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For the convenience of users in a large Enterprise, with many different purchasing needs and many suppliers, each user is assigned to one or more Buying Organizations: 

• Each Buying Organization contains users who all need to select and purchase from the same subset of the items and suppliers in the complete Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition catalog (that is, all of the items, in all of the suppliers' catalogs.) 
  
  
• The contents of the entire Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition catalog, and every Buying Organization catalog are grouped into a hierarchy of commodities, categories and sub-categories, for example:
  
  Entire Catalog > Cleaning Equipment and Supplies > Janitorial equipment > Cleaning equipment > Cleaning pails or buckets > 6 GAL WASH TANK, etc.
  
  
• Each member of a  Buying Organization has available to them a single, consolidated Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition catalog containing only commodities from all suppliers of those items, with which the Enterprise has a purchasing relationship. 

For example, there may be: 

• An organization for everyone who needs access to suppliers of plumbing materials, 
• Another organization for buyers of automotive parts, 
• Another for office supplies, etc.,
• And so on

Each Buying Organization has its own unique catalog containing only items they need to buy from all suppliers and manufacturers of such items.

Buying Organizations may be established for other financial or administrative reasons. For administrators, Buying Organization administration is discussed in more detail in the Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition Help.  For casual buyers, the most important information is that different Buying Organizations may have access to different catalogs.

Each Buying Organization can have many buyers and approvers, and one or more administrators who have group maintenance responsibilities. 

The composition and responsibilities of a Buying Organization are flexible and can be tailored to the demands of the parent Enterprise. The following general conditions apply.

• A user with wide purchasing needs may be a member of several user organizations.
  
  If you belong to more than one Buying Organization, you may use the Select you Organization drop-down menu to choose which organization's catalog you want to shop from. This menu is on the Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition Home page. 
  
  
• Buyers may also be approvers or owners.
• All group owners can view the status of their own Shopping Carts, and those of other users in their own user organization.
• All approvers can approve Shopping Carts submitted by users, in their own Buying Organization, with lower Spending Limits or who do not have Create Order privilege. 
  
  (Not having Create Order privilege means the same as having a Spending Limit of $0.00.)
  
  
• Approvers are responsible for rejecting or resolving problem Shopping Carts, submitted by other users in their own Buying Organization.
• Approvers) may view Orders created from Shopping Carts, submitted by other users in their own Buying Organization.

You should contact your Enterprise Buyer 2.0 Desktop Edition administrator with specific questions about your organization.

The Special Request option is provided for the occasions when a user needs to purchase an item they know about but cannot find in the catalog of their own Buying Organization.

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