The Create Purchase Request module lets employees request equipment, supplies, or services for company use. Authorized users can also submit purchase requests on behalf of another employee.
It helps ensure each request has the right details and follows the company’s approval process before anything is purchased.
Where to Find It #
Go to Dashboard → Purchase → Create. The page has two parts: a button that opens the purchase request form, and below it a table of the requests you can see — your own, plus any you submitted on someone else’s behalf. Everything in this guide happens on that one page.
Related Setup and Navigation #
Before employees submit purchase requests, admins should make sure the following is set up.
- Currency Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Currency
Used to configure which currencies are available on the purchase form, and which one is the default. - Permission Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Permission → Employee Permission / Team Permission
Used to assign purchase-related permissions, such as creating requests for yourself or on behalf of others, editing, deleting, viewing, approving, or rejecting purchase requests. Please check the Permissions Management guide for a better understanding. - Approval Flow Setup
Route: Dashboard → Admin → Approval Flows
Used to configure single-step or multi-step approval workflows for purchase requests. Please check the Approval Flows (Workflow Management) for a better understanding. - Create Purchase Request
Route: Dashboard → Purchase → Create Purchase Request
Used by employees to submit purchase requests for themselves, or by permitted users to submit requests on behalf of other employees.
Who Can Use This Feature #
Subscriber Admin can create a purchase request for any employee in the company, at any time, without needing any specific permission.
Employees need permission even to submit a purchase request for themselves — this isn’t automatic just from being an employee. Submitting a purchase request on behalf of someone else requires a separate permission on top of that.
Permission Behavior
Two permissions control who can create a purchase request at all, and for whom:
- Create Purchase Request (For Own)
Required action: Create
Required just to submit a purchase request for yourself. Without this, the Create Purchase Request option won’t appear at all — not even to request something for yourself. - Create Purchase Request (For Others)
Required action: Create
Shows the Request For field in the Create Purchase Request form, letting you pick another employee and submit the request on their behalf instead of your own. This is on top of, not instead of, Create Purchase Request (For Own).
Without Create Purchase Request (For Others), the Request For field doesn’t appear, and the form can only submit a purchase request for yourself (assuming you hold Create Purchase Request (For Own)).
Also, the create permissions only control creating purchase requests. Editing or deleting a request created on behalf of someone else requires separate permissions: Edit Purchase Request (For On Behalf) and Delete Purchase Request (For On Behalf).
Beyond creating a purchase request, several other permissions control the rest of the purchase lifecycle, each covered in the section of this guide (or a related guide) where that action is explained:
- Edit Purchase Request (For Own) / Edit Purchase Request (For On Behalf) — see Edit Purchase Request below.
- Delete Purchase Request (For Own) / Delete Purchase Request (For On Behalf) — see Delete Purchase Request below.
- View Purchase Request Details — To open and view the details of a purchase request, the employee also needs the View Purchase Request Details permission.
All of these permissions can be assigned directly to an employee, or to an entire team at once (so everyone on that team inherits them). See the Permissions Management guide for how to assign permissions.
Create Purchase Request Form #
The form includes the following fields:
- Request For
Appears only for users with Create Purchase Request (For Others) permission (or the Subscriber Admin). Used to select another employee when creating a request on their behalf. - Equipment Details
Describe the item or service to purchase. Limited to 500 characters. - Estimated Cost
The expected cost for the request. Must be greater than zero, and can’t exceed 9,999,999. - Priority Level
Select the priority: Low, Medium, or High. - Currency
Select the applicable currency, from the currencies configured under Dashboard → Admin → Currency. Defaults to your company’s default currency, but can be changed per request. - Attachments
Upload supporting documents such as quotations — up to 5 files per request. Each file must be a JPG, PNG or PDF and no larger than 2 MB. A file outside those rules is refused as you pick it, with a short message saying why, so check the size before uploading a scanned quotation or a photo taken on a phone. - Send Request
Submits the purchase request for approval.
Tip: Admins or authorized employees can create requests for multiple employees, making it easier to manage procurement across teams.
Approval Flow Assignment #
If your organization has an approval flow configured for purchase requests (from Dashboard → Admin → Approval Flows), every submission follows that workflow before final approval. The applicable flow is chosen based on the employee, their team, gender, department, or designation — the same criteria used for other approval-based modules in Office-X.
Good to know: Approval flows can include exceptions, allowing you to create a company-wide flow while excluding specific employees. Only active flows are used. If no active flow applies to an employee, the purchase request is still created as Pending and goes directly to the Subscriber Admin. If an approval step is assigned to the Reporting Manager but the employee has no Reporting Manager, the Subscriber Admin is notified instead, so the request does not get stuck.
A purchase request follows the configured approval flow step by step. Each approval moves the request to the next step, and it becomes Approved only after the final step is approved. If any approver rejects it, the request is Rejected immediately. The Subscriber Admin can also act on any currently pending step.
What Happens After Submission? #
After a purchase request is submitted successfully:
- The purchase request status becomes Pending.
- If an approval flow applies, the first step’s approver(s) are notified (in-app and/or by email, depending on how that step is configured). If no flow applies, the Subscriber Admin is notified instead.
- The employee whose request it is always receives a confirmation email, separately from whatever goes to approvers.
- The purchase request appears in the employee’s purchase request list.
Finding Your Purchase Requests #
The table below the button is where you track what you’ve submitted. Each row shows the ID, Employee, Est Cost (with its currency), Attachment (a tick or cross, not a download link), Priority, Status, Requested Date, and the Action menu (View, Edit, Delete — whichever are available to you). Newest requests come first.
To narrow it down:
- Search — type an employee name or ID.
- Filters — the Filters button opens Priority (All, High, Medium, Low), Status (All, Pending, Approved, Rejected) and a Requested Date From/To range. The button shows how many filters are active, each appears as a small badge, and Clear removes them all at once.
- Columns — hide any columns you don’t need so the table fits your screen.
- Pages — 10 rows per page by default, switchable to 20 or 30, with a “go to page” box for long lists.
Action Options (Permission-Based) #
All actions are controlled by user permissions:
Edit Purchase Request #
A purchase request can be edited only while its status is Pending. Approved or rejected purchase requests cannot be edited.
- Subscriber Admin can edit any pending purchase request in the company.
- Users with Edit Purchase Request (For Own) permission can edit their own pending purchase requests.
- Users with Edit Purchase Request (For On Behalf) permission can edit a pending purchase request only if they personally created it on that employee’s behalf in the first place — not just any employee’s request.
When editing, you can add or remove attachments, still capped at 5 in total.
Delete Purchase Request #
A purchase request can be deleted only while its status is Pending. Approved or rejected purchase requests cannot be deleted.
- Subscriber Admin can delete any pending purchase request in the company.
- Users with Delete Purchase Request (For Own) permission can delete their own pending purchase requests.
- Users with Delete Purchase Request (For On Behalf) permission can delete a pending purchase request only if they personally created it on that employee’s behalf in the first place — same rule as editing.
Deleting a purchase request also removes its uploaded attachments and any comments (along with their attachments) on that request.
View Purchase Request #
Users with the required access can open the purchase request’s details page to review the full information — request details, attachments, approval flow, and comments.
The details page also carries a Timeline — a plain Date / Action / Action By table of everything that has actually happened to this request, in date order: Created (and who filed it, which matters when someone submitted it for you), any edits with the exact fields that changed from old value to new value — attachment changes show as a count of files added and removed — and every approval or rejection with the person who did it. If you ever need to answer “who changed this cost, and when?”, the Timeline is where to look.
Comments #
Users can use comments to communicate with approvers or the Subscriber Admin — to ask for clarification, provide additional information, or explain a decision — with up to 5 file attachments per comment (same rules as the request’s own attachments: JPG, PNG or PDF, 2 MB each).
Who can comment: the requester, the requester’s reporting manager, the Subscriber Admin, any approver named in the purchase request’s approval flow, or anyone holding View Purchase Request Details permission.
How long you can comment: only while the purchase request is still Pending. As soon as it becomes Approved or Rejected, commenting closes — comments made while it was still pending remain visible afterward.
Approved or rejected purchase requests cannot be edited or deleted.
Your Daily Routine #
Raising a purchase request, start to finish:
- Go to Dashboard → Purchase → Create and open the purchase request form.
- If you’re requesting for someone else, pick them in Request For first.
- Describe what you need in Equipment Details — be specific (model, quantity, why), because this is the only description the approver gets. You have up to 500 characters.
- Enter the Estimated Cost and check the Currency.
- Set a realistic Priority Level. Approvers filter their list by priority, so marking everything High stops being useful quickly.
- Attach any quotations, keeping each file under 2 MB, then click Send Request.
- Find the new row in the table below and watch the Status column. While it’s still Pending you can edit it, delete it, or add a comment.
Good to know: attach your quotation when you first submit. Once the request is Approved or Rejected you can’t edit it and comments are closed, so there’s no way to add a missing document afterwards — the request has to be raised again.
Notifications and Activity Log #
- You (or the employee the request belongs to) get a confirmation email as soon as it’s created, an update each time it clears a step, and a final notice once it’s Approved or Rejected.
- The approvers whose turn it is get their own notice asking them to act — in-app, by email, both, or neither, depending on that step’s switches in the approval flow.
- If no approval flow covers the employee, only the Subscriber Admin is told, and only in-app.
- Notification emails link straight to the specific request, so you don’t have to hunt for it in the list.
Activity Log: creating, editing, deleting, approving and rejecting a purchase request are all recorded in Dashboard → Activity Log, along with who did it and when. Comments are recorded too. So even if a request is later deleted, the fact that it existed and who removed it stays traceable.
Summary #
The Create Purchase Request module allows employees to submit requests efficiently while maintaining traceability, control, and compliance. Permission-based access — including the base permission just to create a request for yourself — ensures that managers or HR can create requests on behalf of others when required. Pending requests can be edited, deleted, or commented on based on permission, while approved and rejected requests are protected from further changes.
Note: If your organization has an approval workflow configured for purchase requests, all submissions will follow the defined workflow before final approval — see the Approve & Reject Purchase Requests guide for exactly how that works.
