Material Request
An official document known as a material request is used to state that a company needs certain goods or services for a specified purpose.
Depending on the operational need, material requests can be used for several reasons:
Purchase: When products must be purchased from outside vendors.
Material Transfer: When inventory needs to be transferred between warehouses or locations.
Material Issue: Items that must be issued internally, such as for maintenance or production tasks.
Manufacture: When raw materials are needed for assembly or production within the company.
Subcontractor: When materials must be sent to a subcontractor for production processes that are outsourced, this is known as subcontracting.
Customer Provided: When the customer is expected to supply the materials. (For additional information, see the "Customer
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To access the Material Request list, go to:
1. How to Create a Materials Request
In the list of Material Requests, select New.
Set the Required By date for the entire request.
Choose the purpose of the request, such as manufacturing, transfer, issue, purchase, or customer-provided.
You can choose to retrieve items from a bill of materials (BOM), product bundle, or sales order by using the appropriate buttons.
Enter the Quantity in the Items table after selecting the required Item Code.
Name the warehouse that requires the items.
In the Items table, you can change the Required By Date for each item independently if needed.
Once all the information has been entered, click Save and then Submit to finish the request.
Alternate Methods to Submit a Material Request
Material requests can also be automatically generated using the following methods:
From a Sales Order: A material request may be based on a sales order. You can choose to consider the projected quantity when using the system. After that, the required items are deleted from the sales order and added to the material request.
Reorder Trigger: When the projected quantity of an item in a warehouse falls below its designated reorder level, a material request can be automatically generated to replenish the stock.
From a Production Plan: During the manufacturing planning phase, material requests for raw materials may be automatically generated based on the production requirements outlined in the production plan.
Warehouse Specification: If the items are inventory-managed, you need to specify the target warehouse in the material request. This ensures accurate tracking of the anticipated quantity and prevents stock mismatch.
Note: that you do not need to create a Material Request in ERPNext. However, it is recommended for use by businesses with centralised procurement processes. Combining item demands from different departments ensures better planning and control.
1.2 Statuses of Material Requests
The following statuses can be experienced by a Material Request in ERPNext:
Draft: Although the request has been made and saved, it has not yet been sent in.
Submitted: The request has been formally entered into the system.
Pending: No materials have been ordered or delivered as of yet.
Partially Ordered: While some items are still pending, others have already been ordered.
Ordered: Every item that was requested has been placed.
Issued: A Material Issue Stock Entry was used to issue the materials.
Transferred: A material transfer has been used to move materials between warehouses.
Received: Using a purchase receipt, the ordered materials have been delivered.
Stopped: The request has been manually halted; no additional processing will take place.
Cancelled: The request has been cancelled and won't be handled any more.
2. Features
2.1 Items Table
Each requested item having important information is entered in the Items table of a Material Request. Notable features are:
Barcode Integration: With barcode reading you are able to automatically get the information of a certain item in the item master, through the use of the barcode the item, what it is, how it is described, its image, manufacturer and more.
Scan Barcodes Support: You can easily add the items to the table by scanning their barcode using the barcode scanner. Data is entered all the more easily and error is reduced.
Unit of Measurement (UoM) and Conversion Factor: UoM and Conversion Factor are directly fetched out of the item settings to ensure accurate conversion of quantities.
Amount calculating The system calculates the amount based on the quantity, and unless valuation rates are relevant, it does not calculate the amount.
Warehouse Selection: The warehouse of each of the items in the table can be designated or changed which is the place where the requirement of the material is.
Accounting Information: You can enter the Expense Account in order to track what you spent.
Accounting dimensions such as department or cost centre can be established in case of item-by-item analysis is required.
Page Break Option: To avoid printing items without a page break and to switch a page break, check the Page Break box before printing this item. useful when printing paginated reports or reports to be grouped.
2.2 Setting Warehouses
Set Warehouse (For Warehouse): When you allocate requested items to some other location you can select a default Target Warehouse where the requested items are expected to be utilized or received.
This value is represented in the field called For Warehouse of each row in the items table.
Helps in accurate production, purchase and movement of stock.
2.3 More Information (Work Order and Job Card)
Where the Material Request has been created on a Work Order or Job Card, the source is automatically referenced in the relevant fields in ERPNext:
Work Order: Displays the affecting production order.
Job Card: Shows the specific task in connection of the material need.
These sources enable the right inventory planning of material and material traceability in production.
2.4 Printer Details
Letterhead Support
You may print the material request on the official letterhead of your company to retain a professional look - whether you are going to use it internally or externally.
In order to do so, one can click on the required letterhead in the field of the letterhead of the form.
You can edit letterheads or upload your own one by going to:
Printing of custom headings
The title will be to be changed in the printed forms of the Material Request (e.g. change of the title to, e.g., Internal Indent or Purchase Requisition).
Choose a custom Print Heading in the dropdown of the form.
You can add/create a new print heading by going to:
Print Headings have gained support on multi-language labels and print format conditional logic, which enables you to customize documents in terms of language, company or type of transaction.
2.5 Terms and Conditions
In most purchase or internal transfer situations, certain terms and conditions have to be observed- like special conditions on returns, time of payment or transportation schedule.
You can propose defined templates of the Terms and Conditions on your Material Request and apply one of them available in the list.
Such titles will automatically appear in the print version of the piece.
In order to generate or regulate terms:
Go to:
You are now able to establish default Terms & Conditions depending on the type of supplier, department or even company.
2.6 After Submitting
You can create the following documents:
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2.7 The Automatic Generating Material Requests
ERPNext enables you to create Auto MRs when the stock in line with the thresholds is low. This contributes to avoiding running out of stock and keeps the items restocked.
1. Enable Auto-Reorder
Go to Stock Settings and turn on option:
"Automatically generate Material Requests at re- order level."
2. Set Reorder Levels in Items
On each line of the inventory, determine:
Reorder Level: the stock quantity at which a replenishment is signaled.
Reorder Quantity: There is an amount at which the amount should be ordered when the limit will be exceeded.
Preferred Warehouse should be defined to track inventory.
ERPNext will be able to track stock quantity and automatically generate Material Requests automatically when they are necessary.
Note on Subcontracting (ERPNext v16)
New Material Request Purpose: Subcontracting has been added to ERPNext and is in the develop branch and will come with the v16 release.
Not only does it feature the ability to make a Subcontracting Material Request, but:
It enables raw materials to be requested to be manufactured by a subcontractor.
Allows creating a Subcontracted Purchase Order directly from the Material Request once it has been posted.
Facilitates the processes in which manufacture is subcontracted to external market entities.