Purchase requests and purchase orders turn goods receipts into a complete procurement workflow. You request what you need, route it for approval, send the order to your supplier, and receive against it when the delivery arrives — with a clear audit trail at every step.
The procurement flow
Purchase request (PR) — an internal request for what to buy, with an optional approval step.
Purchase order (PO) — the order you send to a supplier. An approved request becomes one or more orders, split by supplier.
Goods receipt (GR) — what actually arrived. Receiving against the order updates your stock.
Purchase request → approval → Purchase order → Goods receipt
Select an outlet, then open Inventory → Purchase requests (and Inventory → Purchase orders).
Creating a purchase request
Go to Inventory → Purchase requests and click Create purchase request.
Click Add item and choose inventory products.
For each line, set the ordered quantity, purchase unit, supplier, price per unit, and (optional) tax. Line and request totals calculate automatically.
Save it as a draft, or submit it for approval.
Two shortcuts save typing:
Create with AI — drafts a request from your current low-stock items, pre-filling recent prices and suppliers so you only review and adjust.
Recent invoiced items — the clock icon on a line shows what you last paid for that product (price, supplier, date). Click an entry to copy its details onto the line.
💡 The price per unit rescales automatically when you change the purchase unit — switching a line from kg to g keeps the same price per kilogram. New lines also inherit the product's default tax rate.
Approving purchase requests
A request moves through these stages: Draft → Pending approval → Approved / Rejected, and Complete once it has been turned into an order.
Submitting a draft sends it to Pending approval.
A reviewer opens the request and clicks Approve or Reject.
Only approved requests can be converted into purchase orders.
To skip the review step, go to Settings → Inventory and turn on Automatically approve purchase requests — "When enabled, new purchase requests are approved without manual review." Submitted requests then go straight to Approved.
🔒 Approving and rejecting is a separate permission from creating requests, so you can let staff raise requests while managers approve them. Set this under your team roles.
Converting to purchase orders
From an approved request, create the purchase orders. If the request has items from more than one supplier, Papaya splits them into one order per supplier automatically and marks the request Complete. Each order carries over the products, quantities, units, prices, and tax from the request.
Sharing a purchase order with your supplier
Open a purchase order and click Share. You can send it as a PDF, or by email, LINE, or copy as text — so your supplier receives a clean, itemised order in whatever channel they use. The PDF renders both Thai and English correctly.
Custom units of measure
If the standard units don't match how you buy (for example "case", "tray", or "box of 12"), define your own under Inventory → Custom inventory UOMs using Add custom UOM. Custom units then appear as purchase units on your products and on purchase request and order lines. Mark a unit Inactive to retire it without affecting past records.
Receiving the goods
When the delivery arrives, create a goods receipt from the purchase order to record what was actually received and update stock — including partial deliveries. See Suppliers & Goods Receipts.
FAQ
Do I have to approve every request?
No. Turn on Automatically approve purchase requests in Settings → Inventory to skip the review step.
What if one request has items from several suppliers?
Converting it creates one purchase order per supplier automatically, so each supplier gets only their items.
Why isn't a supplier showing on a suggested item?
Recent-invoiced suggestions show the supplier saved at the time of that receipt. If that supplier is no longer in your supplier list, pick a current one from the Supplier dropdown.