Material requisition form India

What is a material requisition and why restaurants need one

A material requisition (also called an indent or store requisition) is a formal internal request from a kitchen, outlet, or department to the central store or purchase team for materials needed for operations. It answers three questions: what is needed, how much is needed, and when it is needed by.

For single-outlet restaurants, a requisition form is a control tool — the chef can't just walk into the store and take whatever they want without documentation. For multi-outlet operations, the requisition is the primary communication mechanism between each outlet's kitchen and the central purchase or commissary team.

The requisition-to-issue workflow

1. Kitchen raises the requisition. Chef or outlet manager fills in the form with items, required quantities, and stock in hand. The order quantity (required minus in-hand) auto-computes but can be overridden.
2. Manager approves. The outlet manager or F&B manager reviews and signs. This step prevents over-ordering and catches errors before the store is involved.
3. Store checks stock and issues. The storekeeper checks central store stock against the requisition. Issues what is available from store, flags items that need external procurement. Fills in the “issued quantity” column.
4. Kitchen receives and signs. The receiving kitchen verifies the issued items against the requisition and signs the receiver column. Discrepancies between requested and issued are documented here.
5. Purchase order raised for shortfall. Items not available in the central store are raised as a purchase order to the vendor. The requisition number is the reference in the purchase order.

Requisition best practices

• Daily vs weekly requisitions. Perishables (vegetables, dairy, meat) should be requisitioned daily or every 2 days. Dry goods can be weekly. Packaging and cleaning supplies can be biweekly. Setting a schedule reduces ad-hoc requests that disrupt kitchen prep.
• Par levels as the baseline. Establish minimum stock levels (par levels) for each item. The required quantity in the requisition is typically: “par level − current stock in hand.” This makes requisitioning systematic rather than based on the chef's feel.
• No verbal requisitions. Verbal requisitions — “just send me 10kg of chicken” over the phone — are untraceable and can't be audited. Even urgent requisitions should be followed up with a written form (WhatsApp photo of the printed form counts).
• Numbering for traceability. Sequential requisition numbers (MR-2026-001, MR-2026-002) allow you to trace any issued material back to the request, the approver, and the issuer. Critical for investigating stock discrepancies.
• Separate consumable from capital requests. Equipment purchases, tools, and capital items should not be mixed with ingredient and consumable requisitions. Use a separate form or flag category as “Equipment / Tools.”

Where this fits

• Purchase order — items in the requisition that cannot be fulfilled from central store go into a formal purchase order to the vendor; the requisition number is the PO reference
• Inventory count — the ‘stock in hand’ column comes from the most recent inventory count; keep counts current to avoid over-ordering
• Inter-store transfer — for multi-outlet operations, stock moved from a central commissary to an outlet uses a transfer note alongside the requisition
• Food cost variance tracker — monthly requisitions and purchases feed the food cost variance analysis; compare what was requisitioned against what was used
• P4 — Multi-outlet pillar — complete guide to multi-outlet restaurant operations in India: central procurement, inter-outlet transfers, and consolidated reporting