Hi James

We do this.  Around a third of all course pages in our Totara site are bookings for (and recording completion of) externally provided courses. 

We have a admin person who manages the face-to-face bookings; raises the internal purchase order and places the bookings with providers on behalf of our staff member.  At first glance this looks like a lot of unnecessary effort. But the business case is easy - we consistently achieve all early & group booking discounts saving many times the salary costs involved.  We also achieve non-financial business benefits as our compulsory Level 1 evaluation quickly weeds out poor courses (more often, those that don’t match their sale’s pitch), staff use the LMS as their central point to discover development opportunities (where we push/promote non-formal development activities), and all courses are recorded in the staff member’s record of learning.

Happy to share more info if this is the type of approach you’re seeking.

Cheers
Austen