Purchase Requests

This page walks a Purchase Request from nothing to “ready for purchase”, in the order you'd normally do it. Bidders and quotes have their own page — Managing Bids & Vendor Submissions.

Finding your Purchase Requests

Procurement → Purchase Requests. Open the Filters panel to narrow the list by Program, Program Area, Project Number, PR Status, Bidder List Status, SSJ Status, Type (competitive or not), Member Approval, or a keyword. Keyword search covers the PR number, title, SOR/PIF number, scope of work and additional notes.

The Purchase Requests list with the filter panel open.

You can show or hide columns with the column button above the table. The available columns are PR Number, Program, Program Area, Project, WP, Title, Status and Selected Vendor.

ℹ️ Good to know: The Status cell can stack up to three badges: the main stage, the Bidder List state and the SSJ state. The main stage badge is hidden while a PR is still at PR Created, so a PR showing only “Bidder List Approved” is simply one that hasn't had a bid selected yet.

💡 Pro Tip: Two small icons next to the PR number are worth knowing: a set of scales means Competitive, and the person icon means Requires Member Approval. Hover for the tooltip.

Creating a Purchase Request

Click the blue + button (top right of the list) to open Create Purchase Request. It's a single page, not a wizard.

The Create Purchase Request form.

Fields marked with a red asterisk are required:

Field	Required	Notes
Program	Yes	Changing it clears the Project.
Program Area	No
Project	Yes	Only Active projects in the chosen Program are listed.
Work Package	No	Filtered to the chosen Project.
Title	Yes	Up to 255 characters.
SOR/PIF Number	No	Up to 100 characters.
Requires Member Approval	—	Yes/No switch, defaults to No.
Initiated Date	Yes	Defaults to today.
Initiated by	Yes	Pre-filled with you; change it if you're raising it for someone else.
PO Terms & Conditions	Yes	Pick No Term if none apply — but you must pick something.
Competitive Bidding	—	Yes/No switch, defaults to Yes. Setting it to No adds the SSJ tab and makes a Single Source Justification mandatory in practice.
Primary QA Requirement	No	Pick from the list (N299.1–4, N286.12, N287, ISO 9001:2015, Best Commercial Practice).
Secondary QA Requirement	No	Free text, up to 2000 characters.
Scope of Work	No	Up to 10,000 characters. This is what suppliers see.
Additional Notes	No	Up to 5000 characters. Shown externally on the RFQ/RFP — use it for instructions to suppliers, e.g. “state the country of origin for all materials”.

ℹ️ Good to know: You never type the PR number. COMS assigns it on save, in the format YY.NNN — two-digit fiscal year, then a running three-digit sequence (e.g. 26.075). PRs and POs share the same sequence for the year.

⚠️ Heads up: If a QA Requirement or a Terms & Conditions option you need isn't in the dropdown, ask the Procurement Manager to add it — both are managed libraries (Procurement → PO Terms & Conditions and QA Requirements), not free text.

💡 Pro Tip: The Scope of Work you write here applies to all bidders. You don't write a separate scope per bidder. If one bidder needs extra context, put it in that bidder's own Description or QA Requirements Notes field instead.

The PR page

Saving takes you to the PR. The page has three parts: the hero (progress gauge and Suggested Next Steps), a collapsible Details section, and the working tabs.

A newly created Purchase Request.

The tabs are Items, Bidders, SSJ (non-competitive PRs only), RFXs, Approvals, Purchase Orders, Documents and Notes.

💡 Pro Tip: There's a guided tour built into the page — the ? button next to the action menu (“Guide me through the page”) walks you round the sections.

The action menu

The … button top-right holds everything you do to a PR. Items appear only when they apply, so you'll rarely see all of them at once:

The action menu on a PR that has a selected bid but no bidder-list approval yet.

Action	Shown when
Request Bidder List Approval	Bidders added, not yet sent for approval.
Request SSJ Approval	An SSJ exists, not yet sent for approval.
Mark as Ready for Purchase	Everything upstream is approved and a bid is selected.
Create Purchase Order	The PR is ready for purchase, has no PO yet, and you hold the purchase-order create permission.
Edit / Force Edit	Always, if you can edit. Becomes Force Edit when the PR is locked.
Delete	Only while the PR is still deletable (see below).

Adding items

On the Items tab, click the + button. A row opens inline — fill it in and click the blue tick to save, or the cross to cancel.

Adding an item inline. The tick saves, the cross cancels.

Field	Required	Notes
Title	Yes	Up to 255 characters.
Description	No	Up to 2000 characters.
Quantity	No	Defaults to 1. Must be 0 or more.
UOM	No	Unit of measure — e.g. ea, hrs, m.

Three items on a PR.

⚠️ Heads up: Deleting an item also removes it from every bid on the PR — COMS warns you before it does. If suppliers have already quoted, you'll lose their pricing for that line.

R&D requests: Import WP as Item

On an R&D purchase request the + button becomes Import WP as Item instead. It opens a drawer listing every Work Package on the PR's project; tick the ones you want (or Select All) and click Confirm. Each selected WP becomes an item titled “WP number - WP name”, with quantity 1 and unit of measure wp.

ℹ️ Good to know: “R&D” here means the PR's Program is Research & Development and it has a Project. If the Import option isn't showing on a PR you expect it on, check the Program and Project are both set.

Bidders and quotes

Adding bidders, sending them the RFQ, handling what comes back, unlocking a quote for re-submission and picking the winner all live on their own page: Managing Bids & Vendor Submissions.

Single Source Justification (SSJ)

A PR with Competitive Bidding set to No gets an SSJ tab. Use Create Single Source Justification, then:

1. Give it a Title (pre-filled with the PR title).
2. Click Add Row and pick a Reason.
3. Add a Comment explaining that reason (up to 1000 characters each).
4. Repeat for as many reasons as apply, then save.

The reasons available are:

Reason	Meaning
Unique Capability	Only one qualified supplier can supply or carry out the work scope.
Member Interest	In the member's interest to retain or develop the supplier's specialised capability or expertise.
Cost and Schedule	Very short time window, or low cost.
Emergency	Unforeseen emergency situation requiring prompt action.
IP Required	The supplier's background intellectual property is required.
Long Term Investment	Significant long-term supplier investment required.
Other	Other considerations, e.g. strategic reasons.

Once the SSJ exists, use Request SSJ Approval from the PR action menu. It opens the Approvals form pre-filled and linked back to this PR.

⚠️ Heads up: An approved SSJ freezes the bidder list, not the SSJ itself. The SSJ text stays editable for as long as the PR is unlocked, so don't rely on approval to protect it — treat an approved SSJ as final by convention.

ℹ️ Good to know: There is also a general Comments box shown on the SSJ detail page. It does not currently save — put your justification narrative in the per-reason Comment fields, which do.

Sending the RFQ or RFP

For RFP and RFQ, you can either generate one from the Conexus template or upload your own. Both live on the RFXs tab.

The RFXs tab — one RFQ per bidder, neither emailed yet.

Generating an RFX

Use the download-arrow button on the RFXs tab to open Generate RFX.

Generating an RFQ for both bidders at once.

1. Pick the Type — Request For Quote (RFQ) or Request For Proposal (RFP).
2. Tick the bidders you want a document for (or Select All).
3. Set the Issue Date and Due Date.
4. Click Generate. One Word document is produced per bidder and downloads to your machine.

The RFX number is generated for you as TYPE.PR-number — e.g. RFQ.26.075.

⚠️ Heads up: Each vendor can have only one auto-generated RFX per type. Generating again for the same vendor and type replaces the previous auto-generated version. COMS warns you at the top of the form.

💡 Pro Tip: The document is filled from whatever COMS knows right now, so read it before you send it. Blanks usually mean the data is missing in COMS (a supplier phone number is the classic). If you think COMS should keep track of those, then fill the gap in COMS and regenerate, rather than just simply editing the Word file, so the next document is right too.

Uploading an RFX

Already have the document? Use the upload-arrow button instead. Pick the Purchase Request, the Type (RFQ, RFP or RFI), the Bidder, and attach the file. The RFX Number field is filled in for you and can't be edited.

Allowed file types are PDF, Word, Excel, CSV, text and PowerPoint, up to 25 MB. Uploading a file against an RFX that already exists adds a new version rather than creating a duplicate.

Versions

Click the RFX number, or choose View All Versions from the row menu, to see the version history: Version, File Name, File Size, Description, Stage, Uploaded By, Actor and Uploaded At. You can upload new versions and edit version details from there.

ℹ️ Good to know: PDFs open in a new browser tab; anything else downloads to your machine.

Sending it to the supplier

From the RFX row menu, choose Email RFX to Supplier.

The RFX row menu.

The Email RFX to Supplier drawer, with the secure submission link and a live preview.

The drawer shows you exactly what will go out:

• To — the bidder's contact email. You don't choose it; it comes from the contact on the bid.
• Subject — the RFX number and the PR title.
• Additional recipients — optional. They get the attachments but no sign-in link.
• Additional message — optional free text, up to 2000 characters.
• Attachments — the RFX itself, plus up to 10 files and any Terms & Conditions documents you add.
• Secure submission link — how many days the supplier's one-time link stays valid. Default 7 days.
• Email preview — the actual rendered email. Hit Refresh if it says “Out of date”.

Click Send Email. The RFX row's Emailed At column fills in, and you get a confirmation email yourself listing what was sent to whom.

⚠️ Heads up: The bidder's contact must have a valid email address, or the send is refused with “The Bidder Contact doesn't have a valid email. Please add a valid email to the contact to proceed.” Fix the contact record first or let the Procurement/Finance team know so that they can fix it (Procurement → Companies), then come back.

This email is what gives the supplier access to the portal — the vendor page describes what they see. You can re-send at any time; the row menu label changes to Re-send RFX to Supplier.

Approvals

Use Request Bidder List Approval from the action menu once your bidders are in. COMS pre-fills the approval with the right category, a title, and an auto-generated summary listing each bidder and their address — you can edit any of it before sending. Pick your approvers and send.

The Approvals tab on the PR tracks both chains. For how approving itself works — hierarchy levels, internal versus external approvers, magic links — see the Approvals chapter of this book.

ℹ️ Good to know: Requesting any approval on a PR means the PR can never be deleted afterwards, even if the approval is rejected or withdrawn.

Mark as Ready for Purchase

When the PR is complete — items in, bidder list approved, SSJ approved if non-competitive, winning bid selected — choose Mark as Ready for Purchase from the action menu.

⚠️ Heads up: This is a one-way door. It locks the PR and everything under it: items, bidders, quotes, the SSJ and the RFXs all become read-only, for everyone. Only a super-admin can force a change afterwards. Check the PR over before you click it.

What it unlocks in return is PO creation — Create Purchase Order appears in the action menu.

⚠️ Heads up: COMS is set up to email the procurement team when a PR is marked ready. That notification goes to a mailbox list configured by administrators — if it hasn't been configured in your environment, no email goes out. Don't rely on it alone for anything urgent; tell procurement directly as well.

Creating the Purchase Order

(This step only applies for Procurement Team)

Create Purchase Order opens the PO form with the PR's information already carried across: program, program area, project, work package, terms & conditions, the winning vendor and contact, the scope of work as the description, and your additional notes.

The line items and money come from the selected bid, not from the PR items — quantities offered, unit costs and HST as the winning supplier quoted them. The PO keeps the PR's number.

Two things you must choose yourself:

Field	Options
Security Level	General POs · Contract Staff/Supplementary Contractor POs – Manager Level · Contract Staff/Supplementary Contractor POs – Director Level · CEO/President
Approval Level	CEO/President · CFO/Treasurer · BS Manager Finance

⚠️ Heads up: Pick these carefully — they set the approval chain, and they freeze once the chain reaches Director Review.

ℹ️ Good to know: One PO per PR. The PR's Purchase Orders tab links to it, and the PR is locked permanently from that point. Instruction Notices are raised from the PO afterwards, not from the PR.

💡 Pro Tip: The PO total can take a moment to appear after creation. If it's blank, give it a minute and reload rather than re-entering anything.

Notes

The Notes tab is for anything worth recording against the PR. The tab shows a count badge, and it updates live as notes are added or removed.

When adding a note, choose who can see it:

• Share with everyone with access — anyone who can see the PR.
• Keep private (only me).
• Share with selected staff — pick the individuals.

⚠️ Heads up: Notes are an audit record. You can edit or delete your own note for 24 hours; after that it's permanent. Notes are capped at 500 characters — add several rather than trying to fit everything into one.

Documents

The Documents tab has two sections. Statement of Work is read-only and shows bid-type documents attached to the PR — including files uploaded in BMS. Others is where you can add and manage PR-level documents yourself.

💡 Pro Tip: Looking for a bid document that was uploaded in BMS and can't find it on the bidder? It'll be here, under Statement of Work.

Editing, locking and deleting

When a PR locks

A PR stops being editable when either of these is true:

• it has been marked Ready for Purchase, or
• a Purchase Order has been created from it.

The lock covers the whole PR, not just its own fields — items, bidders, quotes, the SSJ and RFXs are all frozen with it.

Deleting a PR

A PR can only be deleted while all of these hold: it isn't locked, no bid has been selected, and no approval has ever been requested on it. Otherwise COMS refuses with “This purchase request cannot be deleted: it has a selected bid, approval requests, or Purchase Orders attached.”

💡 Pro Tip: In practice: if you've gone as far as selecting a bid or asking for an approval, the PR is part of the audit trail and is there to stay. If it was raised in error, note why on the Notes tab so the record explains itself.