I think it's fair that if you want to spend company money, you need to justify it, especially so if it's on something that will be used by a whole team or across the whole company.

At a smaller company that values its devs, there hopefully shouldn't be too much ceremony around this, unless it's a particularly large spend.

But at larger companies, yes, you're likely going to have to know how to make your case in a more formal way, and get involved in company politics (ugh).