Material Requisition Format: Free Excel Template (Indent Slip) with Example

2026-06-25

A ready-to-use material requisition / indent format in Excel — free download. Field-by-field guide, a filled example, the requisition-to-issue approval workflow, and FAQ for stores, production and purchase teams.

Material Requisition Format — Free Excel Template (Indent Slip) with Example

A material requisition — also called an indent or store requisition slip — is the document a department uses to ask stores to issue material, or to ask purchase to buy it. Get the format right and every issue is authorised, traceable to a job or cost centre, and reconciled against stock. Get it wrong and material leaves the store on a verbal "please give me 50 kg," inventory drifts from the system, and no one can say who consumed what. Here's a ready-to-use material requisition format in Excel, the field-by-field guide, a worked example, and the requisition-to-issue workflow.

⬇ Download the Material Requisition template (Excel) — free, no sign-up. Use it as-is or adapt it to your ERP / SOP.

What is a material requisition (indent)?

A material requisition is a controlled request to move material out of stock (a store requisition) or to procure it (a purchase indent). It records what is needed, how much, for which job or cost centre, who is asking, and who approved it — so the storekeeper issues against a signed authority, not a favour, and finance can post the consumption to the right account.

It sits at the very start of the materials chain: an indent triggers either a stock issue or a purchase order; the purchase order is received against a Goods Receipt Note; and what is received is later issued back out — again on a requisition. Skip the document and you lose the audit trail at the source.

Requisition vs indent vs purchase order — clear the confusion

These three get used interchangeably and shouldn't be:

DOCUMENT               WHO RAISES IT        WHAT IT DOES                            GOES TO
---------------------  -------------------  --------------------------------------  -----------------
Store requisition      User department      Asks stores to ISSUE material that is   Stores
(material requisition)                       already in stock
Purchase indent        User dept / stores   Asks purchase to BUY material that is   Purchasing
                                             out of stock or below re-order level
Purchase order (PO)    Purchasing           Commits the company to buy from a       Supplier
                                             named vendor at an agreed price

Rule of thumb: a requisition/indent is an internal request; a PO is an external commitment. The indent is what justifies raising the PO — and a good purchase-order approval workflow starts from an approved indent, never from a phone call.

What a material requisition format must contain

This is the template — every field earns its place in the issue and audit trail.

FIELD                          WHAT GOES IN IT
-----------------------------  ----------------------------------------------------------
Requisition No. / Date         Unique running ID + date raised
Type                           Store issue  /  Purchase indent
Requesting department          Production, QC, Engineering, Packing, etc.
Cost centre / Job / WO No.     What the material will be charged to (BMR no., work order)
Required by date               When it is needed (drives purchase urgency)
Item code / Description        Material code + name (must match the item master)
UOM                            Unit of measure (kg, L, nos, m)
Quantity requested             How much is being asked for
Quantity in stock              Current balance (so the approver sees coverage)
Quantity issued / to procure   Filled by stores: issued from stock, or balance to buy
Batch / Lot No.                For issues — which lot was given (traceability)
Requested by                   Name + signature of the person raising it
Approved by                    Name + signature of the authorised approver
Issued by / Received by        Storekeeper issues; user acknowledges receipt
Remarks                        Substitution, partial issue, urgency note

Two fields do the heavy lifting and are the ones people drop: Cost centre / Job No. (without it consumption can't be costed to a product or order) and Approved by (without it the issue isn't authorised — the single most common audit finding on stores).

Worked example — a filled material requisition

Production raises an indent for a raw material that has run below re-order level — the same MCC PH-102 lot received in our GRN example:

MATERIAL REQUISITION / INDENT                         Req. No:  MR-2026-0312
                                                      Date:     24-Jun-2026
Type:                Store issue                      Required by: 25-Jun-2026
Requesting dept:     Production                       Cost centre / WO: BMR B-4471
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item code   Description                    UOM   Req. Qty   In Stock   Issued
----------  -----------------------------  ----  --------   --------   --------
RM-1042     MCC PH-102 (Microcrystalline   kg     480        500        480
            Cellulose)                                                  (Lot MCC2406)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Requested by:  S. Rao  (Production)         Approved by:  A. Mehta (Prod. Head)
Issued by:     K. Iyer (Stores)             Received by:  S. Rao
Remarks:       Issued against BMR B-4471; 20 kg balance left in store.

Notice the thread: 480 kg is issued against a specific work order (BMR B-4471), from a named lot (MCC2406), leaving a reconcilable balance (20 kg). Anyone auditing batch B-4471 can now trace exactly which material lot went into it — the whole point of the document.

How to fill it — field by field

Requisition No. — one running series per site (e.g., MR-2026-####). Never reuse a number; it's the handle for the whole transaction.
Type — decide first: is the item in stock (store issue) or not (purchase indent)? It changes who the form goes to.
Cost centre / WO No. — always tie the request to a job, batch or cost centre. "General" is how stock disappears.
Quantity requested vs in stock — showing the current balance next to the ask lets the approver spot over-indenting and triggers a purchase indent when stock won't cover it.
Batch / Lot No. — for issues, record the exact lot given. In pharma, food and any traceable manufacturing this is non-negotiable.
Approved by — the approver must be someone other than the requester (segregation of duty). Set approval authority by value or material criticality.

The requisition-to-issue workflow

   User dept raises requisition (item, qty, cost centre, required-by)
                          |
                          v
              Approver reviews + signs
              (segregation of duty; authority by value)
                          |
              +-----------+-----------+
              |                       |
        In stock?  YES          In stock?  NO
              |                       |
              v                       v
     Stores issues material     Convert to PURCHASE INDENT
     (record lot, update         -> Purchasing raises PO
      stock, both sign)          -> GRN on receipt -> back to stores
              |                       |
              +-----------+-----------+
                          v
        Consumption posted to cost centre / WO
        Stock balance reconciled

The two failure points are right at the top: an unapproved issue (material out with no signature) and a requisition with no cost centre (consumption that can't be costed). Everything downstream — inventory accuracy, product costing, batch traceability — depends on those two fields being filled.

From paper slip to a tracked request

A paper requisition book works until you need to answer "how much MCC did we consume on B-4471?", "which indents are pending approval?", or "what's still to be procured?" — then you're flipping through carbon copies. Moving the requisition onto a simple workflow gives you:

A unique number and status on every request (raised → approved → issued / converted to PO → closed).
Approval routed by value or material automatically, with a timestamped audit trail — the same logic as a PO approval workflow.
Live stock visibility at the point of request, so over-indenting and stock-outs surface early.
Consumption posted to the cost centre / batch, feeding product costing and batch records without re-keying.
One searchable history instead of a requisition book — and a clean link from indent → PO → GRN → issue.

That traceability is also what a quality management system expects: every material movement authorised, recorded, and reconcilable.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a material requisition and an indent?

In most plants they mean the same thing — a request for material. Where they're distinguished, a store requisition asks stores to issue material already in stock, while an indent (purchase indent) asks purchasing to buy material that is out of stock. The same form often serves both, with a "Type" field to switch between them.

Is a material requisition the same as a purchase order?

No. A requisition/indent is an internal request; a purchase order is an external commitment to a supplier. An approved indent is what justifies raising a PO — the PO should never be the first document in the chain.

What should a material requisition format contain?

At minimum: requisition number and date, requesting department, cost centre / job number, item code and description, UOM, quantity requested, quantity in stock, quantity issued or to procure, batch/lot for issues, and signatures for requested-by, approved-by and issued-by.

Who approves a material requisition?

Someone other than the person raising it — typically the department head or stores in-charge, with approval authority set by value or material criticality. This segregation of duty is the control most often flagged in audits.

Can I get a free material requisition format in Excel?

Yes — download the Excel template above. It includes the field layout, a filled example, and a short "how to use" guide; adapt it to your item master and approval matrix.

Flobri turns documents like this into tracked, approval-routed workflows — material requisitions, GRNs, gate passes and purchase orders — so every material movement is authorised, costed and reconcilable, on paper-grade forms your team already understands.