Interesting they say "suck it up, lie, or resist". The other way is to push the requirement further down: I don't understand this thing you're buying but you have represented to me that it is necessary.
I like this thought. What would it take to certify the form? 10 hours a month? 20? Can you redirect other people on your team to work on this?
When it is broken down to a cost (time) calculation then it might actually become reasonable to invest in a better system for accounting and analyzing expenditures.
How long do you suppose it would take to confirm that it was a part we need, that we don't already have, and that I got a good price on it? And how many such claims do you think each person in the finance department sees each day?
That's why each level of management, and the individual contributor as well, should have their own levels of certification. I can self-certify, say, $50 as essential. My manager can certify $5000, the director might do $50K, and so on.
>I agree, nobody in their right mind would audit every such expense.
I'll bite. Our money counters aren't in their right minds, because I submitted a small breakfast tab (at most $10) from work travel for reimbursement, only to learn it was unacceptable to not include a receipt. My other meals had receipts, but I had forgotten to ask for one this time. The accountant then said I had to call the cafe for a receipt. Luckily, the place had a website with contact info, and there was a helpful employee who emailed me the receipt.
But I spent at least an hour talking with the accountant and getting the receipt. The accountant spent probably 30 minutes with this problem. It was a net loss.
Exactly: you should certify that to the best of your knowledge those things are true so you got it. There might be one in inventory on the other side of the country but still it was better to buy one rather than try to figure that out (or wait for that, and cheaper than shipping it even if it existed).
It doesn't look like a total fix in this case, since the questioner still has to certify that they've only approved essential things. The initial form is too badly botched for "I've verified that this was claimed as essential" to suffice.
But in general, this is a good point. People are always going to have to accept decisions with incomplete information. The fix for that isn't owning outcomes they don't understand, it's clarifying what they're really doing; in this case, George isn't verifying the necessity but rather that experts have declared the thing necessary.
That's the actual responsible way to do it.