What is a purchase indent?
A purchase indent is the internal note an Indian factory, site or PSU raises when someone needs material. It asks the company to buy or to issue stock. The vendor never sees it, and it is not a purchase order. Where both words are used, the indent is the need and the requisition is what enters approval.
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Purchase indent
A purchase indent is the internal note an Indian factory, site or PSU raises when someone needs material. It asks the company to buy or to issue stock. The vendor never sees it, and it is not a purchase order. Where both words are used, the indent is the need and the requisition is what enters approval.
Walk into a store in a Pune factory or onto a construction site and people do not say “please raise a purchase requisition”. They say “put an indent”. The paper is the same idea as a purchase requisition: a written need, inside the company, before anyone talks to a vendor. The purchase order is the later document that actually commits the company.
Indent, purchase requisition and purchase order
| Document | Who sees it | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Store indent | Stores and the user | Asks stores to issue material that is already on the shelf. No vendor, no PO. |
| Purchase indent | User, stores, buying | Says the material is not in stock, or should not come from stock, and buying should act. |
| Purchase requisition (PR) | Requester and approver | The formal request that enters the approval route. In many plants this is the purchase indent under another name. |
| Purchase order (PO) | The vendor | The offer the vendor can accept. It carries the price, the quantity and the tax. |
If your procedure uses “indent” and “PR” for the same sheet, do not invent a second approval. Write down which word is the one that must be signed before a PO. A blank you can fill is the purchase indent format. The field list on a purchase requisition form is the same list when the two documents are the same.
Store indent, purchase indent, material indent
- Store indent. The user wants something stores already holds. Stores issue it and the stock ledger moves. Buying is not involved unless the issue drops stock to the reorder point.
- Purchase indent. Stores cannot issue it, or the user wants a fresh buy. The indent goes to the buyer with a specification, a quantity and a date.
- Material indent. The same request when the thing being asked for is material rather than a service or a spare. Plants use the phrase for steel, cement, packing and consumables.
Who approves it
The person who needs the material should not be the person who approves the spend. A storekeeper or a site engineer raises the indent. A plant head or a project manager approves it when it sits inside a budget. Buying then either releases it against a rate contract or sends an RFQ. The approval is what stops a one-line WhatsApp (“MS sheet, urgent”) from becoming a price nobody checked.
A rupee example
Maintenance at a Chakan plant indents 40 sealed bearings, SKF 6205 or equivalent, need-by 5 November, cost centre CC-MNT-04. The last buy was ₹320 each, so the estimate is 40 × ₹320 = ₹12,800 before tax. If that HSN is taxed at 18%, the GST on the estimate is ₹2,304 and the budget figure is ₹15,104. That 18% is an example for routing the approval, not a rate you should copy onto a live order. The price on the purchase order is whatever the quotes say. The indent only proves that someone named the part, the quantity and the date before buying started.
Mistakes
- Sending the indent to the vendor. They will treat it as an order. The document that goes out is the purchase order.
- Writing “bearings, urgent” with no size. The buyer then guesses, and the wrong part arrives.
- Approving your own indent. The requester and the approver should be different people.
- Using the indent number as the PO number. The vendor’s invoice will quote a document they have never accepted.
Frequently asked questions
Indent meaning in Hindi
इंडेंट का अर्थ है विभाग या स्टोर की लिखित माँग कि कोई सामान जारी किया जाए या खरीदा जाए। खरीद इंडेंट वही माँग है जो खरीद विभाग तक जाती है। यह क्रय आदेश (purchase order) नहीं है। English: a written internal demand to issue or buy material. It is not a purchase order.
What is the difference between an indent and a purchase order?
The indent stays inside the company and asks buying to act. The purchase order goes to the vendor and, once accepted, is the commitment. An indent has an estimate. A purchase order has the agreed price.
Is a purchase indent the same as a purchase requisition?
Often yes. Some plants use the indent as the user’s note and the requisition as the request that enters approval. If your procedure uses one word, keep one document. Do not run both and hope they match.