has requisitions against it cannot be deleted — mark it inactive instead, so past orders still name who they came from.

Related pages

• Parts inventory
• Consumable stores
• Work orders
• Cost Center
• Notifications