Can staff really buy Microsoft licences themselves?

Yes, for a number of products, such as Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Visio and Project. They pay with their own payment method and become the owner of the subscription.

Can I turn this off for everything with one switch?

No. Microsoft manages this per product. You set each product to Allow, Allow for trials only or Do not allow, in the admin center or with the MSCommerce PowerShell module.

How quickly does a change take effect?

It can take up to 72 hours for a changed setting to take effect everywhere.

What happens if I cancel a self-bought subscription?

Users lose access to the product and the buyer receives an email. If you want them to keep using the product, move them to a centrally bought subscription first.

Staff buying their own licences: how an SME keeps control of trials and purchases in Microsoft 365

Q: Does company data in a self-bought product stay in our environment?

Yes. Microsoft applies the same data management and access policies to these purchases as to centrally bought licences. The risk is mainly visibility, cost and control.

A staff member wants to build a quick dashboard in Power BI or a diagram in Visio and sees a ‘Try free’ or ‘Buy’ button. A few clicks later there is a subscription running outside your IT management and accounts. Microsoft calls this self-service purchase. Convenient for the employee, but without clear agreements you lose track of licences, costs and where company data ends up.

What self-service purchase is

For a number of Microsoft products, such as Power BI, Power Apps, Power Automate, Visio and Project, a staff member with a work account can start a trial or buy a subscription themselves. They pay with their own payment method and become the owner of that subscription. A paid subscription renews automatically. Some trials ask for a payment method at sign-up and automatically convert to a paid version when the trial ends.

Microsoft applies the same data management and access policies to these purchases as to centrally bought licences, so the data stays in your own Microsoft 365 environment. The issue is mainly visibility and cost: IT does not know what is running, the bill goes to the employee rather than to accounts, and when that employee leaves it is unclear what should happen to the subscription.

Why an SME should set rules for this

Hidden costs: separate subscriptions do not appear on the company’s Microsoft invoice, so they are easily forgotten or paid twice alongside licences you already have.
No control over licences: as an admin you cannot assign or remove licences from a self-bought subscription unless you take it over first.
Loose ends when people leave: if the buyer leaves, a subscription colleagues now depend on may keep running.
New products are open by default: when Microsoft adds a new product that can be bought this way, it is set to ‘allow’ until you turn it off.

First, see what is already running

In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Billing > Your products. On the self-service trials tab, and via the ‘Self-service’ filter on the Products tab, you can see each subscription’s product name, purchaser, number of licences, expiry date, price and assigned users. You can also export the list of users. That way you know which tools are already in use before you close anything.

Choose per product what is allowed

A Global Administrator manages this under Settings > Org settings, Services tab, Self-service trials and purchases. It lists each product with its current setting and three choices:

Allow: staff can start a trial and buy.
Allow for trials only: trying is fine, buying is not. Anyone who wants to continue goes through the normal purchasing route.
Do not allow: no trials and no purchases for that product.

Two things to know. There is no single switch that turns everything off at once: you set it per product. The same can be done with the MSCommerce PowerShell module, which is handy for reviewing all products in one go. And a change can take up to 72 hours to take effect everywhere.

A workable middle ground

Locking everything down often leads to frustration or to tools outside Microsoft altogether. A practical approach for an SME:

Set most products to Allow for trials only, so staff can try something out without a paid subscription appearing.
Set products you deliberately do not want yet, for example because of data use or cost, to Do not allow. Think of AI tools you want to agree rules for first, as described in our article on shadow AI at work.
Agree a single request route: anyone who needs a licence asks the designated contact or IT partner, who buys and assigns it centrally.
Check a few times a year whether Microsoft has added new products, because they are open by default. Include this in your periodic review of unused licences.

Cleaning up existing individual purchases

For a subscription a staff member bought themselves, go to Billing > Your products and choose Take control of this subscription. You then have two options:

Move users: you move the users to a centrally bought subscription. You need an available licence for each user. The old subscription is then cancelled automatically and the buyer receives an email about it.
Cancel: the subscription ends and users lose access to the product. Only do this when you are sure nobody still needs it.

Also include self-bought subscriptions in your joiner and leaver checklist, so it is clear what keeps running when someone leaves.

How Floor ICT handles this

Floor ICT first maps which trials and individual purchases are running in your environment and who uses them. We then agree with you which products staff may try, which are closed and how licence requests work from now on. We set the policy per product, move running subscriptions to central licences where needed and periodically check whether new products have been added. That way you keep track of licences and costs without staff having to wait for IT for every small trial.

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