Payables Hold Release Workflow

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

As per Metalink Note 604739.1, the AP Trial Balance has been replaced by the Open Account AP Balance Listing in R12.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

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.

Recording a Refund of a Prepayment or Advance

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solution:

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

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

Step2: Define ADR (Account Derivation Rules)

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

Step3: Define JLD (Journal Line Definition)

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

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

Step 4: Setup AAD (Application Accounting Definition)

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

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

Step 5: Setup SAM (Subledger Accounting Methods)

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

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

Step 6: Assign the custom SAM to Primary Ledger

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

Verification of new SLA rule:

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

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

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

Payables Duplicate Invoices

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

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

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

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

Configuring Accounts Payable in Oracle 11i

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MO: Default Operating Unit

MO: Distributed Environment

MO: Operating Unit

MO: Security Profile

AP: Use Invoice Batch Controls

GL Set of Books Name

HR:User Type

Sequential Numbering

Tax: Allow Override of Tax Code

HR:Business Group

HR: Security Profile

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

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

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

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

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

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

14. Setup Locations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Set in “Transfer to GL’ tab,

Transfer to GL

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

Payment Accounting

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

Currency

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

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

Invoice

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

Withholding Tax (Retention Money)

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

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

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

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

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

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

E.g. of Aging Period

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

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

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

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

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

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

Use this form to assign your defined document sequences

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