Below is a checklist to be reviewed prior to the start of a requisition.  If you answer yes to all these questions, you are ready to start entering the requisition.

1) Is the purchase approved by the procurement authority?

Every department has their own internal approval process and signing authority.  You should ensure all purchases are approved according to your department's internal signing authority before entering the requisitions. 

2) Is supplier set up in iProcurement?

To find out if a supplier is set up in iProcurement, log into iProcurement, go to the 1^st screen of entering a Non-Catalog Request,  using search button to see if you can find the supplier that you are looking for.  If you can't, you need to submit a request to have the supplier set up.

3) Is the site a P site set up in iProcurement?

In the Non-Catalog screen, remove any default information in the Site field, use the search button to display all sites set up in the system.  Check the address information on your quote or invoice to see if you can find them in the list of sites in iProcurement.  If you do, check if the site name starts with P.  If you can't find the address you are looking for or the site name doesn't start with P, email purchasing.helpdesk@uoguelph.ca to have a new site set up or have the site name changed to a P site.

4) Do we have all the supporting documents required for the designation?

Check if you have all the supporting documents required for the requisition and if all documents are properly signed.  For information on what is required for a requisition, refer to Supporting Documents for Requisitions.

5) Are all the supporting documents in softcopy?

Are your supporting documents all in softcopy?  If no, scan them and save them in a designated folder on your computer, such as the desktop, so you can easily attach them to the requisition when prompted by system.

6) Do we know if the order is for goods or services?  Do we know if they should be entered as one time purchase or long term recurring purchase?

There are three item types in a requisition. They are:

• Goods billed by quantity
  • This is for goods that supplier will likely invoice us by quantity and we are likely paying supplier by the quantity we receive.  There is a good chance that supplier will invoice us several times, each invoice for a partial shipment, until the whole order is complete.
• Goods or services billed by amount
  • This is the most versatile item type.  The total amount of the order will be entered in the amount field.  The unit price of the requisition will be single dollar of the selected currency. Supplier could invoice us for partial order or the whole order. We are able to pay supplier by whatever amount their invoice might be.  This is to be used when we are not sure how the supplier will be invoicing us and we are not in a position to track the quantity of the delivery.  This is also suitable for blanket orders that we will release multiple shipments over the term of the order and the release has no fixed pattern in terms of quantity or amount.
• Services billed by quantity
  • This is for services that supplier will invoice us by incremental quantity.  For example, supplier invoices us by the hours they commit to our project at an agreed hourly rate, or supplier invoices us every month for their monthly services at a fixed amount.

7) Do we know what the charge code (cost centre) is for the requisition?

All requisitions need the 26 digits charge code.  Some requisitions might have multiple charge codes.  Make sure we have the information which line item will be charged to which account code.

When a requisition line has splitting charge codes, which means multiple charges code will be sharing the cost of a line item, please make sure the percentage of cost sharing will not change throughout the term of the order.  For example, if two charge codes will be sharing the cost at 50% each, then each invoice paid will be charged 50% to each charge code.  You cannot change the invoice so that the percentage of sharing becomes 30% and 70% between the two charge codes.  This is determined at the time when we set up the requisition.  

If you are not sure if the percentage of cost sharing between different charge codes will remain consistent throughout the order, it is better to set up two separate lines where each line has its own charge code.  You can then designate a particular line that an invoice should be paid against.  When there is amount change for a particular charge code, you can always revise the line with the single charge code.  Revising a line with multiple charge codes will affect all the charge codes.

8) Do we know when we need the goods or services?  For a blanket order, do we know when the term starts and ends?

When we enter a requisition for an order that is to be delivered in the future, we often want to make sure the funds get committed at the time they are allocated.  When we enter a requisition for a blanket order covering multiple fiscal years, we want to make sure the funds get committed only for the current year.  A future required date would tell buyer this order is for a future purchase, so the commitment will be set up during the specified future year.  This is particularly important during the year end process.

9) Do we know which buyer we should send the requisition to?

Check the Commodity Codes by Buyer to find out what commodity code is and who the buyer is for your requisition.