but the purpose of the purchase request is when you want to add an additional level of approval and if you wish to use this it means those wanting to create PR would have to switch roles

mg2017: Purpose of PR is to give the option to request a purchase by people who do not have full license roles. If you have a non employee center role and want them to be raise PO then need to give them permission and handle approvals through workflow. Hope this helps.

makes sense. what role would be considered as none full license?

Who has access to Employee Center

Yes. In my experience, most full users who submit POs don't do so through EE Center. You're right it's a pain to switch roles. If you set up an approval workflow around POs, it will work whether a limited user adds one in EE Center or if a full user adds one in "regular" NetSuite.

Thanks, chaps, that makes up my mind. Will stick to PO and create WF to handle approvals.