A purchase order request is the internal ask that precedes an order going to a supplier, and the difference between one answered in an hour and one answered in a week is usually not the approver. It is whether the request explains itself well enough to be decided without a follow-up conversation, and that comes down to five fields, one of which is routinely left blank.
The five fields
What is being bought, roughly what it costs, which budget carries it, when it is needed, and why. The why is the field most often omitted and the first one an approver reads, because it is the only one that explains the request rather than describing it. A request without it generates a question, and the question is what adds the days.
What speeds up an answer
A quote or a screenshot attached. A named alternative if there is one. A note about what happens if it is declined or delayed. Approvers decline or delay requests they do not understand, and every one of those is a round trip. Anticipating the obvious question is worth more than any amount of process design.
What to leave to purchasing
Supplier selection where an agreement may exist, account coding, tax treatment and detailed specifications. Asking a requester for these produces blanks or confident wrong answers, both of which somebody then corrects. Keep the request about the need and let the people who buy things handle the buying.
Questions people ask about purchase order request
Who should approve a request?
The budget holder for the cost centre, against a threshold from your delegated authority. Publishing the thresholds prevents surprise and reduces request splitting.
How long should approval take?
Same working day is achievable for routine requests with delegation and escalation configured. Anything slower and people find other routes.
What if the request is urgent?
Use a documented fast path with a named approver rather than an informal call, so there is still a record of who agreed.