Glossary
Purchasing Manager Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential purchasing manager terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key purchasing manager vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in purchasing manager training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Category management
- Grouping purchases by type.
- Incoterms
- International shipping terms.
- Lead time
- Time to deliver.
- Master agreement
- Umbrella contract.
- Maverick spend
- Buying outside policy.
- Purchase order
- Formal order.
- RFP
- Request for proposal.
- RFQ
- Request for quotation.
- Should-cost
- Estimate of fair price.
- Single source
- Only one supplier used.
- Spend analysis
- Review of spending.
- Strategic sourcing
- Planned buying approach.
- Supplier risk
- Chance of supply problems.
- Supplier scorecard
- Performance report.
- Total cost of ownership
- Full cost over time.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Purchasing Manager practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Purchasing Manager training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.