Understanding the Requisition Business Process

You can add a level of control early in the procurement life cycle by entering item requests using requisitions.

You enter requisitions into PeopleSoft Purchasing using either the PeopleSoft Purchasing online requisition pages or the Purchasing Requisition Loader process (PO_REQLOAD). This topic discusses requisition entry using the online requisition pages.

Requisitions consist of these basic elements: headers, lines, schedules, and distributions. Each requisition has one header, which can have multiple lines. Each line can have multiple schedules. Each schedule can have multiple distributions.

The schedule defines when and where you want the line items delivered. The distribution defines internal information for the schedule, such as how to charge accounts and departments for the purchase and how much of the total price each department should pay. When you process requisitions, you can track other requisition values such as pre-encumbrance balances when you have commitment control installed. These balances appear at the header level and the distribution-line level for requisitions and are carried over to purchase orders.

If you create a requisition using all available system-supplied values, you have to access only one page, the Maintain Requisitions - Requisition page. You don't need to access other pages, except to confirm or edit information that was supplied to the transaction from the default hierarchy.

Here is the basic flow of requisitions in PeopleSoft Purchasing:

1. Create the requisition in one of two ways:

   • Use the online requisition pages.

   • Use the Purchasing Requisition Loader process, which loads requisitions from external sources and PeopleSoft Inventory, PeopleSoft Order Management, PeopleSoft Project Costing, PeopleSoft Maintenance Management, and PeopleSoft Product Configurator (if these applications are installed with PeopleSoft Purchasing).

2. Approve the requisition.

   The requisitions can require approval of amounts and ChartFields, or you can configure the users with authority to enter requisitions that require no additional approvals. You can also use PeopleSoft Approval Framework for requisition approvals.

   See Setting Up the Approval Framework for PeopleSoft Purchasing.

3. Run the Commitment Control Budget Processor Application Engine process (FS_BP) if you've enabled the Commitment Control feature.

   This process determines whether funds exist to cover the cost of the requisition. You can also run this process as a background process.

4. Copy request for quote (RFQ) or strategic sourcing events.

   Copy the requisition into an RFQ or strategic sourcing event for the bidding process.

5. Source the requisition to purchase orders or inventory demand.

   After you approve the requisition, it is sourced into purchase orders through online sourcing pages or background processes. You can source the requisition to PeopleSoft Inventory through the Build Inventory Demand process (PO_REQINVS). You can also copy the requisition directly into a purchase order using the online pages.

   Note: If you create requisitions manually, you can set up the system to automatically apply contracts to requisitions. For more information, see the next sections.

6. Run the Requisition Reconciliation process (PO_REQRCON) to close qualifying requisitions.