Prerequisites
Purchase requests are available from 19 May 2026 from the Plus package onwards.
Purchase requests are activated in your organisation (by administrators or accountants).
You have at least the role of Approver in Candis.
Note: Purchase requests must first be activated by administrators or accountants in the settings. You can find out how to do this in the article "Purchase Requests – Overview and Setup".
Creating a purchase request
Open the Purchase Requests overview page in Candis.
Click Create purchase request. A form will open.
Fill in the required fields:
Supplier: Select an existing contact from the list, or enter a name as free text if the contact has not yet been set up in Candis.
Net amount and currency (required); the gross amount is optional.
Expected delivery date
Title: A short, clear description of the request. The title appears in the PDF preview of the purchase request.
Description: A detailed description of the items or services. The description also appears in the PDF preview.
Internal note: Optional. Additional information for internal purposes. It does not appear in the PDF preview.
Fill in the additional fields:
Invoice coding fields: cost centre, cost object, general ledger account, and additional cost dimension if applicable – depending on your organisation's configuration, these fields may be visible or hidden, and required or optional.
Category: A dropdown field filled with your organisation's own options (e.g. Within budget / Over budget) – only visible if activated by administrators.
Optionally upload up to ten attachments (e.g. quotes or specifications).
Select the appropriate approval workflow.
Click Request approval.
Tip: When creating your next purchase request, Candis will automatically suggest invoice coding fields and the approval workflow based on your most recently submitted purchase request.
Note: Free-text suppliers are saved as text and used for matching with incoming invoices. They are not automatically created as contacts in the core data. You can manually add the contact in Candis or in your external ERP system if needed.
Editing and resubmitting a purchase request
If your purchase request is still awaiting approval or has been rejected, you can edit and resubmit it:
Open the purchase request on the Purchase Requests overview page.
Click Edit.
Update the relevant fields – all fields are editable when editing.
Click Resubmit.
Purchase requests that have already been approved can also be edited and resubmitted if a correction is needed.
Note: Only the original submitter can edit and resubmit a purchase request. Administrators and accountants have read-only and delete access only.
Duplicating a purchase request
You can use an existing purchase request as a template, regardless of its current status:
Open the Purchase Requests overview page in Candis.
Hover over the row of the purchase request you want to duplicate.
Click the three-dot menu (⋯) at the end of the row and select Duplicate.
The form opens pre-filled with the data from the original purchase request (without attachments).
Update the fields as needed and submit the new purchase request.
Tip: The duplicate feature saves time when creating recurring requests with similar data.
Adding attachments
You can upload attachments both when creating a purchase request and afterwards, at any status:
Open the relevant purchase request.
Click Add attachment in the left panel.
Select the file and upload it.
Example
A marketing employee wants to order printed materials for a trade fair. She opens the purchase requests overview page, creates a new request with the contact Druckerei Müller GmbH (already set up in Candis), enters a net amount of €1,200, and selects the delivery date two weeks before the event. She chooses cost centre Marketing and the approval workflow Team Lead Marketing. After submitting, the team lead receives a notification to approve the request.