Top features of NetSuite Advanced Procurement

For retail businesses, effective procurement management is crucial to maintaining healthy stock levels while controlling costs. Inventory management, vendor relationships, and pricing fluctuations require a system that streamlines procurement processes. NetSuite’s Advanced Procurement module is designed to address these challenges by providing tools such as Requisitions, Blanket Purchase Orders, and Purchase Contracts. These features help retailers optimize purchasing workflows, negotiate better vendor terms, and ensure timely stock replenishment to meet customer demand. Let’s have a look at a few features of NetSuite Advanced Procurement in this blog:

Requisitions:

A purchase requisition is essentially a request submitted when someone in the company needs an item or service. The requester simply outlines what they need, and it’s perfectly fine if they don’t yet have details like the name of the vendor or the exact price. Those details can be added later by the purchasing team.

Before a purchase can move forward, the requisition typically goes through an approval process based on the company’s hierarchy. Once it’s approved, the buyer converts the requisition into a purchase order (PO) and places the order with the appropriate vendor. Buyers can process these requests individually or set up automated purchasing using preferred vendors and pricing.

Requisition vs. Purchase Requests

As mentioned earlier, Purchase Request or Purchase Requisition is an internal document used within an organization to list items or services that need to be purchased. These requests may be created for several reasons such as informing the purchasing department about upcoming needs, initiating the procurement process, or seeking budget approval from management.

In NetSuite, Purchase Requisitions are part of the Advanced Procurement module, while Purchase Requests are available in the base product. Although the terms sound similar, they serve different purposes.

Requisitions are designed to be simple and flexible, allowing any employee to enter a request even when they have limited information (such as not knowing the vendor). Purchase Requests, on the other hand, require more detail upfront and are tied closely to vendor-specific purchasing.

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The following screenshots show the differences between Purchase Request & Purchase Requisition entry screens.

• Purchase Portal on the Employee Center Dashboard with links to both Requests and Requisitions.

• Purchase Request entry screen

• Purchase Requisition Entry Screen

Creation of Purchase Requisition

When logged in under the Employee Center role, users will need to navigate to the Purchases section of their dashboard. It is easy to confuse Purchase Requisitions for Purchase Requests. So, ensure that you click on the Purchase Requisition subtab and then click on the Enter Purchase Requisition button which is shown in the screenshot above.
Note: You must have an Employee Center role to access the Employee Center. An administrator can add the Employee Center role to your employee record. To enter a requisition using the Employee Center, you'll need to:

1. Log in to the Employee Center.
2. Click on Enter Requisition.

Then, fill in primary Information:

•     Select the employee or person who is raising the request in the requestor field
•     In the Receive by field select the date you want to receive the order
•     Enter the date of requisition
•     Select the department, class, location

Items Subtab: Select the Items with estimated rate and quantity
Relationship Subtab: Enter the contact information
Communication Subtab: Track communications regarding your purchase request under this subtab.  

When all information on the form is filled in, click on Save.
Note: If your company uses approval routing, the requisition must go through the approval process before a linked purchase order can be created.

Blanket Purchase Orders

Blanket Purchase Orders (BPOs) help buyers work more efficiently and reduce procurement costs. A BPO lets you lock in a fixed price for a specific quantity of items you plan to buy from a vendor over a set period of time. Instead of negotiating prices every time you place an order, you agree on pricing and terms with the vendor upfront. This makes purchasing faster, more consistent, and more cost-effective.

Next, you can set up a BPO to define the particulars of the agreement including:

• The item/items to be purchased from the vendor
• The negotiated price for the items
• The quantity of items to be purchased
• The intended delivery schedule

Once you create a BPO, you can use it to generate new purchase orders for the items you’ve agreed on with the vendor. Any order you create from the BPO will automatically use the negotiated prices and terms, as long as the delivery falls within the valid date range. You can choose to release all related purchase orders right when the BPO is created, or you can release them later as you need them. Buyers can release future orders manually, or the system can release them automatically based on item lead times or tools you use, such as Demand Planning or Advanced Inventory Management.

After purchase orders have been created from delivery schedules and released:

• Purchase order lines reference the originating blanket purchase order.
• The blanket purchase order schedule details all associated purchase orders.

NetSuite’s Advanced Procurement module equips retail businesses with powerful tools to streamline their purchasing processes, ensuring that stock levels are optimized while keeping costs under control. Retailers can benefit from features like Requisitions and Blanket Purchase Orders to efficiently manage procurement from multiple vendors, even when prices fluctuate or product demand spikes. With Advanced Procurement, retail businesses can consolidate orders, improve vendor negotiations, and reduce overall procurement spending. For an even more advanced solution, Tvarana’s PortalsPro Advanced Procurement for NetSuite module offers additional functionalities such as streamlined vendor communication, collaboration on RFQ's, raising quotes, submitting invoices, initiate payments, and resolve disputes .For further information on PortalsPro Advanced Procurement features, schedule a free consultation with our team of NetSuite experts.