# What should a purchase order process look like in a research lab?

> What a lab purchase order needs, the stages it moves through, and how to handle a partial delivery, following one £688.10 order for a cell bank.

- Source: CCA Bio (Cell Culture Automation Ltd), Cambridge, UK
- Canonical URL: https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process
- Published: 2026-09-27
- Topic: Operations
- Tags: procurement, purchase orders, lab finance, inventory, lab software, CCA Labs guide
- Series: One cell bank, from the budget to the bench and back (part 2 of 4)

## Short answer

A lab purchase order names the supplier, lists each item with its catalogue number, quantity and unit cost, and is charged to a project. It moves from request to draft to ordered to received, one line at a time. Hold its value against the budget from the day it is ordered, and require approval only when it would overspend.

Five lines, one supplier, £688.10. That's the order our example lab places on 2 September for a new bank of HEK293 cells. It's routine, and it's where most labs lose the thread, because nothing connects the order to the budget, the box, or the experiment that uses it.

Ask a typical small lab what's on order right now, which grant is paying, whether all of it arrived, and which lot of serum went into which flask. The answers are in someone's inbox. A purchase order process fixes that, and it doesn't need to be heavy. Here's the minimum that works, then the same order run through CCA Labs.

## What does a lab purchase order need to contain?

The supplier, a line for each item with its catalogue number, quantity and unit cost, the project it's charged to, a PO number, and who asked for it.

Here's the cell bank's order, `PO-00003`, charged to the project `PRJ-HEK293-WCB-26`:

| Line | Pack | Qty | Unit price | Total |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DMEM, high glucose | 500 mL | 2 | `£22.40` | `£44.80` |
| Fetal bovine serum | 500 mL | 1 | `£545.00` | `£545.00` |
| Trypsin-EDTA 0.25% | 100 mL | 1 | `£18.60` | `£18.60` |
| DMSO, cell culture grade | 50 mL | 1 | `£41.20` | `£41.20` |
| Cryogenic vials, 2 mL | Pack of 50 | 1 | `£38.50` | `£38.50` |
| **Total** | | | | **`£688.10`** |

The project matters more than it looks. It's what connects this order to a grant, and later to the experiment and its cost. How that side works is in [how to track a lab budget across grants and projects](/articles/lab-budget-tracking). The PO number is what lets the delivery note and the invoice find their way back to the order.

## What stages does an order go through?

Request, draft, ordered, received. Partially received sits in between when a delivery is split, and cancelled is the way out before it's complete.

| Stage | What it means | Can it be edited? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Request | Someone needs something. It waits in a queue. | Yes |
| Draft | On a purchase order for a supplier, not yet sent. | Yes |
| Ordered | Sent to the supplier. Its value is held against the budget. | No |
| Partially received | Some lines have arrived. | No |
| Received | Everything has arrived. The cost is charged. | No |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn before it was complete. The hold is released. | No |

Two rules make it work. Only a draft can be edited, so the record matches what the supplier was actually sent. Suppliers have a way of remembering that better than we do. And receiving happens line by line, because deliveries don't arrive the way they were ordered.

## Should every purchase order need approval?

No. The control that matters is whether the order fits the budget, so put the approval there.

Approving every order sounds careful. In practice the approver signs twenty a week without reading them, and the orders that needed a second look go through with the rest. In CCA Labs the order's status tracks delivery, and the check sits on the money. When you raise an order, the form shows the project's available budget, the order's estimated cost and, if it doesn't fit, the shortfall. An order that would take the project over its allocation is blocked.

From there, one of two things happens:

- If you're allowed to allocate budget, you can **Authorise Overspend** there and then, with an amount and a reason.
- If not, you **Request Approval**. The budget admins are notified, can approve a different amount from the one asked for, and you hear back when they decide.

Either way the request, the reason, the amount and who decided stay on the record. The cell bank's £688.10 fits inside its £2,500, so it goes straight through.

## How do you handle a partial delivery?

Receive what arrived, line by line, and keep the money for whatever is still owed held until it turns up.

Say the serum is back-ordered. Four of the five lines arrive on 4 September. The order moves to **Partially Received** and shows `4 of 5 received`, with `£143.10` received. Those four lines are charged to the project. The serum line keeps its `£545.00` hold until it arrives or is cancelled, so nobody can spend that money on something else in the meantime.

Within a single line, CCA Labs is stricter. If one of the two bottles of DMEM arrives, its `£22.40` is charged and the line keeps its whole `£44.80` hold until the second bottle comes. For a few days that bottle counts twice, as spent and as held. It's deliberate. Shrinking the hold with each delivery could, over several part deliveries, walk it down to zero while goods were still owed, and let a later order slip past the budget check. Better to overstate what's committed for a few days than let through an order the budget can't cover.

## What should happen when the box arrives?

Receiving a line should create the stock, link it back to the order and charge the budget, in one step. This is where most labs lose track, because whoever unpacks the box is rarely whoever ordered it.

1. **Create the stock.** A new lot, with the supplier's lot number, the expiry, the quantity and where it went. The serum becomes `LOT-FBS-2607`, expiring July 2028, in the reagent freezer, rack 2.
2. **Link it back.** The lot records the order line it came from, so any experiment that uses it leads back to the order, the supplier and the price.
3. **Charge the budget.** The cost is posted to the project, and the hold becomes spend.

In CCA Labs, **Receive** on the order line does all three. Quantities go in the units printed on the box and are converted to the item's stock unit, with the original kept beside it. Two 500 mL bottles of DMEM go in as 1,000 mL, and the receipt still reads the way the delivery note does. Delivery notes and certificates of analysis attach to the order and the item.

## Where do orders come from?

Mostly from stock running low. In CCA Labs a request reaches the queue in four ways.

- **Add to order** on the inventory item;
- **Order low-stock items**, which sweeps everything at or below its reorder level into the queue;
- scanning the QR code on an item or lot, such as the empty box on the bench;
- a new item that isn't in inventory yet, which is created with zero stock and queued.

The sweep is a button someone presses. CCA Labs doesn't place orders with suppliers by itself, and it doesn't match invoices. You place the order the way you always have, then **Mark as ordered**.

## How the Procurement page works in CCA Labs

Five tabs, in the order an order moves:

- **Queue**: requests waiting for an order. Select several and **Create Purchase Order**, and you get one per supplier.
- **Open POs**: drafts, each with a PO number, a cost centre (the project) and notes. Anything missing is listed under "Fix before ordering".
- **Pending delivery**: ordered and not complete, with items received, the budget, the date raised, the value, and **Receive**.
- **History**: received and cancelled orders.
- **Suppliers**: profiles with account numbers and contacts, shared with inventory.

Each inventory item also shows its observed lead time: the median days from order to delivery over its last ten received orders. That feeds a daily check. When a lot with stock left will expire within 15 days plus the lead time, the lab is told to reorder, unless the item is already on an open order.

You don't need to move your order history to start. Add your suppliers, set reorder levels on what you run out of, and raise the next order in the system. [Create your lab](https://lab.cca.bio/) to try it, or see how ordering fits the rest of [operations](/all-in-one-lab#operations).

Once the five lots are on the shelf, the question changes from "did it arrive?" to "how much of it can we use?" That's the next part of the story, in [how to manage reagent and consumable inventory](/articles/lab-inventory-management), where 40 of those 50 cryovials are spoken for before anyone opens the pack.

## Part of: One cell bank, from the budget to the bench and back

One example project, followed through a lab: a working bank of HEK293 cells. The lead funds it, operations orders and stocks what it needs, the bench runs it and banks 40 vials, and the cost comes back up to the project the lead funded. Each part is written for the people on that floor.

- [What is all-in-one lab management software, and what should it cover?](https://cca.bio/articles/all-in-one-lab-management-software) (Overview)
- [How do you track a lab budget across several grants and projects?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-budget-tracking) (Leadership, for lab leads, PIs and whoever holds the grants)
- (this article) [What should a purchase order process look like in a research lab?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process) (Operations, for lab managers and whoever places the orders)
- [How should a lab manage its reagent and consumable inventory?](https://cca.bio/articles/lab-inventory-management) (Operations, for lab managers and whoever keeps the shelves)
- [How do you track a lab sample from the vial to the result?](https://cca.bio/articles/sample-tracking-vial-to-result) (Lab, for scientists at the bench, and QA)

## Frequently asked questions

### Does every lab purchase order need approval?

Not usually. Approving every order slows a small lab down, and the approver ends up signing without reading. A better control is to check each order against the project's remaining budget and require a named approval only when it would go over. That is how CCA Labs works.

### How do you record a partial delivery?

Receive each line of the order on its own. The order shows as partially received with a count such as 4 of 5, the received lines go into stock with their lot numbers and expiry dates, and the rest stays open until it arrives or is cancelled.

### When does a purchase order count against the budget?

Its value should be held against the project from the moment it is ordered, and charged as spent when the goods are received. In CCA Labs each line keeps its full hold until that line is completely received, so a second order cannot use money the first one still needs.

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Cite as: CCA Bio. "What should a purchase order process look like in a research lab?". 2026-09-27. https://cca.bio/articles/lab-purchase-order-process