Procurement requests, one intake form and automated approval away
A consumer health and fitness app company replaced scattered purchase requests with a single Airtable intake form and automated routing, giving Procurement and IT one consolidated place to track, approve, and act on every request.
The problem
Purchase requests moved through email threads and one off conversations, with no consolidated place for Procurement or IT to see what had been requested, who had approved it, or what stage it was at.
Without a single intake point, requests were easy to lose track of, approvals were inconsistent, and neither team had visibility into purchasing activity across the company.
What they built
The company built a purchase request form in Airtable that gives Procurement and IT a single, consolidated intake process for every purchase request, replacing the ad hoc mix of emails and side conversations.
Automations route each submitted request for approval and update its status automatically, so requesters and approvers work from the same live record instead of chasing updates by hand.
The outcome
Procurement and IT gained a consolidated purchasing intake process with automated request routing, giving both teams a consistent, visible record of every request from submission to approval.
The workflow supported the company's purchasing activity across roughly 25 seats, forming a dependable stopgap process ahead of a planned transition to a company-wide finance platform.
Inside the solution
Procurement Request Workflow
Finance & Procurement
Procurement & Sourcing
- Purchase request form intake
- Automated procurement request routing
- Manual procurement request tracking
- Lack of consolidated purchasing visibility
- Consolidated procurement intake
- Automated request routing
- Procurement
- IT
- None recorded
Procurement Request Workflow
Collect every purchase request through one intake record, route it to the right Procurement or IT approver, and watch it move from submission to approval to fulfillment on a single board instead of across email threads. Automations open the approval step, write the decision back to the request, open the PO task once it clears, and send a Monday digest of everything still waiting, while Airtable AI drafts the approver summary, the suggested routing and the update back to the requester.
How the procurement request workflow works
Submit the request
Route for approval
Track status in one place
Act on the approved request
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
It replaces scattered email requests and side conversations with a single form and a consistent approval path, so Procurement and IT always know what has been requested and where it stands.
Procurement and IT both work from the same intake form and approval records, rather than maintaining separate tracking for the same requests.
This workflow served as the company's request intake and approval process while a company-wide finance platform was being adopted, and was scoped to be replaced once that platform covered procurement.
Automations route each submitted request to the right approver based on the request details, and update the record automatically once a decision is made.
The template based approach works well as a stopgap or for smaller teams; as request volume grows, many teams pair it with a dedicated procurement or finance platform for deeper approval chains and budget controls.