How to Get Business Users to Request Purchases Before Committing Spend

1. Simplify the request: make intake quick and easy to use. 2. Speed up approvals: return decisions fast so work is not delayed. 3. Show the value: explain how requesting helps the user. 4. Make it the easy path: easier than the workaround. 5. Provide visibility: let users see their request status. 6. Route non-compliant spend back: send bypasses through intake. 7. Reinforce, do not just mandate: pair the rule with a better experience.

The core principle is that the front door must beat the workaround. Users bypass intake when buying directly is faster and simpler than requesting, so the request process has to be genuinely easy, quick to fill out, clear about what is needed, and not a maze of forms. When requesting is the path of least resistance, most users will take it.

This reframes the problem from enforcement to experience. A hard, slow intake process invites the very maverick spend it is meant to prevent, because people route around friction. Making the request simpler than going around it removes the incentive to bypass, which does more for compliance than any reminder about policy.

Fast approvals are essential because the reason users buy first is often that they cannot wait. If a request sits for days, users will commit spend to keep their work moving, so quick approval turnaround is what makes requesting compatible with getting things done. Speed in the approval step is as important as simplicity in the request step.

Showing the value changes how users see the process. When users understand that requesting first protects their budget, avoids over-budget surprises, and prevents the invoice-time problems that come back to them, intake stops feeling like bureaucracy and starts feeling useful. People follow a process they see as helping them, so explaining the benefit, not just the rule, is part of driving adoption.

Behavior holds when the easy path is also the expected one. Routing non-compliant spend back through intake, so a purchase made without a request still has to go through the process, removes the advantage of skipping it. This is not punishment; it is closing the loophole that lets the workaround feel faster.

The combination is what works: an easy, fast, valuable request process, plus the consistency of sending bypasses back through intake, makes requesting first the natural choice. Mandates alone, without the better experience, tend to produce resentment and creative avoidance. Pairing a genuinely good intake experience with the expectation that all spend goes through it is what durably changes behavior.

Stampli includes procurement intake within its procure-to-pay platform, designed to make requesting purchases straightforward so the front door is easy to use. Requests carry the coding and budget context, and approval routing returns decisions to keep requesting from delaying users' work.

Because budget is validated at the point of decision, users and approvers see the budget impact when a request is made, which supports the value message that requesting first protects budget and avoids over-budget surprises. Visibility into request status keeps users informed rather than left wondering.

When a purchase is captured, the commitment flows into the AP process, so a request made up front connects to the matched invoice later, while spend that arrives without a request still enters the controlled process. Stampli's intake supports the easy, fast, valuable experience that drives adoption, with the ERP remaining the system of record and every action captured in an audit trail.