Material Indent Format for Construction Sites: What to Write and Who Approves

On most Indian sites today, the material indent travels by WhatsApp. The junior engineer sends a message: “Sir, need 10 bags cement and 2 cube sand by Friday.” Sometimes there is a photo of a half-empty stock yard. The purchase manager replies “Ok”. Three days later, no cement has arrived, because nobody knows if the “Ok” meant approved, who placed the order, or whether the sand was actually needed or already in stock.

This is not a discipline problem. It is a format problem. A verbal or chat indent has no clear fields, no quantity check against stock, no record of who approved what, and no date by which the material is needed. When something goes wrong, there is nothing to point to. This article explains a simple material indent format that works on paper and in Excel, who should approve it and in what order, and when it is time to move the same flow into an app.

What a material indent is

A material indent, also called a material requisition, is a written request from the site to the purchase office. It says: we need these items, in this quantity, by this date, for this work. It is not a purchase order. The indent is the request; the purchase order is what goes to the vendor after someone approves the indent.

The indent sits between three records on a site. Before it: the stock register, which tells you what is already in the store or stock yard. After it: the purchase order sent to the vendor, and then the challan and gate entry when material arrives. If your indent is weak, everything after it becomes guesswork.

A good indent answers five questions in writing: What is needed? How much? By when? Where will it be used? Who is asking and who approved? If any of these five is missing, the indent will cause a delay somewhere down the line.

The format, column by column

Here is a format you can copy into a sheet or a printed book. Keep one indent per project and number them, for example IND-2026-014, so you can refer to them later.

Add two more fields at the bottom if you can: remarks, for notes like “balance quantity against IND-009”, and purpose of work in one line, e.g. “casting on 12th”. These small additions save many phone calls.

Who approves and in what order

The approval chain depends on the size of the item and the value of the order, but a chain that works for most builders looks like this:

1. Site engineer or store keeper raises the indent. The engineer checks the drawing or the day’s plan, measures what is needed, checks stock in hand with the munshi, and fills the format.
2. Project manager or site in-charge verifies. This person checks that the quantity matches the plan and the required-by date is realistic. Small consumables may be approved at this level itself.
3. Purchase manager approves for ordering. The purchase manager matches the item against the vendor list, checks rates, and converts the approved indent into a purchase order.
4. Owner or senior management, for high-value items. Many firms keep a limit: below a certain order value, the project manager approves; above it, the owner signs. Fix this limit in writing and tell everyone, so small items are not stuck waiting for one person.

Two rules make this chain fast. First, one indent goes through the whole chain together, not one signature per day. Second, if an approver is travelling, there should be a named backup. Indents die most often in one person’s pocket.

For interior projects, the chain is shorter: the site supervisor raises it, and the firm owner approves, often the same day. But the format stays the same. Interior sites have the extra problem of client-selected items, so add one more column: client selection reference, pointing to the approved sample or catalogue page. This prevents the blame game when the wrong laminate arrives.

Six mistakes that delay material

• No required-by date. Everything becomes “urgent” and nothing is. Always write the date, and write it a day or two before you actually need the material, to cover delivery time.
• Not checking stock in hand. Ordering 20 bags of cement when 15 are lying behind the site office wastes money and storage. The munshi should confirm the stock figure before the indent goes up.
• Vague specifications. “Steel” instead of “TMT Fe 500D 12mm” leads to the wrong purchase and a return cycle of many days.
• Indenting in bulk without a plan. Ordering a full month’s material to “save trouble” blocks working capital and invites theft and weather damage. Indent against the work plan instead.
• Approval by chat. A WhatsApp “Ok” has no indent number attached. Weeks later nobody can prove which indent was approved. At minimum, ask approvers to reply with the indent number and quantity.
• No link to arrival. When material arrives on challan, nobody marks it against the indent. So open indents stay open, and duplicate orders go out. Close each indent when the material is received and entered in the stock register.

When paper indents stop working

A paper or Excel indent works well up to a point: one or two sites, a single approver, and a store keeper who updates the register daily. Excel sheets are flexible and cost nothing, and if that is what fits your site today, we have free formats you can download, including our material stock register format in Excel and our construction Excel templates for DPR, BOQ, attendance and stock.

Paper starts failing when you run three or more sites, or when approvals sit with an owner who moves between sites. The register is at one site, the indent is at another, and the purchase office is in the head office. Site kharcha and material records drift apart, and the month-end reconciliation becomes a two-day hunt through photographs of registers.

The same indent flow works in Trackovo without paper. An engineer raises a material request in the app with item, quantity, unit, required-by date and the work it is for. The approver gets it on their phone, sees the request against current stock, and approves or rejects with a remark. Once approved, it moves to ordering, and when the material arrives, the receipt updates the stock record in the same system. So the indent, the order, the challan and the stock register stay connected, and site-wise expenses flow into your payments picture. You can read the full flow on our material management page, and if you want to compare apps before deciding, see our honest look at Trackovo vs Powerplay and Trackovo vs Onsite, both construction management apps used by Indian contractors, along with our wider construction management software comparison for 2026.

Common questions

What is the difference between a material indent and a purchase order?

The indent is an internal request: the site asks the purchase office or management for material. The purchase order is an external document: it goes to the vendor and becomes the basis for the challan and the bill. One indent may become one purchase order, or part of a larger order combining several sites’ needs. Keeping the two separate is what lets you control both quantities and rates.

Who should sign a material indent?

At minimum, two people: the one who raises it (site engineer, supervisor or store keeper) and the one who approves it (project manager, purchase manager or owner, depending on your value limit). For high-value items, add a third level. The exact titles matter less than the rule that every indent carries a named requester and a named approver with dates.

Can I run material indents only on WhatsApp?

You can, and many small sites do, but you lose four things: a fixed format, a stock check before ordering, a clear approval record, and any way to close the indent when material arrives. If you stay on WhatsApp, at least ask for indents in a fixed message template with item, unit, quantity and date, and ask the approver to reply with the indent number. Better still, keep the master record in a sheet and use chat only for alerts.

How do I stop duplicate or over-ordering of material?

Three habits do most of the work. Check stock in hand before raising every indent, and write the figure on the form. Number every indent and keep an open-indent list that anyone can see, so people do not raise a second indent for the same need. And close indents on receipt, matching the challan to the indent before entry in the stock register. An app like Trackovo does this matching automatically, since requests, orders, receipts and stock sit in one place.