Purchasing, what does it look like for you?

Posted by One_Stranger7794@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 9 comments

So this morning I'm currently playing a game of phone tag trying to track down who has the credit card to renew a license, which was me wondering... What's purchasing is like in your company/department? Do you do it, or do you hand the buy to someone else to complete?

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9 Comments

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slazer2au@reddit

1. Get quote from a vendor. 2. Pass the quote to the finance team for markup. 3. Wait 4 months for the finance team to make the vendor quote to a customer quote. 4. Email the vendor for an updated quote and hope the price hasn't changed. 4.1. go to step 2 if it has changed 5. Send the quote to the customer and wait 2 months for approval. 6. Remind the customers that the license issue is being looked into when they open a tickets about it. 7. Assuming the customer approved it send a PO to the vendor.

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One_Stranger7794@reddit (OP)

Repeat Step 7 3 times

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slazer2au@reddit

Only 3 times or 3 times a week? :P

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Naclox@reddit

It depends on where I'm ordering from and how much. We've got a requisition system, and if it's under $1000 it's automatically approved, anything else goes to my boss for approval and anything over $25k then has to go to the CEO. Most order then go over to procurement to actually place the order except for Amazon and Monoprice where I can order directly.

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LAKnerd@reddit

My first time with an expense was when I supported a call center early in my career. I was doing an inventory of how many headsets we had for spares. I had this whole schpiel on how many we had left, how many agents we had, how long we go between an agent needing a headset, how often we onboarded groups, and justifying the number I proposed to purchase. After I told my IT director that we needed headsets, it was as simple as "how many, and how much". I winced when I said $3k, he responded to up it to $5k and to just send him the invoice. When I asked why I didn't need to justify it he responded that as a call center, if we don't have enough headsets we lose business. My timbers were thoroughly shivered but I walked out with a new perspective on capex vs opex In my experience it's usually been management that actually made the purchase

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Kiytan@reddit

if it's small (cables, keyboards that sort of thing) I'll ask the office manager to order it, anything bigger I get the CEO/CTO to ok it and then get the office manager to order it. (I report more or less directly to the ceo)

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thenewguyonreddit@reddit

If it’s under 5k I can do it, 5k-10k my boss can do it, over 10k needs to go to our finance/accounting team.

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idrinkpastawater@reddit

Pretty same for me.

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Unable-Entrance3110@reddit

IT credit card is for one-offs and/or other CapEx below \~$500. Everything else is accounting dept with various levels of approval, depending on the size of the purchase. Technically, we shouldn't use our CC for OpEx license renewals, but we do some of those as well. The bigger ones like M365, are invoiced and paid by accounting dept directly. Honestly, maintaining software licenses is almost a full time job by itself (smallish company \~150 with 3 person IT dept) and I am glad that my manager takes care of it.