Purchase requests
How selling something you do not have turns into a purchase order, and where to find what is waiting to be ordered.
When you sell something you do not have in stock, the order line can be reserved against a purchase order that does not exist yet. That creates a purchase request — a standing note that this product needs buying, for this customer, on this order.
Purchasing then works from that list rather than from memory.
Where a request comes from
A request is created by the sale, not by purchasing. Setting an order line's reservation to request purchase order is what raises it — see Order lines.
The line reserves immediately, even though nothing is on order yet. That is the point: the customer is promised the goods, and the promise is recorded against something purchasing can act on.
Two ways to look at the list
By product
Every requested product, aggregated
You are placing orders with suppliers and want quantities per product
By order
The same requests, grouped by the sales order they came from
You are chasing one customer's order, or prioritising by promise date
Both views filter on organisation, store, supplier and order state.
The by-product view is the one that saves money — five customers each waiting for the same item become one line with a quantity of five, and one order to the supplier.
Turning requests into a purchase order
Requests are a worklist, not an order. Nothing reaches the supplier until a purchase order is created and sent, at which point it follows the normal lifecycle — see Purchase order statuses.
As the goods move, the reservation on the sales line follows:
Requested, nothing ordered
REQUEST_PURCHASEORDER
Purchase order placed
PURCHASEORDER
Supplier confirmed the shipment
PURCHASEORDER_CONFIRMED
Goods received
Stock exists, and the line draws on it
Purchase requests versus Max/Min
Two different reasons to buy, and they answer to different things.
Triggered by
A customer order
Stock falling to or below the minimum
Quantity
What was sold
Enough to reach the maximum
Tied to a customer
Yes
No
A request is demand you have already committed to. Max/Min is replenishment. Most stores need both.
Note that Max/Min can be told to exclude reserved stock from its calculation. With that on, stock already promised to a customer is not counted as available — which keeps the two mechanisms from quietly cancelling each other out.
What this means for you
Check the request list before placing supplier orders. Ordering from Max/Min alone misses everything customers are already waiting for.
A reserved line is not stock. A request reserves against goods nobody has ordered yet. Only receiving makes it real — see Receiving goods.
Limitations
A request is raised per order line. Two lines for the same product on the same order are two requests, aggregated only in the by-product view.
Last updated 19.09.2026
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