Purchase requisition, purchase order, and sourcing request states
Summarize
Summary of Purchase requisition, purchase order, and sourcing request states
In ServiceNow's procurement lifecycle, purchase requisitions, purchase orders, and sourcing requests each progress through a defined set of states. These states represent the current stage of processing and control the actions available to users. The system automatically calculates the state of these records based on the statuses of their associated lines and related procurement tasks or cases. Users cannot directly set the state of these records.
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Purchase Requisition States
Purchase requisitions transition through states from creation to closure, reflecting review, approval, submission, supplier confirmation, revision, cancellation, and completion stages. Key states include:
- Pending Review: Initial state when created or when lines need review.
- Pending Approval: All lines reviewed; awaiting approval.
- Awaiting Task Completion: Approved lines exist but related procurement tasks are still open.
- Final Review: Ready for submission, no blocking tasks.
- Pending Submission: Order creation in progress.
- Pending Supplier Confirmation: Awaiting supplier acknowledgment for punchout suppliers.
- Pending Cancellation/Revision: Reflects requested changes or cancellations.
- Closed Complete/Canceled/Rejected: Terminal states indicating completion, cancellation, or rejection of all lines.
Purchase Order States
Purchase orders are managed through states reflecting processing, submission, supplier confirmation, delivery, payment, return, cancellation, and closure. Important states include:
- Processing: Being generated or processed by external systems.
- Pending Submission: Ready for supplier transmission.
- Pending Supplier Confirmation: Waiting for supplier acknowledgment.
- Ordered: Confirmed and accepted by supplier.
- Partially Delivered/Delivered: Reflects receipt of goods/services.
- Payment Pending/Closed Paid: Invoice received and payment status.
- Pending Return/Closed Returned: Return process stages.
- Pending Cancellation/Closed Canceled: Cancellation in process or completed.
- Closed Released: Fully fulfilled and closed purchase order.
Sourcing Request States
Sourcing requests represent stages in supplier sourcing, from initial review through approval, negotiation, bid evaluation, and award. Key states include:
- Pending Review: Initial creation or re-entered for review.
- Pending Approval: Awaiting procurement manager approval.
- Information Needed: Buyer requests more information before proceeding.
- Qualification Needed/Qualified: Supplier or item qualification stages.
- Pending Negotiation/Negotiation in Progress: Setup and active negotiation phases.
- Pending Resubmission/Awaiting Supplier Response: Managing bid revisions and responses.
- Awaiting Task Completion: Open sourcing-dependent tasks remain.
- Requires Decision: Ready for buyer award or decline decision.
- Closed Complete/No Decision/Canceled/Rejected: Final states reflecting sourcing outcomes.
Practical Implications for ServiceNow Customers
Understanding these states helps customers track procurement progress, manage approvals, and coordinate supplier engagements effectively within ServiceNow. Automated state calculations ensure consistency and reduce manual errors, while clear state transitions provide visibility into procurement stages, enabling timely interventions and informed decision-making.
Customers can expect the system to reflect real-time status based on line-level activity and related procurement tasks, ensuring accurate lifecycle management from requisition through sourcing and order fulfillment.
Purchase requisitions, purchase orders, and sourcing requests move through a series of states as they progress through the procurement lifecycle. Each state reflects the current stage of processing and determines what actions are available.
How states are determined
The state of a purchase requisition, purchase order, or sourcing request is calculated automatically based on the states of its associated lines. When a line changes state, the system recalculates and updates the parent record's state. You cannot set the state of these records directly.
When procurement cases or purchasing tasks are associated with a record, the state reflects whether those items are still open. For example, a purchase requisition remains in the Awaiting Task Completion state until all order-dependent cases and tasks are closed.
Purchase requisition states
The following table describes each purchase requisition state, when the state is set, and where the purchase requisition can move from that state.
| State | When this state is set | Next state |
|---|---|---|
| Pending Review | Set when the purchase requisition is first created, or when any purchase requisition line requires review. This is the initial state for all purchase requisitions. |
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| Pending Approval | Set when all purchase requisition lines have completed review and are awaiting approval. No lines remain in the Pending Review state. |
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| Awaiting Task Completion | Set when all purchase requisition lines have cleared review and approval (none remain in Pending Review or Pending Approval), at least one line is in an approved state, and one or more order-dependent procurement cases or purchasing tasks are still open. Lines in a Pending Cancellation or Pending Revision state may also exist alongside approved lines without preventing this state from being set. | Final Review (when all blocking cases and tasks are closed) |
| Final Review | Set when all purchase requisition lines have cleared review and approval, at least one line is approved, no open cases or tasks are blocking, and the purchase requisition has not yet been submitted. The purchase requisition is ready for submission. |
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| Pending Submission | Set when the purchase requisition has been approved and submitted, and a purchase order is being created or processed. This is an intermediate state during order creation. |
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| Pending Supplier Confirmation | Set when the associated purchase order has been submitted to the supplier and the system is waiting for an explicit supplier acknowledgment. The purchase requisition reflects this state while the supplier
acknowledgment is awaited. Note: Unlike other purchase requisition states, this state is not derived from purchase requisition line statuses. It is set directly at the point of purchase order creation for punchout
suppliers. |
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| Pending Cancellation | Set when a cancellation has been requested for the purchase requisition and one or more lines are awaiting cancellation confirmation. | Closed Canceled (when cancellation is confirmed) |
| Pending Revision | Set when a buyer or procurement specialist triggers a revision of the purchase requisition and one or more lines are in revision. No lines are in a higher-priority state. | Pending Review (when the revised purchase requisition is resubmitted) |
| Closed Complete | Set when all approved purchase requisition lines have reached a closed complete state. Lines that were canceled or rejected during the process do not need to be in this state for the purchase requisition to close. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Canceled | Set when all purchase requisition lines have been canceled and no lines remain in an active state. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Rejected | Set when all purchase requisition lines have been rejected. When the primary line is rejected, all associated lines are also set to rejected. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
Purchase order states
The following table describes each purchase order state, when the state is set, and where the purchase order can move from that state. Purchase order states are calculated based on the states of the associated purchase order lines.
| State | When this state is set | Next state |
|---|---|---|
| Processing | Set when the purchase order is being generated or processed by an automated integration, such as an ERP system. This is an intermediate state while external processing completes. | Pending Submission (when processing is complete) |
| Pending Revision | Set when the purchase order has been revised through a purchase modification case and is awaiting resubmission to the supplier. | Pending Submission (when the revision is resubmitted) |
| Pending Submission | Set when purchase order lines are ready to be transmitted to the supplier. Entered from Processing when ERP processing completes, or from Pending Revision after a revision is resubmitted. |
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| Pending Supplier Confirmation | Set when the purchase order has been submitted to the supplier and the system is waiting for an explicit supplier acknowledgment before the order is treated as confirmed. | Ordered (when the supplier confirms) |
| Ordered | Set when all purchase order lines have been submitted and confirmed by the supplier, or auto-confirmed. No lines are pending, in revision, or partially delivered. |
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| Partially Delivered | Set when some purchase order lines have been received and others are still in an ordered state, or when at least one line is explicitly partially delivered. | Delivered (when all lines are received) |
| Delivered | Set when at least one purchase order line has been delivered and no lines remain in an active or in-progress state (such as Ordered, Processing, or Pending Submission). Lines that have already progressed beyond delivery, such as those in Payment Pending or Closed Paid, do not prevent this state from being set. The purchase order is awaiting invoice processing for the remaining delivered lines. |
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| Payment Pending | Set when an invoice has been received and matched to the purchase order, and payment is pending. This state is only entered when every line on the purchase order is in the Payment Pending state. If any line remains in a different state, the purchase order reflects that line's state instead. | Closed Paid (when the invoice is paid) |
| Pending Return | Set when a return is confirmed with the supplier and the return playbook progresses to the shipping coordination stage. This state is set directly as part of the return playbook, not through the automated state recalculation from line states. When purchase order lines are in Pending Return, the automated state calculator does not update the purchase order status, and the purchase order header retains its previous state until the playbook advances. |
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| Pending Cancellation | Set when a cancellation has been requested for the purchase order but has not yet been confirmed. |
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| Closed Paid | Set when the invoice has been paid and all purchase order lines are in a paid state. | Closed Released (after final reconciliation) |
| Closed Returned | Set when all returned lines have been processed and the return is complete. This state requires every line on the purchase order to be in the Closed Returned state with no lines in any other state. A purchase order with a mix of Closed Returned and Closed Canceled lines, for example, will not enter this state automatically. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Released | Set when the purchase order has been fully closed and released after successful fulfillment and payment. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Canceled | Set when the purchase order has been canceled and all active lines are in a canceled state. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
Sourcing request states
The following table describes each sourcing request state, when the state is set, and where the sourcing request can move from that state. Sourcing request states reflect the current stage of the sourcing process, from initial review through supplier bid evaluation and award.
| State | When this state is set | Next state |
|---|---|---|
| Pending Review | Set when the sourcing request is first created. This is the initial state for all sourcing requests. Also re-entered when a purchase requisition line reverts to a pending review state, or when the primary line's approval cascades a pending review state to all other lines on the sourcing request. |
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| Pending Approval | Set when the sourcing request has been submitted for procurement manager approval and at least one purchase requisition line is awaiting approval. |
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| Information Needed | Set when the buyer requires more information from the requester before the sourcing request can proceed. | Pending Review (when the required information is provided) |
| Qualification Needed | Set when supplier or item qualification is required before bids can be solicited. | Qualified (when qualification is complete) |
| Qualified | Set when qualification is complete and the sourcing request is ready for negotiation setup. Also set during the active negotiation phase when a negotiation event exists but the negotiation has not yet advanced beyond the qualification stage for all lines. In this case, the sourcing request re-enters this state from Negotiation in Progress, not from the initial qualification step. | Pending Negotiation |
| Pending Negotiation | Set when a negotiation event has been created for the sourcing request but has not yet opened for bidding. | Negotiation in Progress (when the negotiation event opens) |
| Negotiation in Progress | Set when a negotiation event is active and supplier bids are being collected. Also set when pricing has been obtained but a negotiation event is not yet fully completed. |
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| Pending Resubmission | Set when bids have been received but the negotiation event requires suppliers to resubmit revised bids. | Awaiting Supplier Response (when the resubmission round closes) |
| Awaiting Supplier Response | Set when the negotiation event has closed and the system is waiting for supplier bid responses to be evaluated. |
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| Awaiting Task Completion | Set when pricing has been obtained but one or more active sourcing-dependent procurement cases or purchasing tasks are still open against the sourcing request. The state is updated automatically when all blocking cases and tasks are closed. |
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| Requires Decision | Set when pricing has been obtained, no active negotiation event is blocking the sourcing request, and no open cases or tasks remain. A buyer decision is required to award or decline the sourcing. |
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| Closed Complete | Set when the sourcing request has been awarded and closed. All pricing has been accepted and the sourcing outcome has been converted, typically to a purchase order. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed No Decision | Set when the sourcing request is closed without a sourcing decision being made. All purchase requisition lines have reached a closed no decision state. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Canceled | Set when the sourcing request has been canceled. All active purchase requisition lines are in a canceled state. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |
| Closed Rejected | Set when all purchase requisition lines on the sourcing request have been rejected. When the primary line is rejected, all other lines on the sourcing request are also set to rejected. In workflows where individual line selection is supported (such as the mobile supplier selection experience), rejecting individual lines does not move the sourcing request to Closed Rejected until every line has been rejected. | Not applicable. This is the last state. |