Representative diff

dhromed

There was, obviously, no emigration from Britain to the 'USA' prior to 1783,

I know this because I played AssCreed III.

The end result is that you can't just go and buy something out of petty cash or expense it, but have to go through the usual purchasing channels. Frequently those usual channels aren't very wells uited to buying small items, which is something of a WTF in itself - but understandable given that many UK offices are run by overseas companies who can see that putting a $30 purchase through the purchasing system is a daft thing to do, and don't have a UK-specific different system to allow it.

The company I work for solved this problem long ago.

Anyone who has a recurring need to purchase things is given an American Express card with a monthly spending limit that depends on their position and what they might need to buy. Secretaries can spend a couple hundred on office supplies and coffee for the bosses. The supervisor in the Maintenance Dept. can spend $30,000 on replacement machine parts or hiring contractors for certain work.. My limit is quite a bit less than that, but as long as I only buy from "approved vendors" my purchases are almost never questioned. Of course, I try to avoid buying anything that might appear questionable. Except for really big purchases or weird one-off things we've almost completely eliminated the whole "Purchasing Department" thing.

dhromed

@El_Heffe said:

I try to avoid buying anything that might appear questionable. Except for really big purchases or weird one-off things we've almost completely eliminated the whole "Purchasing Department" thing.

What if you require a pallet of purple dildos?

dkf

@blakeyrat said:

If your company is so WTF that you can't expense a $30 program once a month without headaches, you need to leave it.

I can and have expensed thousands in hotel and restaurant bills (provided I'm on an official work trip), but can't do a bill for software for anything without a whole world of pain for writing the claim. (Well, not unless it is software that we've already got a purchasing agreement in place for; for those I just log into the right system and get a download link straight off.) Partitioned budget lines FTWTF!

OldCrow

@dkf said:

@blakeyrat said:
If your company is so WTF that you can't expense a $30 program once a month without headaches, you need to leave it.
I can and have expensed thousands in hotel and restaurant bills (provided I'm on an official work trip), but can't do a bill for software for anything without a whole world of pain for writing the claim. (Well, not unless it is software that we've already got a purchasing agreement in place for; for those I just log into the right system and get a download link straight off.) Partitioned budget lines FTWTF!

So, what happens if, after arriving at the hotel, you notice that you'll need some off-the-self software, call the reception and get them to send somebody to purchase a copy from BestBuy and add it to your hotel bill?

dkf

@OldCrow said:

So, what happens if, after arriving at the hotel, you notice that you'll need some off-the-self software, call the reception and get them to send somebody to purchase a copy from BestBuy and add it to your hotel bill?

Formally, it depends on whether it appears as “software” on the receipt; such stuff is checked (I know because I've dealt with the audit process too, alas). Practically, you're nuts for thinking that I'd want to muck around with such a convoluted mechanism.