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Procurement Workflows & Policies in D365: From Requisition to Release (Without Getting Stuck)

  • Beau Schwieso
  • 3 days ago
  • 4 min read

If your procurement process feels like a school car line at 3:15 p.m., you are not alone. Lots of people, unclear rules, and one stalled minivan can back up everyone else. In F&O, smart workflows and clear policies turn that chaos into flow... workflow that it (pun intended). Lets just jump into it without some more bad puns shall we?


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Part 1: The practical map for newcomers

Requisition vs PO vs Release order

  • Purchase requisition

    • Internal request for goods or services. It uses either an item number or a procurement category. After approval, it can create a purchase order or a release order against a purchase agreement.

  • Purchase order

    • The commercial order to a vendor. It is created directly or generated from approved requisitions.

  • Release order

    • A purchase order created specifically against a valid purchase agreement, consuming the agreement’s quantity or value commitments.


Where procurement categories matter

  • Category drives workflow conditions for non-catalog and service requests.

  • Category can drive default accounting distributions and preferred vendors.

  • Category access can be limited by policy so users only see what they should buy.


Approval routing basics that work

  • Route by amount thresholds for financial control.

  • Route by procurement category to involve the right functional owner.

  • Route by cost object such as project, department, or business unit via financial dimensions.

  • Use review steps for purchasing agents when vendor choice or pricing is missing.


Four common stall points and quick fixes

  1. Wrong category selected

    1. Fix with category access policies, training, and workflow conditions that fail fast when category is not in scope.

  2. No vendor or incorrect vendor on the line

    1. Fix with policy to require vendor selection by requester or route to purchasing to source a vendor.

  3. Agreement exists but user creates a spot PO

    1. Fix with policy that prefers release orders and buyer review for items or categories with active agreements.

  4. Missing accounting distribution

    1. Fix with category defaults and dimension rules, then block submission if distributions are incomplete.


Part 2: Design choices veterans care about

Policy layers you should design together

  • Purchasing policies

    • Control how requisitions become orders, when to require RFQs, who can select vendors, and when to consolidate demand.

  • Category policies

    • Limit who can request from which categories and set defaults for accounting and approval logic.

  • Vendor policies and rules

    • Influence preferred vendors, approval requirements for onboarding, and controls for bank account changes and risk flags.


Tip: Document policy intent in plain language, then translate to system rules. If the policy cannot be expressed as a simple sentence, your workflow will grow brittle.

Building a durable approval matrix

  • Amount tiers that scale by company and currency. Define who approves at 5k, 25k, 100k, and so on.

  • Conditions on category, project, site, and financial dimensions. Keep conditions readable. If an approver cannot explain the rule, it will fail in practice.

  • Timeouts and escalations. If no action after N days, escalate one level. If still idle, route to purchasing to triage.


Auto-releasing against purchase agreements

  • When a valid agreement exists for the item or category, allow approved requisitions to create release orders automatically.

  • Guardrails

    • Require the same vendor as the agreement unless the buyer explicitly overrides.

    • Block release when agreement end date has passed.

    • Alert when agreement consumption crosses 80 percent.


Exception handling playbook

  • Urgent buys

    • Route to an expedited path with required justification text and a mandatory buyer review step.

  • Off-contract requests

    • Allow, but require buyer sign-off and track spend leakage for periodic review.

  • Insufficient budget

    • Route to finance for override or bounce back with guidance.


Audit-ready controls

  • Log who changed vendor or price during triage.

  • Require attachments for sole-source justification above a threshold.

  • Keep a clean separation between requester approvals and purchasing agent reviews to avoid self-approval risks.


Part 3: Monitoring the health of your workflow

Measure the flow to keep it healthy.

  • Requisition cycle time from submission to final approval.

  • Buyer triage time when purchasing must complete vendor or price details.

  • Percent auto-released to agreements without manual touch.

  • Stuck items count older than N days by approver, by category, and by company.

  • On-contract vs off-contract value for approved requests.


Use a simple, shared dashboard. Buyers should see the queue, approvers should see their backlog, finance should see control metrics.

Quick self-test

  1. Can a non-catalog service request route to the wrong approver if the category is incorrect

  2. Do approved requisitions create release orders automatically when a valid agreement exists

  3. Do you measure percent of spend approved against agreements vs spot POs

  4. Do urgent requests use a separate path with justification and buyer review

  5. Can you name the top three reasons requisitions get stuck in your company

Score 4 or 5 and your car line is moving. Score 2 or less and it is time to re-stripe the lanes.


Dad joke break

My requisition workflow used to be like bedtime with toddlers. Many steps, lots of routing, and somehow nobody approved anything.


Helpful Microsoft Learn links

 
 
 
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