Requisitions and Purchase Orders
How a Requisition differs from a Purchase Order, and how one becomes the other.
A Requisition and a Purchase Order are the same kind of record, at two different stages of commitment.
Requisitions come first
A Requisition is a request to buy something, before you've committed to actually purchasing it. You can create, edit, and delete a Requisition, but you can't purchase or receive one — it hasn't become a real order yet.
Converting to a Purchase Order
When you're ready to commit, a Requisition converts into a full Purchase Order. From that point on, it follows the normal Purchase Order workflow — approval (if required), purchasing, and receiving. See Purchase Order Statuses for what that looks like.
Requisitions are optional
Requisitions and Purchase Orders each have their own organization-level setting. If your organization hasn't enabled Requisitions, you'll create Purchase Orders directly rather than starting from a Requisition.