Glossary
Procurement Clerk Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential procurement clerk terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key procurement clerk vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in procurement clerk training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Approval workflow
- Steps to approve buying.
- Backorder
- Item not yet available.
- Blanket order
- Long-term order.
- Catalog
- List of approved items.
- Data entry
- Typing information into systems.
- Lead time
- Time to deliver.
- Packing slip
- List of items shipped.
- Purchase order
- Formal order to a supplier.
- Queue
- List of tasks waiting.
- Receiving
- Checking in deliveries.
- Requisition
- Internal request to buy.
- RFQ
- Request for quote.
- Three-way match
- PO, receipt and invoice match.
- Vendor
- Supplier.
- Workflow
- Steps to complete work.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Procurement Clerk practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Procurement Clerk training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.