A waiting requisition does not always mean the approver is slow. Missing information, incorrect routing and uncertainty about the decision can produce the same delay. Before adding more notifications to a procurement approval process, make the requested decision clearer.
Separate requisition approval from order approval
Requisition approval usually concerns whether the requirement is appropriate. Order approval concerns the selected offer, quantities and commercial terms. Asking for both decisions with the same explanation leaves the reviewer unsure what to check. Define the information needed at each stage separately.
Tenflex's request module can use approval workflows determined by the user's organisational unit. Orders also have their own approval process. This should not be interpreted as automatic budget control, delegation functionality or unconditional automatic approval. Evaluate the workflow against the actual scope being used by the organisation.
Send a record that supports a decision
A requisition should explain the intended use, item quantities and required date. If it is urgent, state why. Missing technical information often forces the buyer to complete the record through phone calls later. A few meaningful mandatory fields can be more useful than a long form whose purpose is unclear.
At the order stage, keep payment and delivery conditions visible alongside the chosen price. If the selected offer differs from the earlier recommendation, preserve the reason. The existence of an approval button does not ensure that a reviewer has enough context. The underlying record must make sense without reconstructing an email conversation.
Read waiting time carefully
Record when an item is sent for approval and when the decision is made. Mixing routine same-day decisions with requests needing specialist review can hide the actual bottleneck. Inspect unusually long cases individually before drawing a conclusion from the average.
Determine whether the delay came from missing information, an unclear responsibility or the review itself. These causes require different changes. A faster notification cannot resolve an unanswered technical question, and removing a reviewer will not repair an incomplete request.
Digital process design is also addressed in the OECD's procurement transformation study. The practical recommendation here is to ask what each approval step contributes instead of copying the existing chain into a new interface unchanged.
Start with one small improvement
Review the last ten requisitions and list the extra questions asked during approval. Make the two most frequently missing pieces of information clearer in the request form. Then check whether those questions occur less often in the next ten requests.
This gives the team a concrete improvement cycle. The measure of success is not simply the number of notifications sent. It is whether reviewers can make an informed decision with fewer follow-up conversations and whether the approved requirement can move into sourcing without being re-entered or reinterpreted.
