

Ask HN: How much can you spend on IT w/o getting approval? - esers

A lot of people on HN are selling website subscriptions and/or software to corporations.<p>If we're selling directly to corporate users, it's important that the user be able to charge the purchase to their corporate credit card without having to track down someone higher-up with purchasing authority.<p>At your day job, what is the most that you can charge to your corporate credit card for an IT purchase without having to get approval from your manager?<p>I've being doing some Googling on "purchasing authority" and the max limit on buying IT products without approval seems to be either $500 or $5,000. Which one is it?<p>Thanks!
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whyme
In my mind the question should also be how much can your manager approve via
credit card without anyone expecting a business case to support the purchase.

In my case I regularly approve hundreds of thousands dollars for other people,
but I generally have everything of mine approved credit card or not. What's
important is that if I can justify if to my manager and if it's under 5k then
it requires only a conversation, but over 5k I'm writing business cases and
having all kinds of scrutiny and less chances to compete for budget $.

May seem strange, but using the 5k amount has always seemed like a loop hole.
I've seen data vendors sell data for just under 5k every month otherwise the
annual wouldn't even be considered. I generally find them and end up shutting
them down or using the monthly costs as a business case to make data purchases
in full just to save money.

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esers
Great response. Thank you.

I was thinking of doing exactly that -- charging just under $5k/month for a
data service.

It seems, however, like that might be a poor decision.

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whyme
I think it's a smart move to provide both options: a monthly under 5k and a
discounted annual.

Good business decisions are up to the company doing the buying - it's your job
to be flexible, supportive and upfront about what the options are.

IMHO

~~~
esers
Good point.

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_delirium
Not sure if policies in academia are relevant to you, but it's $5,000 at
Georgia Tech. More specifically, it's $5,000 per year per vendor for
supplies/materials/services, and $3,000 per item for equipment (I don't
believe the $5,000 yearly limit applies to equipment, so you can e.g. buy five
$2000 computers from Dell without permission). From ([http://www.admin-
fin.gatech.edu/business/purchasing/0500218....](http://www.admin-
fin.gatech.edu/business/purchasing/0500218.html)):

    
    
      The PCard [credit card] may be used for:
    
        Equipment: Single units under $3,000.
    
        Supplies, Materials, and Services may be purchased for 
        less than $5,000. The Institute will monitor activity for 
        purchases for the same supplies, materials, or services 
        from the same vendor so as not to exceed $5,000 per year 
        unless competitively procured as detailed in DOAS 
        regulations and BOR policies and procedures.

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gte910h
You can't buy computers with the P-Cards there. You can buy computer parts,
but not an entire computer in a single purchase.

Many people send multiple trips to GimComputers to accomplish the purchasing
and construction of a computer when needed quickly (As the formal computer
request procedure takes weeks).

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Encosia
$0 here.

I can almost always get anything reasonable approved, but they want to approve
it all.

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ams6110
Where I work, everything.... EVERYTHING.... has to go through purchasing. Even
a box of staples.

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esers
How about paying for subscriptions to web apps with your corporate CC?

As an employee at a corporation, would you have an easier time charging
$400/month to subscribe to a web-app or charging $4,800 up-front for a yearly
subscription?

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gte910h
5k most places I've worked.

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wlievens
I read on HN once that someone had figured out that the amount is typically
$20k. But I can't recall the context, so this is probably nex to useless.

I don't have a corporate credit card :-)

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kls
I think 5K is going to be the magic number for big co. I know most of the
large corps that I have been at we (VP's, Directors)where allowed a max of 5k
unapproved on the corporate credit card.

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logic
$2500 here for "procard" purchases. Anything higher requires budget approval.

Edit: "here" is federal government/DOE contractor.

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theBobMcCormick
$500 at the bigco where I work. :-(

