How to submit procurement requests

Overview

Employees submit procurement requests through Programs that Admins publish in Ramp. Depending on the Program and approval workflow, an approved request can create a purchase order, issue a virtual card, or both.

Submit a procurement request

Use Request, then choose the Program that matches what you need to buy.

Request spend from a Program

Select the Program that matches the purchase you need to make. If you do not see a relevant Program, ask your Ramp Admin which program to use or whether they need to publish one for your purchase type.

Upload a contract or quote for automated intake

You can upload a contract or quote and Ramp will auto-fill the Frequency, Start/end date, and Line items. You can also manually fill everything out or edit any fields.

You can save requests as drafts and re-access it from your "My Ramp" dashboard.

**Please note:**Negative amounts are permitted.

Fill out the request manually

Fill in the required questions on the form. You'll need to select the frequency (one-time or recurring), add service start/end dates, and the line items for the request. All other questions & accounting fields on this form are added by your administrator, so any questions/feedback should be directed to them.

Learn more about multi-currency POs here.

Approvals

At the bottom of the request, you'll see the approvals required to issue the request. The requestor, Admins and Accounting roles can edit the request at any time during the approval process.If the request is edited after it has been approved by a previous stakeholder, the approval chain will restart. Approvers will receive a notification via email and slack (if enabled) when they are up for approval.

Note: If no approvals are required or your role can skip approvals, submitting the request can immediately generate a PO, issue a virtual card, or both. Otherwise, Ramp issues the result after the request is fully approved.

Create a purchase order from a procurement request

If the Program uses purchase orders, Ramp creates the PO when the request is fully approved. The Purchase orders page is for managing POs after they exist, not for starting a new request.

Request states

A procurement request can be in 4 states:

• Approved: Request has been fully approved by stakeholders within the approval chain. Ramp has issued the resulting virtual card, PO, or both.
• Rejected: Request has been denied by an approver or admin. Rejected requests cannot be undone.
• Pending approval: The request is actively being approved by stakeholders in the approval chain
• Archived: Request is no longer active. This action cannot be undone.
  • Admins, the requester, and Procurement Coordinators can archive a request that is not linked to bills or matched card transactions.
  • For more details, see Archiving purchase orders .

Track your procurement request

Ramp makes it easy for you to get the latest updates on your procurement request by centralizing approvals and comments in one place.

Requests table

View any pending procurement requests in the Requests table. They will also appear in the bottom right on My Ramp. You can hit "Remind" once a day to send a reminder to approvers.

View activity and documents

Click into a request to see approvals or any comments in the "Activity" tab. You can make comments and tag people directly. You'll be notified about comments and mentions via email and Slack integration (if enabled). Additionally, you can view any documents you uploaded while submitting the request (if any), or upload anything new that may be relevant for the request.

Keep stakeholders informed

To keep colleagues informed about your request without adding them to the approval chain, tag them in a comment on the Activity tab using the @ mention. Tagged users receive a notification via email and Slack (if your company has enabled the Slack integration) and can then view the request and add their own comments.

For procurement requests, admins can also assign a Request Coordinator — a designated person who oversees the request through its lifecycle. See Procurement Request Coordinator for details.

Additionally, admins can add a Notify step to the approval workflow to automatically send notifications to specific users or groups at key points in the approval process. See Configuring Procurement Workflows for details.

Update PO info

In the request, under Details, you can see the draft PO that will be created upon approval of the request. By clicking into Edit PO Info, you can update things like the PO number, payment terms, shipping & billing information, an associated memo, and any attachments you'd like to add to the PO itself.

Update accounting information

The PO request will have two tabs, one providing an overview of the request and the other allowing you to see and edit the requests associated Accounting information. In this Accounting tab, you will be able to update the coding for all of your line items, as well as the overarching PO itself.

Purchase orders issued

Once all approvals are completed, Ramp issues an open purchase order (PO) if the Program uses purchase orders.

For more details, see Purchase orders in Ramp.