David Heinemeier Hansson wrote Refusing administrative minutiae over on Signal vs. Noise and one of the lines really struck home with me. I’ll copy it below.
Similarly, I have almost equal wrath for the expense report. I’ve always felt that if you hire and pay me a good wage, why on earth would you want to always be checking in on me, forcing me to justify a $200 software purchase, or a plane ticket to a conference, or whatever else I might need to do my job well.
It really comes down to a matter of trust. You should be confident when you hire someone that they’ll do what is needed for them to get the job done.
Credit card companies and banks already keep all of the information about what is being purchased, from whom, and even by whom. You don’t really need to have your employees do it as well.