Purchase Order Processes

A purchase requisition is a document used by employees when they need to purchase or order something on behalf of their company.  It will be used to inform managers to get authorisation, then subsequently to inform finance, HR and / or IT, depending on what’s being requested.

How DocuWare Streamlines Purchase Order Creation and Management

A purchase order (PO) is issued by a company’s purchasing or finance team once a purchase requisition has been approved. It’s the formal document sent to a supplier to request goods or services. Traditionally, POs are created manually, emailed back and forth, or tracked in spreadsheets—processes that are slow, prone to errors, and hard to audit.

With DocuWare, purchase order creation becomes fully automated. Once a requisition is submitted, DocuWare routes it through a predefined approval workflow, ensuring it reaches the right managers in the correct order. Approvers can review and approve POs directly in the system, with every action recorded automatically. This gives finance teams full visibility, removes delays, and keeps approvals organised and traceable.

Once approved, DocuWare can generate the purchase order and send it directly to the supplier, while storing a copy securely in a central, searchable repository. This makes it easy to track outstanding orders, match invoices, and reconcile payments. Historical POs are always accessible for reporting, audits, or compliance checks, reducing risk and saving valuable time.

By integrating with your ERP or finance systems, DocuWare ensures purchase order data flows seamlessly across your business.

The result? Our Clients see faster approvals, fewer errors, and complete control over procurement. Automating POs with DocuWare lets finance leaders focus on strategic tasks, not manual document chasing.

A purchase order is issued by the purchasing or finance department, after the purchase requisition has been through the approval processes.  This document is then sent from a buyer to a supplier to request the order.

A Typical Purchase Order Process:

This all relies on a document moving around the business. With a workflow tool designed for purchase processes, there is no need for a physical or digital ‘document’ until the process is completed. This saves valuable resource and allows better collaboration. For example, it might be that there are 10 possible approver's for a PO. DocTech’s solution can send a task to all 10, and then delete the task for the other approver's once the status is updated by a user with correct approval rights.

Is there enough control in your purchase requisition processes?

A key consideration is WHO can raise a Purchase Requisition and PO in your business? Is this controlled tightly enough? We have a client who came to us after a major overspend by someone who shouldn’t have been able to raise a PO. There was a lack of process and structure, which in turn allowed this to happen.

Purchase Requisitions and Purchase Orders are separate parts of the procurement process.  Your processes may include sending emails or printing documents off to be authorised by approvers in your process. This is actually a form of workflow – albeit a very manual workflow. We look to assist businesses in gaining tighter control and visibility of these processes whilst enhancing efficiency and speed.

Whether you are a supplier or purchaser, your company can benefit from making its procurement process more efficient and transparent.  Having business rules in place can reduce risk and bottlenecks. Without this, employees waste lots of time running after lost information or fixing mistakes caused by misplaced paperwork.

Do you have Visibility of Your Purchasing Documents?

Managers can have no visibility of how many documents there are, of what's waiting authorisation or if there’s a duplication. There is also no interaction with financial budgets. DocTech can apply technical solutions for escalations and substitutions that prevent documents being stuck or duplicated. We can implement easy to use, electronic purchase requisition and PO templates into your processes.

If your business is using old fashion purchasing processes, or has no, properly defined processes, you are wasting valuable resource. This resource should instead, be creating a positive client and employee experience. Nowadays, there are plenty of modern companies your clients could go to if you can’t give them the quality of service they know they can get elsewhere.

Purhcase orders obviously forms part of the wider financial processes. We help organisations to digitize and automate their full purchase to pay process. 

Automation of basic processes that simply eat away at your profit are an easy win. It allows staff to turn their attention to better more productive tasks. Get in touch to discuss what you would like to improve about your purchase requisition process.