A requisition creator is an individual within a department who initiates requests for goods and services and manages the transactions necessary to make purchases and request payments.
The Requisition (Req) Creator can and has access to:
The primary way the purchase of a good or service is initiated is through requisitions. A requisition is a request to buy a good or service, which, when approved, becomes a binding purchase order (PO) that is sent to the supplier for order fulfillment. Complete requisitions include the supplier, item, quantity, cost, accounting information, and shipping information.
At any point during the requisition process, the Req Creator can see the status of a purchase. They have access to detailed requisitions, approval status, order history, receiving information, matching, invoices, and payments.
Requisitions route for approval based on value, department, account, and other conditional reasons. Approvers are accountable for ensuring compliance with University policies. Req Creators may also be approvers which may result in self approval. Once a requisition has been fully approved, a purchase order is created and dispatched to the supplier.
After the good or service is delivered, the supplier will send an invoice for payment which will be compared with (matched) the purchase order. Where purchase orders are valued at $2,500 and greater, the Req Creator performs a receiving process in the system to confirm acceptance of the good or service. The amount or value received is also compared with (matched) to the PO and invoice. Successful matching approves the payment, which is then scheduled and paid centrally by Accounts Payable.
Sometimes a purchase order cannot be fulfilled as initiated. This can be due to out of stock situations at the supplier, actual costs coming in less than or more than expected, or differences in prices between the PO and invoice.
Should it be necessary to change a PO, a Change Request can be initiated in Prime Financials. In some circumstances, for example if a line needs to be added to the PO, Procurement Services will need to process the change. Please send an email to Procurement Services with the necessary information and a buyer will process the change on your behalf.
For requisitions less than $10,000, competitive bids are encouraged but not required. Above this amount, it is necessary to obtain competitive bids from multiple suppliers. When competitive bids are not appropriate, the reasons will be documented on the Competition Summary, an online form integrated with the requisition.
Generally speaking, formal contracts are a good idea. However, University purchase orders refer to a robust set of terms and conditions approved by the Office of General Counsel. For purchases of off-the-shelf or commodity items, the PO terms are acceptable in lieu of a written contract. For the purchase of services, a written contract is highly encouraged to ensure the deliverables are accurately specified with enough detail to prevent conflicts with suppliers due to misunderstandings of what is expected. For questions about when to use contracts, contact Procurement Services.
Chart strings are how financial information is reported and tracked and are necessary for all financial transactions including requisitions, non-PO payments, and journals. Chart strings include department numbers, fund codes, account codes, and other optional information such as program codes. For more details, see the information about the University’s Chart of Accounts
Capital equipment is defined as items with a cost of $5,000 or more with a useful life of more than one year. These items are tagged and tracked to ensure a complete an accurate inventory of all capital equipment. While the majority of the work is managed centrally by the Asset Management group in Finance and Treasury, the req creator plays an important role.
All requisitions require a chart string. For capital equipment, it is important to ensure that the account code used is one which identifies the purchase as a capital asset. These requisitions are automatically routed to the Asset Management group to add the item to the data base of assets. Once the item is received, an asset tag will be generated and sent to the department which will need to be affixed to the item. Should the item be relocated for any reason, it is necessary to inform Asset Management.
A non-PO Payment is used where a PO is not typical or expected and is limited to a few situations. Typical examples including paying utility bills, paying an honorarium, or reimbursing guests for their travel expenses. Req creators have access to create non-PO payments in Prime Financials. These will be routed for approval and, once approved, payments will be processed the next day.
In many cases, it may be necessary to process a supplier request to onboard the payee. Suppliers and payees need to be added and active in Prime Financials before transactions can be processed. A Req creator should:
To check if a supplier is in Prime Financials, you may use the search functionality within the Supplier section of the Prime Marketplace. Enter the supplier name to initiate the search. If it is necessary to add a supplier, Req Creators have access to the Supplier Request Form in the Marketplace. This form initiates the supplier onboarding process once competed and submitted by the Req Creator. In many cases, the type of supplier is known in advance. If not, the form has a series of questions which guide the Req Creator.
Ensure that you have the ability to create requisitions via the Financial Manager or Req Creators functions in Prime Financials.
Navigate to the Prime Portal and click on the Procurement WorkCenter. The WorkCenter is available to support every step of the end-to-end buying and paying process, including:
To learn more about Princeton’s Buying and Paying process, including methods outside the requisition process, please visit the Finance & Treasury website.
To learn more, please enroll in Req Creator training through the Employee Learning Center and review the related material, Requisitions: Create and Approve and Purchase Orders: Manage and Pay.
For access to the drafting, review, and negotiation stages of contracting, including tracking and reporting on University agreements, please visit the Contracting and Agreement Tracking System (CATS). In addition, the Office of General Counsel publishes information about contracts, contract terminology, and several contract templates on their contracting site.