Glossary
Purchasing Agent Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential purchasing agent terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key purchasing agent vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in purchasing agent training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Blanket order
- A long-term order with multiple deliveries.
- Category management
- Managing spending by product group.
- Contract terms
- Agreed conditions like price, delivery and warranty.
- Expediting
- Speeding up delayed orders.
- Incoterms
- International shipping terms.
- Lead time
- Time from order to delivery.
- MOQ
- Minimum order quantity.
- Purchase order (PO)
- A formal order to a supplier.
- RFP
- Request for proposal.
- RFQ
- Request for quotation.
- Sole source
- Buying from only one supplier.
- Spend analysis
- Reviewing spending patterns.
- Supplier scorecard
- A tool to rate supplier performance.
- Three-way match
- Matching PO, receipt and invoice.
- Total cost of ownership
- All costs of a purchase over its life.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Purchasing Agent practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Purchasing Agent training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.