Learnings of an Oracle Apps Consultant

Invoice Image Processing Architecture in Fusion Payables

2011-12-29T02:01:00.000-08:00

Fusion Payables is tightly integrated with Oracle Document Capture (ODC), Oracle Imaging and Process Management (IPM), Oracle Content Management and Oracle BPEL process Manager to provide a seamlessly integrated solution supporting the entire payables cycle starting from scanning of physical invoices, invoice image recognizition using OCR to pre-populate invoice header, routing of the scanned invoices to AP entry specialists and subsequent approval and payment of invoices. Oracle is the only vendor in the market today offering a fully integrated solution without the use of third party bolt-on solutions.

Once the invoice arrives in a centralized mail room, the imaging specialist would sort and prepare the invoices based on parameters like invoice amount, due date, supplier, etc. and then scan these invoices using ODC. Next the images are automatically sent to Forms Recognition for intelligent recognition to extract key invoice header data like PO number, Supplier, Invoice Number, Invoice Amount and Invoice Date from scanned images using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities. Once the key header data recognition is completed, the invoice images are sent to Oracle Imaging and Process Management for storage and subsequent routing to accounts payable invoice entry specialists using Oracle BPEL Process Manager workflows. The BPEL process is generated whenever an invoice image is saved successfully in Imaging and Process Management, and this image is then routed to the AP invoice entry operator based on pre-configured rules like invoice amount, supplier, etc. The AP specialist views the scanned image and then fills up the remaining fields of the invoice to kick-off the subsequent process of invoice validation, approval, accounting and payment.

Reference Data Set

2011-12-18T02:59:00.000-08:00

This is a new concept that has come in Fusion. Reference Data sets are logical groups which provides the enterprise to decide which business unit access the reference data groups, such as grades, locations, AR & AP payment terms, departments, and jobs. Oracle provides a default Reference Data set which can be used across all Business units. However, we can define our own Reference data sets, to partition the data from effectively.
E.g. in R12 we had to live with the entire list AR payment irrespective to the fact whether one OU was using it or not. however, in Fusion we can restrict payment terms across BU's, so only the relevant ones will be accessible to the BU.

Google map in Fusion Apps

2011-12-09T09:48:00.000-08:00

Now we can locate all our employees, suppliers, customers addresses in Fusion through Google Maps.

Business Units and Shared Service model in Fusion Procurement

2011-12-09T08:46:00.000-08:00

Business Units (BU) definition: A business unit is a unit of an enterprise that performs one or many business functions that can be rolled up in a management hierarchy. A business unit can process transactions on behalf of many legal entities. Normally, it will have a manager, strategic objectives, a level of autonomy, and responsibility for its profit and loss. (1)

Prior to Oracle Fusion Applications, operating units in Oracle E-Business Suite were assumed to perform all business functions, while in PeopleSoft, each business unit had one specific business function. Oracle Fusion Applications blends these two models and allows defining business units with one or many business functions. (2)

In Fusion Procurement context we need to understand the function of the following types of BU’s”

Procurement BU
Requisitioning BU
Sold-To BU
Client BU

Procurement Business units: As the name suggests, Procurement BU’s are responsible for the procurement business function which involves vendor management, negotiation of contracts and purchase agreements, issue of order and subsequent administration.

Client Business Unit: Any BU that will be serviced by the Procurement BU needs to be set as the Client BU. In case of Shared Services model where the Procurement services are centralized to one BU, the Procurement BU will be serving all the requisitions from the Client BU’s.

Requisitioning Business Unit: As the name suggests Requisitioning BU is the business unit that raises the requisition for the goods or services that it needs to the Procurement BU. Sometimes, the Requisitioning BU may be responsible for the financial impact of the purchase, in which case it will also be defined as the Sold-To BU. In case there is another BU which takes the financial responsibility of the purchase then, this Sold-To BU will be different from the Requisitioning BU.

I’ll take an example to explain the above concept.

A mobile manufacturing company having global presence has its headquarters based in Norway (XYZ Norway). Its manufacturing division is based in India (XYZ India). The India operation sources its parts from the branch based in Singapore (XYZ Singapore) which does the centralized purchase of chips from different manufacturing companies based in Taiwan and Japan. However, the payment to the supplier is done by headquarter in Norway. In this case the Requisitioning BU would be XYZ India, Purchasing BU would be the XYZ Singapore BU and the Sold-To BU would be XYZ Norway

Another example to make this clearer. I’ll take the example one of my colleagues Suchismita, uses to explain the concept;

In a normal family, when the teenage daughter while returning home sees the designer shoe on the shop’s display, and promptly she approaches her mother with the request, knowing very well that her need would be fulfilled. The mother being a simple homemaker approaches the dad, and the dad being a doting father purchases the shoe and gives to the daughter.

If we take the above example, the daughter is the Procurement BU as she is buying the shoe from the supplier (shoe store). The mother is the requisitioning BU and the father is the Sold-To BU as he is taking the financial responsibility of the purchase. (3)

Following is the list of setups to be done to ensure this works in the system.

Select the Procurement Service Providers for the selected BU
Assign either one or many out of the Procurement, Requisitioning and Receiving business functions to the respective BU
Configure the Procurement Business Function for the BU and Configure the Requisitioning Business Function for the BU
Select the Procurement BU at the Supplier Address
Select the Client BU and Sold-To BU at the Supplier Site Assignment

In today’s scenario, businesses find it beneficial to channel purchases through international subsidiaries instead of directly dealing with suppliers. The reasons range from country specific legal requirements to favorable tax treatment to having better margins due to economies of scale because of centralizing procurement. Fusion Procurement provides this feature seamlessly which in hindsight seems quite intuitive.

Bibliography

Oracle® Fusion Applications Procurement Implementation Guide. Retrieved from http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15586_01/fusionapps.1111/e20383/toc.htm
Oracle® Fusion Applications Financials Implementation Guide. Retrieved from http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15586_01/fusionapps.1111/e20375/toc.htm
Suchismita Pattnaik, Linkedin profile: http://in.linkedin.com/in/suchismita.

Payables Hold Release Workflow

2011-04-28T23:12:00.000-07:00

In R12 Oracle Payables integrates with Oracle Workflow to provide a resolution of user releasable holds through workflow. A new transaction type called “Payables Hold Resolution” (APHLD) in AME has been introduced in R12 for the same. There has been a business requirement to release the AP invoice holds, especially the matching holds based on an approval mechanism. In R12 of Payables, this feature has been provided so that, we can send the invoice lines on hold to approvers before the hold is released. As usual the seeded AME objects can be extended to accommodate different approval groups, rules and other business conditions before the hold is released.

Following setup needs to be done at Payables level: Setup > Invoice > Hold and Release Names.

• The Initiate Workflow option is selected for the hold type in the Hold and Release Names window.

• The hold is setup to be user releasable

• Notify After X Days: The Notify After X days setup, will cause the notification to be sent to the approver after X days of the hold being placed.

• Remind After X Days: The Remind after X days will cause a reminder to be sent to the appover after X days of the first notification, and subsequently, if no action is taken.

At AME setup Level, for the Transaction Type: Payables Holds Resolution setup Attribute, Condition, Action types, Approver groups and Rules

1. Choose the Default/seeded Attribute existed for Hold Look Up Code as shown below

2. E.g. Use the seeded Condition by assigning Hold Look Up Code with String values “Amt Ord, Amt Rec, Price, Qty Ord, Qty Rec” as below: 3. Create an Custom Approver group ‘Demo1’ by choosing “Serial” Voting method assign with Static to generate Invoice Hold notifications and send for release to approvers on basis of below logic 4 Assign this Approval group to the action type.
5 Create a Rule for this Hold notification and assign above Condition and Action type to the Rule as shown below:

Steps to Release the Hold:

1. Validate invoice on matching hold like “Amt Ord, Amt Rec, Price, Qty Ord, Qty Rec”

2. A notification will be sent to the approver for hold release

3. Once the Approver clicks on “Release Hold”, the hold gets released from the invoice.

Open Account AP Balance Listing

2011-02-10T23:19:00.000-08:00

As per Metalink Note 604739.1, the AP Trial Balance has been replaced by the Open Account AP Balance Listing in R12. This report is a variation on the more general Open Account Balances Listing, and shows basically the outstanding amount (liability) for all open AP invoices. The balance should match your AP liability account(s) in General Ledger. Users can create their own layout and publish their custom reports using Oracle XML Publisher.

R12: You can make a payment run across multiple OU's

2010-11-18T00:35:00.000-08:00

In R12, the payments process has undergone quite a bit of change. Earlier in R11i, one could only process payments for one OU, because the internal (disbursing) bank was associated to an OU. However, in R12, internal banks are set for an LE which could be in turn associated to one or more OU's. Hence, its possible that while doing a payment run, you can process all invoices from your internal bank across invoices raised under different OU's.

What to Convert in GL: Balance or Transaction Detail

2010-08-21T20:38:00.000-07:00

A key question which all consultants face while handling GL conversion is what to convert, whether to convert the prior period balances or to convert the detailed transactions.

Typically most organisations while converting GL from a legacy system bring in only the balances data and very rarely do we bring in the transactions details. The reasons for the same is as follows:

1. Usually there is a change in COA while moving from legacy GL to Oracle GL, hence the code combination would never be the same in legacy and Oracle.

2. Drill down from Oracle GL to Oracle sub-ledger is not possible as there is no linkage between sub-ledger data and GL data post conversion.

3. The legacy system is usually archived for a defined period of time due to audit and legal reasons. This archived instance can be used for resolving historical audit and reconciliation issues that may arise at a later point in time.

However, if we are upgrading from an older version of Oracle to a new one, then it makes sense to bring in the transaction data because drill down feature would be available and code combination would remain the same across both the versions. But, here again, we need not bring in the transaction details for all historical data but only for a small period range, typically we convert transaction details from start of the year to the cut-over date and balance data for prior period-years.

Retainage and Retainage Release in Or...

2010-01-07T19:28:00.001-08:00

Retainage and Retainage Release in Oracle Payables for a Complex Purchase Order

Retainage represents funds withheld from payment to ensure that the contractor finishes work as agreed. The buying organization releases these funds only after verifying that the contractor has fulfilled all contractual obligations. Retainage is also called "retention" or "contractual withholds".
With Oracle's Complex Work feature, contract administrator can negotiate retainage terms with the contractor and capture these as part of the contract. These terms include Retainage Rate and Maximum Retainage Amount.

Retainage Rate
The Retainage Rate determines the percentage of the amount requested that will be withheld before releasing payments to the contractor. This attribute appears on the PO Line if the Document Styles enables the use of Retainage. The Retainage Rate specified on the PO Line is applied to all Standard Invoices billed to the Pay Items of the respective Line. Based on the Retainage Rate, a certain percentage of the Standard Invoice Amount is with-held as a Retained Amount.

Maximum Retainage Amount
The Maximum Retainage Amount defines maximum amount of Retainage that can be withheld on a Contract Line. The Maximum Retainage Amount attribute appears on the PO Line if the Document Style enables the use of Retainage. Every time Retainage is withheld on an Invoice, the application checks that the total retained amount does not exceed this value.

Set Up Steps for Complex Purchase Orders and Retainage
Following three mandatory setups steps are required if the complex purchase orders and retainage feature will be used.

1. Create a new document style in Oracle Purchasing for handling Complex PO.
Responsibility: Purchasing
Navigation: Setup > Purchasing > Document Styles > Create
Define whether the complex PO can include advances, retainage, and progress payments

2. Create a retainage account in Financials Options setup.
Responsibility: Payables
Navigation: System Administrator > System Profile Options
Set the value for POR: Amount Based Services Line Type profile option to ‘Fixed Price Services’

3. Create a retainage account in Financials Options setup.
Responsibility: Payables
Navigation: Setup > Options > Financials Options
Enter the retainage account to use during accounting

Entering a Complex PO

1. Create a Purchase Order using Buyer Workbench. Select the Document style ‘Complex PO’ just created earlier
Responsibility: Purchasing
Navigation: Buyer Work Center > Orders

2. Enter the PO Header and Line details

3. Click on ‘Update’ icon on the PO line and enter the Maximum Retainage Amount and the Retainage Rate

4. Enter the additional pay items for which a payment should be made

5. Enter the PO Charge account on PO Distribution and Save and Approve the PO

Entering Payable Invoices

1. Once supplier sends the invoice after the first milestone is met, raise a PO matched invoice

2. Oracle automatically creates a Retainage line based on the Retainage Rate defined earlier on the Purchase Order

3. Supplier sends the invoice after the second milestone is met. Raise a PO matched invoice

4. Oracle automatically creates a Retainage line based on the Retainage Rate defined earlier on the Purchase Order

5. At the end of the project the supplier can submit a Retainage Release Invoice for release of retainage withheld on the Contract. If the contractual clauses or other conditions governing the release of the retainage are met, the buyer can release the retainage amount applicable. Oracle has introduces a new Invoice type called ‘Retainage Release’ for this purpose

6. Enter the PO number for which you want to release the Retainage

7. Enter the Retainage Amount that you want to release and click on ‘Release’. You cannot enter an amount greater than the Retained Amount

8. An invoice of Invoice Type ‘Retainage Release’ is created for the Retained Amount

9. The Retainage details will be visible at invoice Lines

10. The Retainage Account will then be offset to Supplier Liability account for subsequent Payment

Recording a Refund of a Prepayment or Advance

2009-11-18T05:31:00.000-08:00

The other day someone asked me how to do we collect a refund from an employee to whom we have made an advance payment (prepayment). There are a couple of approaches that can be used. The same approach applies to refund from suppliers as well.

Approach 1: Invoice to retire the prepayment and then Debit Memo for refund.

Step1: Create a standard invoice and apply the remaining amount of prepayment to it.

Step2: Then enter a debit memo and pay it with a Refund payment in the Payments window.The result will be that the outstanding prepayment / advance made is no longer there as this is matched to the invoice and the refund that is collected from the employee is matched to a Debit Memo in AP so that the refund is also recorded in Oracle. However, one needs to ensure that the expense account that you use in the invoice to retire the prepayment and Debit Memo for the refund is the same account.

Approach 2: Create an invoice to retire the prepayment to an amount equal to the refund. This approach to handle this scenario is pretty straight forward.

Step1: Create a standard invoice equal to the refund amount and apply the outstanding amount of prepayment to it.

Approach 3:If the employee is a salesperson or someone who would incur employee expenses regularly, then in that case the easist option would be to leave the advance / prepayment amount as-is and match it to the expense the person incurs next time around.

Too many Managers spoil the project

2009-07-19T05:37:00.000-07:00

All of us in our childhood must have heard of the proverb "Too many cooks spoil the broth". If too many people try to take charge of a task, the end product might be ruined. This applies to any task like an implementation project as well.An easy way to identify if the project is going awry is when you find many people following up to find the status of the job being done. In one of my earlier projects there was one developer writing a piece of code and there were four managers chasing the poor lady for updates and status. However, none of these managers were capable or inclined to help out the person writing a complex piece of code.One really felt bad when a bug was detected in the code and none of the managers took ownership and started blaming each other and the poor lady for writing the incorrect code.

So, the next obvious question would be wher the top management is blind to such mis-management or most of the time over-management (sometimes micro-management)? My answer would be a definite 'Yes'. For the top management what matters at the end of the day is billing and not success or failure of projects. They are mostly driven by short term objectives of ensuring that their bench strength is low and not the long term objective of ensuring customer satisfaction by delivering a good solution for the client. Also, with having too many managers, the internal dynamics of peer rivalry; of each person trying to show case himself as the better manager in the eyes of top management and trying to out-do the other in a selfish manner puts the project at a grave risk.

Most of us would have seen or been part of such a project. Do share your thoughts on why we staff so many managers when there is no necessity for so many managers without defining clear boundaries and scope and conflicting job area. And, if someone has changed such a scenario, do share your experience on how to change such a situation and bring the project back to track?

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

2008-12-07T10:03:00.001-08:00

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

2008-11-09T04:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-09-03T12:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-31T09:35:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-11T05:46:00.000-07:00

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.

Navigate to the Create Tax Regime:

• Navigation: Tax Configuration àTax Regimes

• Click the Button “Create”

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

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)

Click on Button “Continue”
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

Click on Button “Finish”
You will get the message “The tax regime was successfully created”

Creating a Tax

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

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
Click on “Show Controls and Defaults”
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

Click on Button “Apply”
You will get the message “The Tax has been successfully created”
Return to Tax Regimes. Click on “Expand All”
Click on icon “Create Tax Status”
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
Click on button “Apply”
You will get the message “The tax status was successfully created.”

Create Tax Rates

Go back to the Regime to Rate Flow
Click on “Expand All”.
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

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

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

Creating Tax Jurisdiction

Navigate: tax Configuration à Tax Jurisdiction
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

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

Creating Tax Accounts

Navigate: Tax Configuration à Taxes
Search for the Taxes that we created just now using the following filter criteria:
- Country Name: United States
- Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
- Tax: TESTTAX1
Click on the button “Go”. Then click on icon “Update”.
Click on button “Tax Accounts”.
Enter the Ledger as “Vision Operations (USA)”
Click on button “Create”
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

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

Creating Tax Rules

Navigate: Tax Configuration à Tax Rules
Access the rule type by filtering on the following criteria:
- Configuration Owner: Global Configuration Owner
- Tax Regime Code: TESTREGIME1
- Tax: TESTTAX1
Click on button “Go”. Then click on “Expand All”.
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

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

Click on button “Apply”.
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”
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

2008-07-09T05:17:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-16T13:44:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-07T02:58:00.000-07:00

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Business case on using Withholding Tax

2008-03-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

Business Case:
A large Television broadcasting and production company had the following concern. They take the services of large number of TV artists who are employed for a very short period of time. While making a payment to them the company has to deduct taxes and pay them. They want to know the best way of handling this situation using Oracle Payables. Also, as the number of artist’s runs into thousands, they want to know the best way to maintain their bank account and address details for making electronic/check payment.
Solution Steps:
Step1: Setup Withholding tax as per the law. You may/may not create withholding invoices by setting up your payables option 'Create Withholding invoice" accordingly.
Step2: Setup each artist as a supplier and associate the Withholding tax the supplier. However, if we intend to pay them electronically we have to setup supplier bank account for each of the supplier. Once the artist leaves the services of the company, one can easily end date the supplier created. The supplier ID created can be used as a unique number to refer the artist. In case the artist comes back to render his/her services again, only thing that needs to be done is remove the end date to re-activate the supplier.
Step3: Raise invoices for each artist (supplier) and pay them. The invoice automatically calculates the Withholding amount and while making the payment we pay only the balance amount.
Step4: At period end run the "Withholding Tax by Tax Authority" report and pay the tax authority the amount collected in the period.

Sample Accounts Receivable Questionnaire

2008-02-03T09:50:00.000-08:00

There has been a lot of requests to post sample questions for other financials modules also. Here i am posting a small sample of questions on Oracle Receivables.
1. Provide an overview of AR invoice processing.
2. Provide an overview of AR cash receipt processing.
3. How do you adjust receivables?
4. Do you receive deposits and/or prepayments?
5. Explain Customer Creation and Maintenance Process. Provide samples of customer master records with Payment Terms.
6. Do you track and record relationships between customers e.g. franchises, subsidiaries etc.?
7. Do you create reciprocal customer relationships whenever you create a relationship between customers for tracking purposes?
8. Do you have multiple "remit to’s"?How are multiple "remit to’s" determined for each customer?
9. What credit information is tracked for each customer?
10. How do you group your customers for credit limits, credit checks?
11. Do you do miscellaneous invoicing? Please explain with examples.
12. Do you send customers statements? If so please describe the process and highlight any exceptions.
13. How are the revenue, receivable, freight and tax accounts configured for each invoice type?14. Explain Debit Memo & Credit Memo Process.
15. Do you bill customers in a foreign currency?How many invoice types do you have? Provide invoice samples. (Credit Memo, Debit Memo etc.)
16. How do you number your invoices?
17. Where are the invoices printed? How many printers and where are they? Pre-printed forms?
18. How do you calculate your tax charges? What are the rates? Explain Tax Structure.
19. Do you validate the tax rate against a Customer’s Ship To address when preparing invoices? If so please describe how.
20. Do you charge finance charges? If so - how do you charge finance charges?
21. Explain your dunning and Collection Process. Please provide dunning statement formats.
22. Do collectors actively call customers on delinquent items?
23. What sort of buckets do you use for cash requirements forecasting? (i.e. 30, 60, 90...)
24. Do you write off receivable? Is there a specific dollar amount or time frame used by your Company for write-offs?
25. Do you have Chargeback? Explain.
26. Explain Revenue Recognition Process and explain the scenarious.
27. Explain Bills Receivable?
28. Do you associate Revenue to Sales Person.
29. How is Sales Territory Information for tracking purposes derived? (i.e. customer, salesperson etc.)
30. How do your customers generally pay invoices? single check—single invoice/single check—multiple invoices/multiple checks—multiple invoicesProvide list of Banks and Purpose?
31. Explain Payment Process?
32. Are you using Automatic Receipts? Explain?
33. Explain Remittance Process?
34. Explain your Auto Lock Box Proces if you have enabled it?
35. What types of payments are received and input? (i.e. check, cash etc.)
36. Explain Receipt Reconcilliation Process?
37. What reports do you currently generate for Invoicing, Sales and Revenue tracking? Provide samples including frequency and distribution.

Gathering missing information for Non-PO invoices within Oracle

2008-01-28T01:13:00.000-08:00

In most organizations we commonly see a problem in gathering the accounting and other missing information for Non-PO invoices. Oracle Payables does not help us much in gathering this information within Oracle system itself. So, AP team has to gather this information outside of Oracle.
However, a workaround involves using the Invoice Approval Workflow to gather the missing information from the Invoice Approver. But, for this to work the invoice distribution lines have to be completed. SO, what i suggest is use a dummy invoice distribution lines which uses a particular CCID (can be a clearing account) which the AP clerk uses. Using Invoice Approval Workflow we can gather the correct invoice distribution details like tax details, accounting details, etc from the invoice approver and then the AP clerk goes back to the invoice and updates the lines with the correct values. To prevent payment of such invoices without the correct invoice details we can use different means like changing th payment due date to a much later date, putting the invoice on a custom hold, etc.
However, i am looking forward to Oracle to come forth with a more standard solution to this common problem for Non-PO invoices which almost all organizations who have implemented Payables face today.

Sample Accounts Payable Questionnaire for Client

2007-06-20T06:54:00.000-07:00

1. Provide and overview of the Accounts Payable operations.
2. Provide samples of vendor master records.
3. Do you differentiate vendor sites which can receive payments and sites which cannot receive payments?
4. Describe the invoice vouchering process.
5. Are recurring expense distributions for fixed or varying amounts?
6. Explain Payment Terms List, Interest Charges, and Discounts?
7. Should invoices be matched completely, partially or both?
8. Explain Invoice Approval Process? Describe the approval process when invoices need to be placed on hold and manually released?
9. What requirement is there to process employee expense reports? Please describe. Provide Sample.
10. What is the current process to generate expense payments to employees?
11. Do your employees have company credit cards? How are company credit cards managed (issued, audited, reconciled, etc.)?
12. List of Supplier / Payment Banks
13. Is there a requirement to use Electronic Funds Transfer?
14. Is there a requirement to use Wire Transfers?
15. Is there a requirement to process Automatic Payments?
16. Is there a requirement to process Manual Payments? If so, is a separate bank account used? 17. Is there a requirement to process Partial Payments?
18. Is there a requirement to process Pre-Payments?
19. Is there a requirement to process Recurring Payments?
20. Is there a requirement to process immediately available ‘Quick Checks’?
21. What is the current procedure for vendor advances?
22. How are vendor advances reconciled when the vendor invoice is submitted?
23. Do you have, or do you require, a priority system for payments? Describe its use.
24. What is your current payment cycle? (How often do you print checks?)
25. If recurring payments are used, what is the normal period cycle for these payments?
26. Is there a requirement to use Computer Generated checks?
27. What is your process to cancel checks?
28. Are all invoices paid in local currency and what currency is used? If not local, list the foreign currencies used.
29. How many payment formats do you have? Provide samples.
30. Do you print the check number on the check/remittance or is it pre-printed?
31. Should a remittance advice note be produced, and when?
32. What is the policy/procedure for handling stop payments?
33. What is the policy/procedure for handling void payments if they have been recorded? 34. What are the requirements for reporting tax payments (e.g. company, rate or tax authority)?
35. Do you have to pay other businesses within the Group
36. Do you use Cash or Accrual Based Accounting?
37. Please provide all copies of Payable reports
38. How long do you do check reconciliation?

Oracle acquires Hyperion

2007-03-01T07:30:00.000-08:00

The news is at last out. Oracle Press states "Oracle today announced that it has agreed to buy Hyperion Solutions Corporation (Nasdaq: HYSL), a leading global provider of performance management software solutions, through a cash tender offer for $52.00 per share, or approximately $3.3 billion."
This raises a host of questions for SAP users who rely on Hyperion for their BI needs. Also, this now raises a question mark on Oracle's own BI suite, which have been off-late trying to regain their market share. Will, Oracle put in the same amount of marketing effort for its own BI products after acquiring Hyperion? What will be the future focus of Oracle regarding OLAP technology? Oracle would definitely gain a lot of market and a good BI product range already with Hyperion. Guess a lot of us would now miss the OLAP war of Oracle Express and Hyperion Essbase.

List of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces

2006-11-21T01:27:00.000-08:00

Recently i came acrosss a very good site that provides a complete list of Oracle E-Business Suite's Business Service interfaces. This site provides the standard APIs for all the Apps modules like Payables, Receivables, GL, iExpense, HR Suite, Projects Suite, Property Manager, SCM, Advanced Planning, etc.

http://irep11i10.oracle.com

Exploring Oracle Self Billing (Payment on Receipt)

2006-11-15T10:42:00.000-08:00

Last couple of weeks (and also weekends) have been quite hectic for me. Seems i have been clocking over 12 hrs a day, whew!!... Luckily, i have being doing some good work apart from the usual routine. One of them is testing the Oracle's Self Billing for our project. Self Billing is also known as Evaluated Receipt Settlement (ERS) or Payment on Receipt.

When Self Billing is enabled for a particular Supplier Site, standard invoices get created automatically for payment whenever the goods are received. One can automatically create invoices with multiple items and distribution lines that includes tax. We can select Payment method, "Pay On"as follows:
'Receipt'- used for material that is not consigned.
'Receipt and Use'- for material that can be either consigned or non-consigned material.
'Use'- employed for consigned material.One can assign 'Alternate Pay Site' in case we need to pay in that site an not the default supplier site. The supplier site is the default pay site. Invoices can be summarised based on the selection made in 'Invoice Summary Level'. Invoice summary level can be at:'Pay Site' - one invoice is created per supplier pay site.'Packing Slip' - one invoice is created per packing slip per supplier pay site.'Receipt' - one invoice is created per receipt per supplier pay site.
Also, enable the 'Create Debit Memo From RTS Transaction' option if you want the system to automatically create a debit memo in Payables when you enter a Return To Supplier (RTS) in Purchasing. The value for supplier defaults from the Purchasing Options window.

However, the invoice summary levels are dependent on the 'Pay On' method selected earlier. If 'Receipt and Use' has been selected, the invoice summary level available is 'Pay Site'. If 'Use' has been selected, the invoice summary level options are 'Packing Slip', and 'Pay Site'.The Invoice number that gets created is of the format "ERS-X-Seq#", where "ERS" defaults from the Profile Options "PO: ERS Invoice Number Prefix" which is by default set as "ERS" at Site level. X depends on the summary level:- if summary level = Pay Site then X = Invoice Date- if summary level = Packing Slip then X = Packing Slip Number- if summary level = Receipt then X = Receipt NumberAnd, Seq# is a unique system generated number.

Once Receiving is done, Run the Program 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' individually or schedule it to run at discrete intervals.
(1) Choose Transaction Source as 'ERS'.
(2) Enter a Commit Interval. The Commit Interval is a numeric representation of the number of invoices evaluated before they are committed. For example, if you have a Commit Interval of 10, after 10 invoices have been processed, they are committed. If you then process another 5, and the process fails, only 5 will not be committed.
(3) Optionally enter a Receipt Number.
Note: If the Receipt Number is null, the program will try to process all the receipts that have not been invoiced successfully. If you enter a Receipt Number, only that receipt will be processed.
(4) Optionally enter an Aging Period.The Aging Period defaults from the PO: ERS Aging Period profile option, but you can change it here. For example, an Aging Period of 2 means that Payment on Receipt processes only those receipts that are 2 or more days old.
(5) Choose OK and then Submit Request to begin the process.
(6) Once the 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' program is submitted the 'Payables Open Interface Import' program also starts running. Ensure that the 'Pay On Receipt AutoInvoice' process and the Payables Open Interface Import process complete successfully. View Output to check the 'Payables Open Interface Audit Report'. Check if there are any invoices rejected in the section 'Payables Open Interface Rejections Report' and accordingly one can go to the Payables Open Interface window and modify the invoice line / distribution and resubmit the Payables Open Interface Import process.

Reference:
(1) Oracle Applications Online Help
(2) Oracle Payables user Guide
(3) Oracle Purchasing user Guide

Sales and After Sales No-Support

2006-10-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

As consultants, one thing is drilled into us is not to make false promises or over commit and always support the commitment made to the client. However, this is not something which others, especially most Indian organisations believe in.

Why limit oneself to industry alone, starting from our political leaders, everyone tries their level best to cheat the common man. And, surprisingly we all are so used to such kind of double standards that we consider it as our fate and an acceptable behaviour, and starangely we actually plan our lives taking into account such behaviour. e.g. if i call my local cable operator for some fault i'll assume that the person would not come the same day even if he assures me the same, rather i'll try and keep myself free for next couple of days expecting his gracious visit after a few phone calls are made after the first day..afternoon..and..evening is over. As most Indians like me would have seen that when we go to a shop to purchase some product or a service, the salesman would bend backwards to make the sale. But, when it comes to 'After Sales Support', the same organisation would turn their back to you and the same salesman would look the other way or if you are lucky give you a look "Why is he here to waste my time?".
This made me think, why do most Indian organizations, small or big, behave this way. Is it one our many strange yet true national traditions or a freak exceptional behaviour. After a bit of thinking i could jot down a couple of possible reasons that i feel could justify this behaviour.The following could be some of the reasons that i could think of:

1) This is a soceital problem, we are brought up this way, and we do not provide after sales support and are rude to people who come back to us for support.

2) We usually do not consider the cost of after sales support when we make the sale. So any after sale support actually eats into our margin. So, we discourage or many a time avoid supporting our sales.

3) The sales support team is not trained and equipped well enough to handle customer complaints and requests. You spend quite a lot of energy in explaining the customer support person what went wrong whose IQ level would be slightly higher than a moron (if you are lucky) or maybe between an Idiot and a Moron (now you are doomed, better call later and if you are lucky, a moron would support you, else better option is to repair the fault yourself).

4) When we make a purchase, we do not clarify the SLA's (Service Level Agreements) with the seller. This agreement can be a verbal one, in case there is no written agreement. Though it hardly makes any difference whether the agreement is verbal or written. At least in case of a written agreement you can approach a consumer court in case of breach of agreement, refer my point below on appraching a court. The usual problem is that the seller would have completely different set of standards when it comes to support which is radically different from our understanding of support for the product or service. So always find out the SLA's before making the purchase.

5) The organisations know it very well that rarely an individual would approach the court of law in case they do not get the desired support as promised to them. So, its convenient for the organisation not to provide the support at all. The problem being the sad story of Indian legal system. I do not wish to delve into this matter now, as much has already been written on the sad state of affairs of Indian Legal system (last i heard there were a few millions cases pending before the courts).

6) Sometimes organisations do not spend enough on setting up after sales support infrastructure. Mostly they are user-unfriendly and someimes the infrastructure is way over burdened. How many of us have spent hours listening to Interactive Voice response systems of some of our famous private sector banks or our mobile telecom service providers who do everything other than help you with your query. You start with calling the customer support number which will make you listen to the bank song (my favourite bank of some I's and some C's: the telephone sings a tune "hum hein na"...while i sing "kahan ho tum", roughly translated in English it means "I am here", my response is "Where are you" for quite some time). Post this you will be thankful to listen to some voice like, Press 1 for English, press 2 for Hindi, press 3 for $@#, then you go to another menu which starts all over from 1, then once you press 9 for 'Oh! God, please show mercy on me' you are connected to some live person. Even after you reach the right place after wandering through the etheral world, you will be asked to enter your 16 digit Card number, and if you don't remember it you have to answer the following.

(a) your date of birth

(b) your mother's maiden name,

(c) Last three transactions that you made (unluckily last time i swiped my card i was way too tipsy to remember the exact bill amount, so i had to answer the next question)

(d) your favourite teacher's name (I really love this question). If you have set some other question while filling up the Registration form with the bank some couple of years back, you will be asked the same question. Some of my more forgetful friends had preempted this scenario and luckily have set this question as "India's Independence Day" (if you forget this, someone else in your office would surely be knowing it).

Hope this situation changes within our lifetime else the future generations would also share the same joy of interacting with the customer support that we now currently experience in India.

Wedding Invitation.....

2006-09-14T22:29:00.000-07:00

As most of you would agree life is full of surprises. Little did i know that i would fall in love with Ruchira after meeting her once.

Its been barely a few months that i met her at Hyderabad. After a couple of meetings and a few phone calls, we decided to get engaged, planned to marry, and quickly decided on our marriage dates. Seems life moves so slow, especially when it comes to taking such big decisions !!

Now the time has come to invite all our friends for our wedding, which is a traditional Bengali marriage, and is happening in Saharanpur, UP on 29th of Sept. Also, we are holding two reception parties, one on 4th Oct. at Cuttack and the other on 6th Oct at Rourkela, Orissa. So, guys, please try and make it to at least one of these places. Please mail me at the mail id below of your plans, so that i can arrange for stay and give directions to reach the venues of marriage and party.

You can reach me at the mail id: k b o s e 0 2 at i n d i a t i m e s dot c o m

Companies providing Oracle Apps and Oracle BI Consultancy services in India

2006-08-01T06:34:00.000-07:00

Many a time, i have been asked by freinds who are seeking a job change, and sometimes by clients enquiring about organizations that provide consultancy service in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI in India. Though there are many small and big organizations working on Oracle Apps, but only a few top software companies provide the complete range of consultancy services in Oracle Apps and Oracle BI.

I shall try and list some of the organizations here (in no particular order) who are into Oracle BI and Apps in a big way, and would welcome readers to share their information regarding other organizations they are aware of who provide Oracle Apps consultancy and i missed out here.

1. Tata Consultancy Services
2. Infosys Technologies
3. Wipro Technologies
4. Satyam Computer Services
5. Accenture
6. IBM
7. Cognizant Technology Solutions
8. Deloitte
9. Oracle Corporation

There are other organizations in India who also provide Oracle Apps and oracle BI services apart from the ones mentioned above, though their scale of operations in India is not as large as the organizations mentioned above. Some of them include, HCL Tecnologies, Sierra Atlantic, Patni Computers, Intelligroup, Polaris Software Lab, Zensar Technologies, GenPact, Birlasoft, Cap Gemini, iGate, etc. Though most of the organizations in India provide basic consultancy services in Oracle Apps, not many of them provide services in Oracle Business Intelligence. Also, some of these organizations predominantly work in some core areas of Oracle Apps like Oracle Process Manufacturing, Oracle CRM, Oracle HCM, Oracle SCM, etc. Many of the MNC's like Deloitte, Cap Gemini, Unisys, Bearing Point are yet to ramp up their India operations upto the levels of TCS, Infosys, Accenture and IBM . In all probability, most of the big MNC's will further consolidate their India operations and outsource substantial part of their development and support work back to India. So, it seems exciting times are ahead of Oracle Apps consultants in India.

Typical Business Requirements while setting up Invoice Approval Workflow

2006-07-03T23:31:00.000-07:00

Approving AP Invoices using Oracle Approval Management (OAM) is a fast and easy way of maintaining transparency and accountability in Accounts Payables department. However most of the time OAM setup needs to be modified and workflow customized depending upon the business scenario.

One of the most common business requirement is that organizations do not need approval of invoices that are matched to PO Receipts. Anticipating this request, Oracle has already given this as an Attribute under the Transation Type 'Payables Invoice Approval'. But, apart from this there are several other common requirements which one faces. I have listed down some such requirements. Some of these requirements can be very easily applied using the standard OAM functionalities, while some others require a bit of customization.
Some common requirements include the following:

1)Approver forwarding the invoice to another employee for approval.

2)Approval of an invoice based on criteria like invoice amount, cost centre, account segment, etc.

3)Adding new lines like 'Voucher Number', 'Cost Centre' details, etc., in the approval notification email.

4)Considering scenarios when the Approver is on leave, so that the invoice moves to another person for approval
after some time period.

5)Approver is able to delegate his/her approving right to some other person while going on leave.

6)Control on the email notifications, which tend to fill the mailboxes of approvers.

7)Mixed and Prepayment type of invoices do not require approval.

8)Invoices should go directly to the final approver and not through any hierarchy.

9)Invoice entry clerk should be able to choose the approver from a LOV (list of value). Sometimes the reverse scenario also exists where the Invoice entry clerk should not have a say in selection of Invoice Approver.

It would be great if readers can also add further to the above list so that we can have a comprehensive list of common requirements that come up while setting up Invoice Approval Workflow.

Oracle to Buy Demantra

2006-06-01T23:29:00.000-07:00

Oracle yesterday announced that it will expand its supply chain planning applications with the acquisition of Demantra, a leading provider of demand-driven planning solutions. Leveraging powerful analytics and collaboration capabilities, Demantra offers solutions for Demand Management, Real-time Sales and Operations Planning, Retail Planning & Store Replenishment, and Trade Promotion Management and Optimization.

Further details can be obtained at the Oracle site http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_may/demantra.html?msgid=4777530

Purchasing Card (P Card) in Accounts Payable

2006-05-09T20:24:00.000-07:00

A lot of companies have been going for use of Purchasing Card to reduce their administrative costs. Purchasing Card or P Card programs were originally introduced in the late 1980s in response to the US Federal Government’s initiative for automated payment structures, particularly for small-dollar purchases. The success of this program led to a Purchasing Card program for the entire US Federal Government in 1989. While a Normal Credit/Debit Card is basically for streamlining individual’s purchase, the objective of a Purchase Card is for streamlining the procurement and settlement in the corporate as a whole. Also, if a company only follows the normal Procure-to-pay process, then one follows the entire process of raising PO's, approving, purchasing, receiving, matching and ultimately paying. This invloves lot of administrative costs and the entire process is also time consuming. However, the process is relatively shorter in case the company adopts Purchasing Cards. But, not all goods and services can be purchased using Purchasing Cards. Purchase Cards are meant primarily for routine high-volume, low-dollar purchases. A Procurement Card system involves issuing a large number of credit cards having some sort of control to a large group of employees for small purchases. The controls on the card could be on basis of: Dollars per Transaction, Transactions per day, Dollars per day/month, Dollars per Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) Code or Number Transactions per SIC code, etc.In order to setup Purchasing Card system, one has to have the requiste agreements with the card issuing organisation. Also one has to ensure that the monthly statements that the card company sends is of a fixed format, so that its easy to upload to the AP system. The other Setups include:
1) Creating the Credit Card Code Sets by navigating to Setup->Credit Cards->Credit Card Code sets. This requires entering Standard Industrial Classifications (SIC) codes.

2) Defining the card issuer, card type, and credit card code set in Credit Cards->Credit Card Programs.

3) Define the GL accounts sets in Setup->Credit Cards->Procurement Card->GL Account Sets. A GL account set is a list of values that cardholders can use to change accounts when validating their transaction notification.

4) Under, Setup->Credit Cards->Procurement Card->Credit Card Profiles you attach the Credit Card program, assign the GL account sets, define the default GL account, the exception clearing account, employee verification options, and manager approval options. If the Employee Notification Method (ENM) option is set to none, meaning the employee is not notified at all, then the transaction will not be selected by the process and is already set at a status to proceed in processing. If the ENM is set to Notification Only, the status is set during the process of the workflow to allow it to proceed and the employee is notified of the transaction. Also, one can set the status as verification required on the Credit Card Profiles form, so that the employee can set the transaction to Hold, Personal, Disputed, or Verified. Similarly if the Manager Notification Method (MNM) is setup to None or Notification Only, then the status of a Verified transaction is automatically set to Approved.

5) In the Credit Card window, one assigns the card to a cardholder and also tie all theprevious setup steps together. One can also choose a Credit Card program (which includes the Credit Card Code Set) and a Credit Card Profile (which includes the GL Account Set).

6) If the organisation is using any specific processes then they need to customize their workflows or else one can use the the predefined Credit Card Transaction Employee Workflow and Credit Card Transaction Manager Workflow, available with the Self-Service Web application, to verify and approve credit cards.
Once the monthly/weekly statement flat file comes from the card company, it is loaded using SQL Loader to the table AP_EXPENSE_FEED_LINES_ALL. Depending upon the Employee Notification Method setup and the Manager Notification Setup in the card profile options (Step 4 in setup), the employees and managers verify and approve the transactions. The "Procurement Card Invoice Interface Summary" program is run to import the data into the Payables Open Interface tables AP_INVOICES_INTERFACE and AP_INVOICE_LINES_INTERFACE. These tables are read by the Payables Open Interface Import program, which creates invoices from these records. These invoices are then ready for accounts payable approval and payment.
References:

1) 'Procurement Cards Basics : Setup and Processing' by Cynthia Bruno, Philip Merlano, and Michael V. Milano of Oracle Corporation.

2) Oracle Payables User’s Guide, Release 11i, Oracle Corporation.

Oracle Apps Implementation Methodologies

2006-04-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

Unlike product / application development projects, packaged ERP implementations are quite different as we are primarily trying to map the package to the existing business process. Although, there might be a need to create new RICE components (Reports, Interfaces, Conversions and Extensions) which will need additional coding.

Oracle follows and advises their clients to use Applications Implementation Methodology (AIM). However many implementation organizations tend to follow their own methodoloies, which are similar to AIM at a top level but when it comes to actual granular detail they differ a lot. Especially the documenting part differs widely from organisation to organisation. Sometimes, even user organizations have their own implementation methodologies. So, things become interesting and at times frustrating when actually one sits down to do a comparative analysis of the various implementation methodologies and finalise upon the deliverables at different stages.

There are quite a few good blogs on AIM in Richard Byrom's website. One can also download AIM software from the following link below, but do ensure that you do not run it on IE6.0. This however runs fine on Firefox:

http://download-east.oracle.com/partners/265498.EXE

Clients insisting on using Standard Oracle features

2006-04-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

I was mildly surprised when a top fortune client of ours insisted that we study their existing financial system and come out with a solution which is possible using standard Oracle Apps Financial module features. The fact that the organisation is ready to alter their existing financial process if necessary is very encouraging. I feel this trend amongst large organisations not to deviate too much from standard features available in Oracle Apps is catching up. Personally I think, if the organisation is asking for too many customisations, then there is a problem with the business process that they are following. However, not all organisations are ready to accept that the business process they are currently following is inefficient and fraught with inherent problems. Hopefully we would be able to provide a great solution though within the stringent time lines :)

Oracle announces Future BI strategy

2006-03-25T23:48:00.000-08:00

On 22nd March, Oracle announced their BI strategy, which has left more people confused about their BI strategy.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite will now consists of the following key products:

1) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE), and
2) Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE)

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition (EE) consists of Siebel Analytics, Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, and some future products like Oracle Mobile Analytics and Briefing Books.

More details can be got from the following Oracle site:
http://www.oracle.com/appserver/business-intelligence/enterprise-edition.html

Now, Oracle was already developing the next generation Analytic tool called Enterprise Planning and Budgeting which was supposed to be a replacement of Oracle Financial Analyzer and Sales Analyzer. But, with the aquisition of Siebel, I feel Oracle did not want to waste Siebel Analytics which is a gem of a product. Although it has left many wondering which is going to be the product which Oracle will ultimately push for. For the time being it seems Siebel Analytics is a better prospect than EPB. Another product which looks promising is Oracle Intelligent Dashboards, this product as of now looks superior to Oracle Portal, as one can manipulate reports and perform analysis within the dashboard itself.

Oracle Business Intelligence Suite Standard Edition (SE) consists of Oracle BI Discoverer, Oracle BI Spreadsheet Add-in, Oracle BI Warehouse Builder, Oracle BI Beans and Oracle Reports. The Standard Edition Suite seems to consist of Oracle's existing Business Intelligence 10g products. For customers wishing to go in for a BI solution on their existing Oracle database, Standard Edition (SE) suite seems to be a better bet as of now. However, Siebel Analytic of Enterprise Edition (EE) suite can also be used, as it can handle relational, Oracle Olap, MDX data source and Siebel Analytic server data. I feel the catch will be in the pricing strategy that Oracle will adopt for both the product suites.

The webcasts can be heard from the following site:

oracle.com/solutions/business_intelligence/bi_webcast.html

1)Oracle Vision and Strategy (26 min.) by Charles Phillips, President, Oracle

2)The Business Intelligence Landscape (11 min.) by Henry D. Morris, Group Vice President and General Manager, Integration, Development and Application Strategies, IDC

3)Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools Oracle BI Platform and Analytics Tools (63 min.) by Thomas Kurian, Senior Vice President, Oracle

4)BI Across the Enterprise (48 min.) by Steve Miranda, Senior Vice President, Oracle

I feel businesses are by and large conservative in nature when it comes to IT spending, so Oracle has to put in a lot of effort in marketing the new Enterprise Edition (EE) suite, while they already have a good customer base of customers using Discoverer, OWB, BI Beans and Oracle Reports. So, oracle will continue to support and develop their existing BI products along with the new products it has acquired from Siebel. Though, this will create a bit of confusion and self-cannibalization among Oracle's own product lines, but i think there is no way out as Oracle cannot kill any of their existing BI products or stop developing and supporting the recently acquired ones either. So in all interesting times for Oracle BI consultants and for customers who now have a wide variety of Oracle BI produts at their disposal to select and work upon.

Medieval policies of Indian Bodyshopping companies

2006-03-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

Barring money and fear, I feel there is no motivation for a consultant to work for a software bodyshopping company. One finds a lot of companies in India who lack the ability to bag independent projects getting into bodyshopping. This trend is definitely disturbing as this tends to bring down the quality of work of consultants who lack the motivation of doing actual good work. My advice to companies hiring consultants from bodyshopping companies is: ‘one cannot win a war by hiring mercenaries’.

Most top Indian software companies continue with this sad practice of bodyshopping, which though earns them a fair amount of revenue, is however detrimental to the growth of the company in the long run. Most of these bodyshopping companies typically apply the old trick of carrot and stick policy. On one hand the consultant would be promised the moon, and on the other hand they would force the consultant to sign on all sorts of illegal 'legal' documents, so as to ensure that the consultant does not leave the organization. A couple of weeks back a friend of mine working for a shady bodyshopping company wished to leave the organization. From the moment he put in his papers, his life became a living hell. The company threatened him of legal action and refused to relieve him. Only when this poor chap paid the employer an astronomical sum (his last 6 months salary) did the company release him. This sad situation is nothing very unique to small companies. Many medium and big scale Indian software companies adopt this policy. Sadly most software consultants do not have the time or the money to fight legal battles with organizations.

The problem stems from the fact that in India almost all companies insist on the relieving letter of previous employer as a necessary document, without which the person will not be eligible for employment. If this document is not made mandatory then consultants will not be at the mercy of such cheating organizations. However as most of the recruiting organizations themselves indulge in bodyshopping, one cannot expect any dramatic changes in recruitment policies. I feel NASSCOM and Govt. of India should come down heavily on organizations who ask employees to sign bonds (usually these bonds are like, if a consultant leaves the organization before a said period of 18 months, sometime 3 years then he/she has to pay a very high bond amount in order to get relieved from the organization). Also sometimes these organizations would ask the consultant to attend a training and post that would force the consultant to sign such bonds, in which case if a consultant leaves the organization, he/she has to shell out a huge sum as training expenses in order to get relieved. And the worst kinds of bonds that consultants’ sign, are those when they go out of India on a work permit to some other country. The bodyshopping companies ask consultants going to work in other countries, to sign bonds which restrict them from seeking employment elsewhere, and per chance if they plan to leave then they need to pay astronomical sums to get relieved from the organization.

Hopefully Indian organizations will arise from their medieval mindsets and become more employee-friendly and gather their own self respect and the respect of future and existing employees.

US Army website on ERP implementation considerations

2006-03-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

I came across reference of this site in www.oracleappsblog.com which has wealth of information on ERP implemntation considerations. It also gives good comparison between different ERP, CRM, BI products and also Key Implementaion considerations like, Transformation Management, Governance, etc.
http://www.army.mil/aeioo/erp/index.htm

Oracle Projects – Part 2

2006-03-09T21:49:00.000-08:00

What is Burdening?

You burden a type of cost with burden costs to obtain a more accurate representation of your company’s operating costs. For example, each hour of employee time costed directly to a project may be supported by burden costs for benefits and office space. A burden cost code represents the type of burden costs you want to apply to raw costs. For each burden cost code in the burden structure, you specify what cost base it is applied to, the expenditure type or types it is linked to, and the order in which it is applied to raw costs within the cost base.
You use the multiplier to derive the total amount of the burden cost. For example, you may burden the raw cost of labor using a multiplier of thirty percent to derive the fringe component, and in turn, the total burdened cost of labor is computed as follows:

Labor (raw cost) 1,000
+ Fringe @ 20% (burden cost) 200
Total Burdened Cost 1,200

On a project for which costs are burdened, you can create some transactions that are burdened and others that are not burdened. You define which projects should be burdened by setting the Burden Cost indicator for each project type in the Project Types window. When you specify that a project type is burdened, you must then specify the burden schedule to be used. The burden schedule stores the rates and indicates which transactions are burdened, based on cost bases defined in the burden structure.

(Info taken from Oracle Projects User Guide)

Are Oracle Apps departments over staffed in Indian IT companies?

2006-03-02T22:36:00.000-08:00

Going by my first-hand experience in some of the top Indian IT companies, and information from friends in other Indian IT companies, I can safely conclude that the number of resources in Apps department in most of these companies is too huge. The ratio of number of consultant to the number of projects that these companies have is typically very high. One can argue that it is important for companies to have sufficient bench strength so that whenever a new requirement comes, they can ramp up. I definitely agree to this logic, but I feel the bench sizes are way too large, which is absolute unnecessary. I have seen enough people in bench wasting their careers for month’s altogether doing nothing.

Another fact is people on bench cannot expect to have a good appraisal, as they are not billed by the company. As a result they become frustrated and either start creating HR problems or actively start looking for other avenues. In either case, it’s a loss to the organization.

So, the question arises, who is responsible for this messy situation? Typically, each IT department has a Resource Manager, who by sheer hard-work has reached this enviable position. Now, this person requests HR to recruit a certain number of professionals based of projections, forecasts, diameter of project pipe (as most projects are in pipeline) and many other extraneous reasons. Once the consultants are taken on-board, then, starts the quest for fitting in the person into a project. The Sales and Marketing person, the Key Account Manager, the Relationship Manager, the Business Development manager are then given the impossible task of creating “non-existent” work for the client, for which there would be a requirement of additional resources. After long and interesting sessions of PowerPoint presentations and sessions of “IT and Business Gyan”, does the client relent and agree to take on board additional resources. By this time the consultant would have happily spent half a year on bench adding no value to the organization.

Oracle Projects – Part 1

2006-03-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Last few days I have been involved with the Oracle Projects module. I’ll try and put forth some basic learning of this module.

Oracle Projects is meant primarily for organizations that are project-oriented. Using this module, it becomes easy to track costs, budget and track the project status.

Oracle Projects consists of the following products:

• Oracle Project Costing

• Oracle Project Billing

• Oracle Project Connect for Microsoft Project

• Oracle Activity Management Gateway

• Oracle Project Analysis Collection Pack

Prior to Oracle Projects Setup, one has to setup the Set of Books in GL, setup Organization and Organization hierarchy in Oracle HRMS, define employees and job in HRMS and create customer in Oracle Receivables. However if Oracle Projects is being installed as a standalone package then one needs to define all above in Oracle Projects itself. Some other mandatory setups include defining locations, defining implementation options, defining Project Accounting periods, defining expenditure types and categories, define revenue categories, etc. Also one has to create a burdening hierarchy in Oracle HRMS which may vary from the Project or Task Organization hierarchy.

Invariably a Project is broken into a hierarchy of tasks as per Work Breakdown Structure (WBS, a hierarchy of tasks that rollup into a project) to manage project and task related information. One can define as many levels of tasks in a hierarchy in Oracle Projects. However, proper naming conventions need to be followed while naming projects, tasks and sub-tasks. An organization has to be associated with a project and a Task, which may be same or different.

One can have three different Project Types for managing the cost of a project: Indirect, Capital and Contract. An Indirect Project Type is used to track the overhead costs and labor hours for overhead activities like Admin, Legal, etc. Capital Project Type is selected to track costs and labor hours related to asset development activities which ultimately results in an asset for the organization. A Contract Project Type is selected in case the costs are reimbursed by a client.

Oracle Costing is the used for processing of expenditures for finding out costs which can be attributed to projects and tasks which can then be posted to GL corresponding to different account lines. There are two cost amounts associated to each transaction: Raw and Burdened. The raw cost is the actual cost of the work performed, and the burden cost is the indirect cost or overhead of work performed, like administrative cost. The Burden cost is calculated by multiplying Raw Cost with the Burden Multiplier. The burdened cost is the total cost that is incurred, i.e., the sum of raw cost and burden cost.

Burden Cost = Raw Cost x Burden Multiplier

Burdened Cost = Raw Cost + Burden Cost

More on Oracle Projects, primarily I'll try and provide inputs on Burdening Cost and Oracle Project Billing in subsequent days.

How important is industry experience for an Oracle Apps Consultant?

2006-02-25T23:30:00.000-08:00

With the growth in world economy, there has been a boom in IT packaged industry, especially packaged ERP products like Oracle and SAP. Indian software implementation companies are cashing in on this boom and are recruiting software professionals heavily. However, due to shortage of quality manpower, most companies are recruiting fresher as they come in cheap and also they will stick with the company for at least a couple of years. But, this strategy is fraught with danger as ultimately providing a business solution to a client is no child's play, and i have seen dozens of disgruntled business clients. Typically Indian IT companies have been involved in software projects (C, C++, java, Unix, .NET, etc) which are quite different from ERP projects, as knowledge of business is not that critical, or a few key persons in the software delivery may have the business understanding and not all the software professionals.

However, for an ERP implementation project a thorough understanding of business is of utmost importance. If companies recruit experienced people from industry who have considerable domain experience and train them in these packages, they become much better consultants and provide a lot better business solutions than a fresh engineering, accounting or a B-school graduate. In fact i feel the turnaround time, from a novice (ERP package illiterate) to an experienced ERP consultant is much less for an experienced hire compared to a fresher undergoing the same package training. But the downside of recruiting a very experienced person who has considerable domain experience but very little package experience is in providing them with suitable position and compensation, which the HR professionals have to confront. To resolve this issue, some companies are creating separate consulting divisions which have a very flat organisational structure, quite different from the usual pyramidal organisation structures.
Apart from this, the organisation structure should not be too formalised, and should be flexible. A bright performer should have ample chance and scope to excel and showcase one's talent. This an area which i feel most Indian IT companies are lacking in currently. Most IT professionals are straight-jacketed and are expected to follow the rut with very little scope to try out something new, with very little decision making powers. Now, an industry experienced person who comes from a different background faces the maximum difficulty in adjusting with this kind of company culture. Though this person has enough new ideas, but he/she has no avenues to put forth such views.
Its time Indian software companies rise to these challenges and start making changes to organisation recruiting policy, organisation structure and organisation culture.