Learn using Sub Ledger Accounting (SLA) in R12 Oracle Payables

Sub Ledger Accounting (SLA) is a Rule-Based accounting engine that defines how journal entries are generated in sub-ledger transactions in Oracle sub-ledger applications. However, SLA also supports external applications generating accounting information which ultimately needs to be transferred to Oracle General Ledger. Before we get into SLA we need to know few of the basic concepts like event types, event class, etc.

Event Class - classifies transaction types for accounting rule purposes. E.g. in Payables, following are possible event classes: Invoice, Debit Memo, Prepayments, Refunds and Payments.

Event Type - for each transaction type, defines possible actions with accounting significance. E.g. in Payables, following are possible event classes: AP Invoice Events – Validation, Adjustment and Cancellation. Similarly we will have event types for other event classes.

In most of the cases we would not need to customize SLA and accounting features will work same as 11i. Some of the typical business scenarios where we would need to customize SLA in Payables are as follows:

• To have a different Liability account based on Operating Unit for which the invoice is entered.
• To have different natural account (expense) based on different Invoice Type and Invoice Line type.
• To have different natural account (expense) and different liability account based on different criteria like supplier type, entering currency, pay group, etc.
• The cost center segment of Invoice distribution Liability account shall be picked from the Invoice distribution Account while the other segment values from the Liability account defined at supplier site.

To cater to some of the above requirements we can use other alternatives like using distribution sets also. But setting up a custom SLA for such scenarios is an easier approach with lower user maintenance. I will try and show a simple scenario of how to derive custom accounting for a business scenario using SLA in Oracle Payables.

Business Scenario: We need to define different liability account (natural account segment) based on Supplier Type so that business can track the liability by supplier type. The other segment values will default from supplier site. I am limiting this example to only one supplier type “Contractor". The objective would be to have a different natural account for Liability account for invoices of supplier type "Contractor" alone, while for other supplier types the normal liability account should default.

Solution:

Step1: First define a mapping set for various supplier types.

Navigation: Setup > Accounting Setups >Sub Ledger Accounting Setups >Accounting Methods Builders > Journal Entry Setups > Mapping Sets

Step2: Define ADR (Account Derivation Rules)

Navigation: Setup > Accounting Setups >Sub Ledger Accounting Setups >Accounting Methods Builders > Journal Entry Setups > Account Derivation Rules

Step3: Define JLD (Journal Line Definition)

Navigation: Setup > Accounting Setups >Sub Ledger Accounting Setups > Accounting Methods Builder > Methods and Definitions > Journal Line Definitions

Always create a copy of the seeded JLD and do not modify a seeded JLD. We will create a copy of ACCRUAL_INVOICES_ALL for our Chart of Accounts ‘Operations Accounting Flex’ only. Add the custom ADR created to ‘Liability, Basic’ (Line Assignment)

Step 4: Setup AAD (Application Accounting Definition)

Navigation: Setup > Accounting Setups >Sub Ledger Accounting Setups > Accounting Methods Builder > Methods and Definitions > Application Accounting Definition

Create a copy of seeded AAD only and do not modify existing AAD. I am creating a custom AAD called ‘TEST_AAD’ for COA ‘Operations Accounting Flex’.

Step 5: Setup SAM (Subledger Accounting Methods)

Navigation: Setup > Accounting Setups >Sub Ledger Accounting Setups > Accounting Methods Builder > Methods and Definitions > Subledger Accounting Methods

Create a copy of a seeded SAM and do not modify seeded SAM. Add the custom AAD to the Event Class ‘Payables’.

Step 6: Assign the custom SAM to Primary Ledger

Navigation: Set ups > Accounting Setups > Ledger Setup > Define > Accounting Setup

Verification of new SLA rule:

Create an invoice for supplier type ‘Contractor’ and create accounting

Liability Account for Supplier Type “Contractor” is 01-000-2990-0000-000

Liability Account for other Supplier Types is 01-000-2210-0000-000

Payables Duplicate Invoices

A common requirement that is there in almost all Payables department is to identify potential duplicate invoices. The standard Oracle report 'Invoice Audit Listing' is not effective when it comes to list down potential duplicate invoices. The 'Invoice Audit Listing' is more of a listing and the payables manager has to spend time and effort in analysing this report. Also, not to mention when it comes to performance this report takes quite a while to complete if you mention a very old 'Begin Invoice date'.

A common requirement that comes to my mind is to report all invoices which are of same amount and currency from a supplier within a given time period. Although this report is a relatively simple report to design, but as a thought i feel this should be included as a standard report in payables.

Indian Megavendors

The other day i was reading an article in http://specials.rediff.com/money/2008/aug/13slide1.htm on India's top three IT companies. As per this article, Gartner has come out with a report in which they predict that, Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies, and Wipro Technologies, collectively referred as 'India-3,' will emerge as the next generation of IT service megavendors. These vendors are increasingly being considered for strategic service deals, and will augment or, in some cases, replace today's acknowledged megavendors by revenue -- IBM Global Services, Accenture and EDS -- in this space by 2011, says Gartner.

Obviously this means there will be a lot of consolidation that is bound to happen in the IT space in India, as there are a lot of tier-2 firms who cannot match the pace of growth of the top 3 firms in India. This means some of these small IT companies will be forced to sell out as the war on margins and cornering a portion of the relatively fixed marketshare will become more acute. However, for the top-3 to actually reach the levels of present generation megavendors, apart from the cost advantage, they have to position on other parameters as well. The article talks of four critical competencies on which the emerging Indian megavendors are positioning themselves.

The competencies are: process excellence; world-class HR practices; providing high quality services at a low cost; the achievement of significant and disproportionate 'mind share' compared to their actual size.

However, the catch is to continue providing high quality services at a low cost and yet try and increase the mind-share further. With wage bills increasing and worries over global slowdown, maintaining low cost is definitely a big challenge. However, i feel where Indian top-3 companies are critically lacking is in thought-leadership. The culture of innovation and path-breaking developments is still not visible. The present day megavendors have primarily reached this position due to a large investment in innovation and thought-leadership. Anyways, interesting times ahead for all in tough situations, and obviously only the toughest will survive and prosper.

Importing Payments and Paid Invoices into Oracle - Oracle needs to provide an API

How many of us had a requirement of importing paid invoices and their corressponding payment details to Oracle? I would say many. But strangely till date there in no straight forward method to import payments into Oracle. I feel its time that Oracle comes up with a standard process like an API to handle this business need.
There are a few workarounds to this scenario. A direct update of Oracle base table is one but this comes with the risk of losing support from Oracle.
The other, more robust way would be to use the manual payment feature of Oracle to record such payments that have been already done in the earlier system. However, automating this process using a batch program is a challenge.
Do put in your comments in case you have a soultion to this problem which would help a lot of people out there.

Oracle E-Business Tax: Regime to Rate Flow in Oracle R12

In Oracle Release12, there has been some very significant changes, one among them being how we define tax. E-Business Tax is now a single point where we define our taxes for all the sub-ledger modules. In this article I will try to do a sample Tax setup using the Regime to Rate Flow of Oracle E-Business Tax in the Tax Manager responsibility.

Creating a Tax Regime

In Oracle E-Business Tax, a Tax Regime is the system of regulations for the determination and administration of one or more taxes.

1. Navigate to the Create Tax Regime:

• Navigation: Tax Configuration àTax Regimes

• Click the Button “Create”

2. Enter a new tax regime based on the following information:

· Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1

· Name: Test Regime1

· Regime Level: Country

· Country Name: United States

· Parent Regime Code: Blank

· Effective From: 01-JAN-1950

· Effective To: Leave Blank

· Used to group Regimes: Unchecked

3. Expand the Controls and Defaults region

· Allow Tax Recovery: Checked

· Allow Override and Entry of Inclusive Tax Lines: Unchecked

· Allow Tax Exemptions: Checked

· Allow Tax Exceptions: Checked

· Tax Currency: USD

· Minimum Accountable Unit: 0.01

· Rounding Rule: Nearest

· Tax Precision: 2 (default)

4. Click on Button “Continue”
5. Enter tax regime configuration options:
• Party Name: Vision Operations (Note: Select the Operating Unit owning Tax Content party type)
• Configuration for Taxes and Rules: Common Configuration with Party Overrides
• Configuration for Product Exceptions: Party-Specific Configuration
• Effective From: 01-JAN-1950
• Effective To: Leave blank
6. Click on Button “Finish”
7. You will get the message “The tax regime was successfully created”

Creating a Tax

1. Navigate: Tax Configuration à Tax Regimes
2. Search for the Tax Regime you created above using the filter criteria of Country as “United States” and Tax Regime Code as “TESTREGIME1”
3. Click on button “Go”
4. Click on icon “Regime to Rate Flow”
5. Click on button “Create Tax”

6. 2Create a new Tax as per information mentioned below:
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1 (defaults)
   • Configuration Owner: Global Configuration Owner
   • Tax Source: Create a new tax (defaults)
   • Tax: TESTTAX1
   • Tax Name: Test Tax1
   • Tax Type: SALES
   • Effective From: 01-JAN-1950 (defaults)
   • Effective To: Leave blank
   • Geography Type: STATE
   • Parent Geography Type: COUNTRY
   • Parent Geography Name: United States
   • Tax Currency: USD (defaults)
   • Minimum Accountable Unit: 0.01 (defaults)
   • Rounding Rule: Nearest (defaults)
   • Tax Precision: 2 (defaults)
   • Exchange Rate Type: Blank
7. Click on “Show Controls and Defaults”
8. Enter the details as per information mentioned below
   • Allow Override and Entry of Inclusive Tax Lines: Unchecked
   • Allow Tax Rounding Override: Unchecked
   • Allow Override for Calculated Tax Lines: Checked
   • Allow Entry of Manual Tax Lines: Checked
   • Use Legal Registration Number: Unchecked
   • Allow Duplicate Tax Registration Numbers: Unchecked
   • Allow Multiple Jurisdictions: Unchecked
   • Tax Accounts Creation Method: Create Tax Accounts (defaults)
   • Allow Tax Exceptions: Checked (defaults)
   • Allow Tax Exemptions: Checked (defaults)
   • Tax Exemptions Creation Method: Create Tax Exemptions (defaults)
   • Allow Tax Recovery: Unchecked

9. Click on Button “Apply”
10. You will get the message “The Tax has been successfully created”
11. Return to Tax Regimes. Click on “Expand All”
12. Click on icon “Create Tax Status”
13. Enter the following:
    • Tax Status Code: TESTSTATUS1
    • Name: Test Tax Status1
    • Click on Button “Apply”
    • Check as Default Tax Status: Checked
    • Default Status Effective From: 01-Jan-1950
14. Click on button “Apply”
15. You will get the message “The tax status was successfully created.”

Create Tax Rates

1. Go back to the Regime to Rate Flow
2. Click on “Expand All”.
3. Click on icon “Create Tax Rate”. Enter the Tax Rates based on information mentioned below:
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1 (defaults)
   • Configuration Owner: Global Configuration Owner (defaults)
   • Tax: TESTTAX1 (defaults)
   • Tax Status Code: TESTSTATUS1 (defaults)
   • Tax Jurisdiction Code: Blank
   • Tax Rate Code: TESTRATE1
   • Rate Type: Percentage (defaults)
   • Percentage Rate: 10
   • Effective From: 01-JAN-1950 (defaults)
   • Effective From: Leave blank

4. Click on icon “Rate Details”. Enter the Tax Rate Details based on information mentioned below:

· Tax Rate Name: Test Sales Tax Rate1

· Tax Rate Description: Test Sales Tax Rate1

· Set as Default Rate: Checked

· Default Effective From: 01-JAN-1950

· Default Effective To: Leave blank

· Allow Tax Exemptions: Checked (defaults)

· Allow Tax Exceptions: Checked (defaults)

· Internet Expenses Enabled : Checked

5. Click on the button “Apply” to return to the Create Tax Rate page.
6. Click on the button “Apply” to return to the Regime to Rate Flow page
7. You will get the message “The Tax Rate has been successfully created.”

Creating Tax Jurisdiction

1. Navigate: tax Configuration à Tax Jurisdiction
2. Click on button “Create”. Enter the Tax Jurisdiction details based on information mentioned below:
   • Tax Jurisdiction Code: TESTJUR1
   • Tax Jurisdiction Name: Test Tax Jurisdiction1
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
   • Tax: TESTTAX1
   • Geography Type: STATE (pick from list!)
   • Effective From: 01-JAN-1950
   • Effective To: Leave Blank
   • Geography Name: CA
   • Precedence Level: 300 (defaults)
   • Collecting Tax Authority: Blank
   • Reporting Tax Authority: Blank
   • Set as default Tax Jurisdiction: Yes (defaults)
   • Default Effective From: 01-JAN-1950
   • Default Effective To: Leave blank

3. Click on the button “Apply” to return to the Regime to Rate Flow page
4. You will get the message “The tax jurisdiction was successfully created.”

Creating Tax Accounts

1. Navigate: Tax Configuration à Taxes
2. Search for the Taxes that we created just now using the following filter criteria:
   • Country Name: United States
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
   • Tax: TESTTAX1
3. Click on the button “Go”. Then click on icon “Update”.
4. Click on button “Tax Accounts”.
5. Enter the Ledger as “Vision Operations (USA)”
6. Click on button “Create”
7. Enter the Tax Account details based on following information:

· Operating Unit : Vision Operations

· Tax Expense: 01-210-7710-0000-000

· Tax Recoverable/Liability: 01-000-2220-0000-000

8. Click on button “Apply” and return back to Tax Accounts page.
9. Click the button “Apply”, to return to the Update Tax page.
10. Click the button “Apply”, to return to the Taxes page.
11. You will get the message “The tax was successfully updated”.

Creating Tax Rules

1. Navigate: Tax Configuration à Tax Rules
2. Access the rule type by filtering on the following criteria:
   • Configuration Owner: Global Configuration Owner
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
   • Tax: TESTTAX1
3. Click on button “Go”. Then click on “Expand All”.
4. Set the following values corresponding to the Rule Types:
   • Determine Place of Supply: Ship To
   • Determine Tax Applicability: Applicable
   • Determine Tax Registration: Bill From Party
   • Determine Taxable Basis: STANDARD_TB
   • Calculate Tax Amounts: STANDARD_TC

Making Tax Available for Transactions

1. Navigate: Tax Configuration àTaxes
2. Select the Tax created based on the following filter criteria:
   • Country Name: United States
   • Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
   • Tax: TESTTAX1
3. Click on button “Go”. Then click on icon “Update” on the “TESTTAX1” row.
4. Check the box “Make Tax Available for Transactions”

5. Click on button “Apply”.
6. You will get the message “This tax does not have an exchange rate type. Are you sure you want to enable this tax?” having options “Yes” and “No”. Click on “Yes”
7. You will get the message “The tax was successfully updated.”

Test your Tax Setup by creating an Invoice in Payables /Receivables or creating a Purchase Order.

New Features in Approving Expense Reports in Oracle Internet Expense (iExpense) using AME

Following features are new in R12 Oracle Internet Expense if you are using AME for Manager Expense report approval.
1. Parallel Approval
With Parallel Approvals, you will be able to route approvals in parallel when expense reports are charged to multiple cost centers, multiple projects, or multiple awards. This will streamline the approvals process and thus ensure users are reimbursed as quickly as possible.
2. FYI Notification
Now, you will be able to define rules in AME to send FYI notifications to managers and others who should be informed of expenses charged to their area of authority, but who do not need to approve the expense report.
3. Aggregation of Amount
You will be able to route expense approvals based on the aggregated amounts charged to cost centers or projects. The approval notification will show both the total amount to be approved, and how much of each expense was charged to the area of approval authority. This feature will ensure that proper approval authority is enforced when an expense report is allocated to many different cost centers, projects, or awards.

Conversion (Data Migration) of Invoices in Receivables

Whenever we are going in for implementation of Receivables module, we have to consider the necessity of bringing in customer open balances from the old system to Oracle Receivables.

Some of the key questions that needs to be addressed before we take up a conversion activity. This is just a sample list and not an exhaustive one:

1. What are the different types of invoices in existing system Provide invoice samples? (invoices, credit/ debit memos, commitments, chargebacks)

2. Do we need to migrate only open invoices?

3. Do we migrate closed invoices also, if yes, then for what time period?

4. Please explain the invoice numbering mechanism? Is it automatic?

5. What are the interfaces from/to your existing receivables system?

6. Will the old system still be in place for querying and reporting purpose?

One can adopt one of the following three strategies for conversion:

1. Consolidate all the open balances customer-wise and create a single open invoice for each customer in the new Oracle system. The advantage of this system is that it is quite easy and not data intensive and makes good business sense in case of small businesses with very few customers. The major demerit of this approach is that later on one cannot track the individual invoices which the customer had sent and can become an audit issue also. In case of dispute over payment, this invoice will remain open till the dispute is resolved. Also, aging of invoices and dunning history will be lost.

2. Bring in all the open and partially paid invoices, credit/debit memos into the new system. Migrate all the unapplied and partially applied receipts to the new system. The advantage of this process of conversion is that you can track all open invoices individually and apply the correct receipt to correct invoice. Also, the conversion effort will be moderately low compared to case if you migrate all open and closed invoices. The disadvantage of this approach is that you cannot have a track of closed invoices in the new system. Also, it would be tough to handle scenarios where there is a dispute regarding incorrect receipt application, etc. This is the most common approach taken for receivables invoice, credit/debit memo and receipt migration.

3. Migrate all open and closed invoices to the new system. Reapply the migrated receipts to invoices in the new system. This approach makes sense if your receivables data is quite small else the effort involved in migrating all closed invoices and credit memos to the new system does not make much business sense.

The next question that arises is how we should migrate the invoices, credit/debit memos and receipts to the new system. Oracle provides standard interfaces to load the same. We can also use tools like Dataloader or manually key in the data into Oracle.

In this article i will talk of invoice, credit/debit memo conversion only. Prior to invoice migration, customer migration should be over apart from other pre-requisites. Following is the list of pre-requisites that should be completed prior to invoice, credit/debit memo conversion:

•Set-up of Customer Payment Terms should be complete

•Set-up of Currencies should be complete (this is necessary in case you have foreign currency invoices also)

•Set-up of Transaction Types should be complete

•Set-up of Accounting Rules should be complete

•Set-up of Tax rates and Tax codes should be complete

•Set up for sales representative should be complete

•Set up for debtor area should be complete

•Set up for income category should be complete

•Automatic customer invoice numbering should be set to 'No'

•Customer and Customer address should be migrated in the system

•Disable the Invoice interface purge program so that the data successfully imported should not get purged in the interface table.

•Set up for invoice batch source name should be complete

In the next step extract Invoice data from the legacy files and using SQL loader populate the interface tables RA_INTERFACE_LINES_ALL and RA_INTERFACE_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL. Submit the Auto Invoice open interface program. Data from the two interface tables will be uploaded to the following base tables using the Invoice open interface program:

•RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_ALL

•RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_LINES_ALL

•RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_GL_DIST_ALL

•RA_BATCHES_ALL

•RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_SALESREPS_ALL

•AR_RECEIVABLE_APPLICATIONS_ALL

•AR_PAYMENT_SCHEDULES_ALL

•RA_INTERFACE_ERRORS_ALL

Ensure that the Purge Interface check box is not checked when you submit the Autoinvoice program. In the Autoinvoice errors form you can see the error corresponding to failed records. Correct the errors in the interface table and rerun the Autoinvoice program. Submit the Autoinvoice Purge Program separately. Only records that have been successfully processed by Autoinvoice are purged.

Using autoinvoice you can migrate invoices, credit/debit memos and on-account credits into Oracle. However, you have to set grouping rules (Navigation > Setup > Transactions > Autoinvoice > Grouping Rule) to group lines to create one transaction and ordering rules (Navigation > Setup > Transactions > Autoinvoice > Line Ordering Rules) to determine the order of the transaction lines on a particular invoice.

Business case - Customer on Credit Hold

Business Scenario:
There is a requirement to put all open orders in Order Management on Hold by putting a Credit Hold on customer under the following two conditions:
1. Customer exceeds the Credit limit set
2. Cutomer has not paid an invoice even after 'x' days of the invoice due date on invoice. However, this customer may not have exceeded the credit limit.

Solution:
The solution to the first scenario is to enable the Credit Check for the customer and put an amount in the Credit Limit field for the customer. Oracle Order Management would use this information to place an order on hold.
However, for the second scenario there is no standard solution. We have to create custom program to put the customer on a 'Credit Hold'.
Step1: Enable a DFF (we can name it as say 'Over Due Days') for the customer which would hold the maximum number of days the payment is overdue that is accecptable to the business.
Step2: Write a small program that would check daily for all customers where the system date is greater than the due date by the number of days specified in the DFF. A report would also be an output of the program which is something very similar to the standard report "Past Due Invoice Report" with a couple of additional fields to capture the days beyond the maximum number of days after due date as per DFF. This program would put all customer on a Credit Hold where the invoice Due date is greater than 'Due Date + No of days in DFF'.
Ensure that the program is scheduled to run just after midnight to so that the program does not miss out on any new invoices created.

Customer Refund in Receivables

There are cases when customers overpay, or pay one invoice twice. In all such cases the customer is due for a refund. The easiest approach would be to ask the customer to absorb the overpayment if the amount is small. However, if the amount is large the customer would no doubt ask for a refund. There are basically three ways to handle customer refunds:
1. Issue a manual check for refund to the customer and record a Debit Memo in Receivables and match this to the receipt.

2. Ask the customer to leave the cash as "on-account" and apply this later to any other open invoice.

3. Setup customer as supplier in Payables, and issue a check out of payables. The third option is more cumbersome but will make bank reconciliation a lot smoother. First create a debit memo in receivables, using a clearing account (the clearing account should always show zero balance). Match the receipt to this Debit Memo. Then create an invoice for this customer (set as supplier in AP), using the same clearing account as the expense account in the invoice. Pay the invoice in the normal way and do a bank reconciliation.

The above process of customer refund is only limited to 11i. In Oracle R12, Oracle Receivables is fully integrated with Oracle Payables to deliver a seamless, automated process to generate check and bank account transfer refunds for eligible receipts and credit memos.

Oracle Apps Marketing for Upgrade projects - A small tip

It has been my observation that a lot of time and effort goes waste knocking the wrong door for Oracle Apps project. Then the question arises, how to know which door to knock. Obviously, one should not waste precious resources uselessly pursuing organizations that are running on a fully supported version of Oracle Apps like R12, 11.5.10, 11.5.9, unless the organization comes to you with a view to upgrade to R12 or 11.5.10. Please refer chart below to find the support time lines for different releases of Oracle E- Business suite and plan accordingly which organizations to target and whom to avoid.

Configuring Accounts Payable in Oracle 11i

I have tried to put in the basic setup required to set up Accounts Payable in Oracle 11i in this article.

I will limit the article to only AP setup, assuming basic setup of other dependent modules like General Ledger and Oracle Purchasing is already done. I have knowingly avoided the setup of some features of Oracle Payables like Automatic Payment, Withholding Tax, Credit Card, Procurement Card, Expense Report, Invoice Approval etc. Some of my previous articles speak on some of these topics like Procurement Card and Setting up Invoice Approval. Only some of the very basic setup that one needs to make Payables up and running is mentioned in this article.

1. Define your Responsibilities and attach your custom Menus to it in System Administrator.

2. Setup your Descriptive Flexfields (Invoice header and line, Supplier and Supplier Site, etc) depending on the requirement.

3. If you want to enter foreign currency transactions, define additional rate types, and enter your daily rates in General Ledger module.

4. Define your accounting period types and accounting calendar periods in General Ledger.

5. Define a set of books in General Ledger. Then, specify a set of books name and assign it a calendar, functional currency, and a chart of accounts structure.

6. Assign Document Sequence in System Administrator responsibility. This is necessary if you wish to have an unique sequence number attached to each invoice, credit/debit memo that you create. Navigation: System Administrator > Application > Document > Assign

7. Set up your System Profile options IN system Administrator responsibility. I am listing down some of the more important Profile options that we usually fill in.

MO: Default Operating Unit

MO: Distributed Environment

MO: Operating Unit

MO: Security Profile

AP: Use Invoice Batch Controls

GL Set of Books Name

HR:User Type

Sequential Numbering

Tax: Allow Override of Tax Code

HR:Business Group

HR: Security Profile

8. Select your Set of Books in Accounts Payable. Navigation: Setup > Set of Books > Choose

9. Define the Payable Lookups like 'TAX TYPE', 'SOURCE' (Invoice source types, if you are importing invoices using AP Open interface from various systems), AWT Certificate and AWT Rate Types, etc.

10. Define your Purchasing Lookups like 'PAY GROUP', VENDOR TYPE', etc.

11. Define distribution sets. You can use a distribution set to automatically enter distributions for an invoice. If you use Multiple Organization Support, perform this step for each organization. You can assign a default Distribution Set to a supplier site so Payables will use it for every invoice you enter for that supplier site.

12. Setup Employees. If Oracle HRMS is already installed, use this to setup Employees, else you can use Payables module to setup employees. Navigation: Payables> Employees> Enter Employees. Ensure that the correct email address is provided, so that Oracle Workflow and Alert messages can reach to targeted person automatically.

13. Setup Country. Select the Address Style that you wish to use.

14. Setup Locations.

15. Check that Inventory Organization is defined in Oracle Inventory or Oracle Purchasing module.

16. Next very important step is to set up the Financial Options (Setup > Options > Financials).

Define your following accounts: Liability, Prepayment, Future Dated Payment, Discount-taken, PO Rate variance Gain/Loss, Expenses Clearing and Miscellaneous.

Define the Supplier Numbering i.e. should you use Manual numbering or Automatic numbering of Suppliers. Also this number could be Alphanumeric or a pure Number. In case of automatic numbering, you have to specify the starting number.

Also, we define the default Supplier Payment Terms and Payment Method. Please note that we also define the same at Supplier/Supplier Site which overrides the default setup here. However, while creating the invoice we can override the Payment Terms and Payment Method defined earlier in Financial Options, Supplier/Supplier Site and this is only considered during payment.

We also, define the default Ship-to location, Bill-to location, Inventory organization, Encumbrance, Default Tax code, tax calculation rounding rules and HR Business Group and Employee numbering method (Automatic/Manual).

17. Setting up Payable Options (Setup > Options > Payables): First define your Primary Accounting Method. Usually this is Accrual type. If you want to use combined basis accounting, select Accrual as your primary accounting method, and Cash as your secondary accounting method. If you do not want to use a secondary accounting method, select ‘None’ as the secondary accounting method. I am mentioning the most common settings used in most of the organizations.

Set in “Transfer to GL’ tab,

Transfer to GL

In Detail		Yes
Summarize By Accounting Date		No
Summarize by accounting Period		No
Submit Journal Import		Yes
Transfer Reporting SOB		No
Override Submission Program		Yes
Submit journal import		Yes

Payment Accounting

Account for Payment		When Payment is issues–Yes When payment Clears -Yes
Account for Gain/Loss		When Payment is issues–Yes When payment Clears -Yes
Calculate Gain/Loss		For each Invoice
Future Dated Payment		From payment Document

Currency

Use this region to enable multiple currencies in Oracle Payables and define currency defaults for your foreign currency invoices and payments.

Use Multiple Currencies		Yes
Require Exchange Rate Entry		Yes
Calculate user exchange rate		No
Exchange Rate Type		Corporate
GL Accounts: realized Gain		Enter the Account for Realized Gain
GL Accounts: realized Gain		Enter the Account for Realized Loss
Rounding		Enter the Account for Rounding Errors

Invoice

Main
Use Invoice Approval Workflow		Yes (If you do not want to use this, set this as No)
Allow Force approval		Yes (If ‘Use Invoice Approval Workflow’ is ‘No’ then this is not selected)
Require Validation Before approval		Yes
Use Batch Controls		Yes
Confirm Date as Invoice number		No
Allow Online Approval		Yes
Allow Adjustments to Paid Invoices		No
Recalculate Schedule Payments		Yes
Allow Document Category Override		Yes
Automatically Create Freight Distribution		No
Freight Account		No

Withholding Tax (Retention Money)

Use Withholding Tax		No (Set as Yes if you use Withholding tax)
Allow manual Withholding		No
Tax Group		No
Apply Withholding Tax		Never
Withholding Amount Basis (checkbox)
Include Discount Amount		N/A
Include Tax Amount		N/A
Create Withholding Invoice		Never

If you are using Withholding tax then set ‘Use Withholding Tax” as ‘Yes’, and ‘Create Withholding Tax’ either during Invoice creation or during making a payment. However, to setup Withholding tax you need to create your Tax Authority as a Supplier, and set up Withholding tax codes accordingly. Associate the defined withholding tax codes to the suppliers from whom you would like to withhold tax.

18. Setting up AP Accounting Period (Payables > Setup > Calendar >AP Accounting Periods)

Use this form to define Period Status which Oracle Payable periods as Never Opened, Future, Open, Closed, and Permanently Closed. The values default from GL Set ups.

18. Setting up AP Aging Period (Payables>Setup>Calendar>Aging Periods)

Use this form to define the aging periods you want to use for your Invoice Aging Report

E.g. of Aging Period

Column Order	Days: From	Days: To	Column Headings: First	Column Heading: Second
1	1	30	Due < 30 days	Overdue
2	31	60	Due <o 60 days	Overdue
3	61	90	Due < 90 days	Overdue
4	91	180	Due < 6 Months	Overdue

18. Setting up Document Sequencing (System admin > Application > Document > Define)

Define document sequences for Standard Invoices, Debit/Credit Memo, PO Default, Mixed, Quick match & Vendor Prepayment

18. Defining Document Categories (System admin > Application > Document > Categories)

A document category defines what type of transactions you will be assigning document numbers to. It also specifies what table the transaction information will be written to. This step is optional for Oracle Payables transactions because Payables seeds categories for all payment and invoice types.

18. Assigning Document Categories (System admin > Application > Document > Assign)

Use this form to assign your defined document sequences

In this article i have not elaborated on many of the settings like Withholding Tax, Expense Report, Credit Card, Invoice Approval, etc which I have not delved into. Hopefully in subsequent articles i will blog on some of these ones in detail.