Oracle Apps World

Approach 1. Preserve the original workflow, with a different name. Then customize the original workflow. Approach 2.Customizing the original (even if you use the appropriate workflow protection) often results in the flow being blown away when patches are applied. It also means that the fact a flow is customised difficult to tell. So where possible we create new top level (runnable processes) by copying them and renaming them and the same for all lower levels that are customised. With the PO approval (and several other flows inc accopunt generator flows) this is the way to go because you can define the startup process in the application. So for reasons of patch protection and clearly visable customisations always create new top level processes. All new or customised functions, notifications etc are also copied and renamed. Approach 3.One other point to consider is there are workflows that you cannot rename. Therefore, you will have to customize the ORIGINAL. Some of these workflows...

Supported Tax Software Versions - Following Vertex and Taxware Versions are Certified for Release 12: Vertex Q Series 3.2 Taxware 3.5.0 Please be sure to mention to Vertex / Taxware that you would need file for Release 12. The data files have been changed in Release 12 and you can not use the same file as in Release 11i or before. Loading Tax information into Rel 12i: 1) Please get datafile from tax partners (Vertex or Taxware) in R12 format . 2) Copy file to a Linux or Unix directory. Filename - *.dat. Please note that loading the datafile into interface table is a part of the Request Set and will not need to be done manually. 3) Click "Tax Managers" resp 4) Click "Schedule Request Set" link under "Requests" 5) Select "E-Business US Sales and Use Tax Import Program" from the "Request SetName" LOV 6) In the first stage, a) Enter "File Location and Name" parameter (directory in which partner datafile has been placed, fil...

Revenue recognition principle is an important accounting principle, which is the main difference between cash basis accounting and accrual basis accounting. In cash basis accounting revenues are simply recognized when cash is received no matter when and how the services were performed or goods delivered. In accrual basis accounting revenues are recognized when they are (1) realized or realizable and (2) earned no matter when cash is received. Revenue recognition criteria according to US GAAP: USSEC's SAB104 states that revenue generally is realized or realizable and earned when all of the following criteria are met: 1. Persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists; 2. Delivery has occurred or services have been rendered; 3. The seller's price to the buyer is fixed or determinable; and 4. Collectability is reasonably assured Invoicing Rules and Accounting Rules: In Oracle AR, the invoicing and accounting rules help create invoices that span several accounting periods. Accou...

A quick re-cap of accounting entries generated in Oracle Receivables: Invoices: When you enter a regular invoice through the Transactions window, Receivables creates the following journal entry: DR Receivables CR Revenue CR Tax (if you charge tax) CR Freight (if you charge freight) If you enter an invoice with a Bill in Arrears invoicing rule with a three month fixed duration accounting rule, Receivables creates the following journal entries: In the first period of the rule: DR Unbilled Receivables CR Revenue In the second period of the rule: DR Unbilled Receivables CR Revenue In the third and final period of the rule: DR Unbilled Receivables CR Revenue DR Receivables CR Unbilled Receivables CR Tax (if you charge tax) CR Freight (if you charge freight) If you enter an invoice with a Bill in Advance invoicing rule, Receivables creates the following journal entries: In the first period of the rule: DR Receivables CR Unearned Revenue CR Tax (if you charge tax) CR Freight (if you charge fr...

You have 3 basic choices for the requisitions created by this process: 1. Release against a blanket PO 2. Autocreate into POs 3. Release as standard PO (but you must have a quotation to use instead of a blanket -- pricing has to come from one or the other). The general process for release against a blanket (or quotation) is: 1. Create a blanket PO with lines for all parts to be sourced. Enter a price for each line. (Or, enter a quotation). 2. Define a sourcing rule (Purchasing > Supply Base > Sourcing Rules) Enter a name for the sourcing rule. Org = your org name Type = buy from Supplier = name of supplier on blanket PO or quotation. Supplier site = name of supplier site on blanket PO or quotation. Allocation = 100% (must be 100%) 3. Assign the sourcing rule to an Assignment Set (Purchasing > Supply Base > Assign Sourcing Rules) Enter an Assignment Set Name (for example "MRP Planned Items" Assigned To (I usually pick Item/Organization) Org = y...

Client – Clients who are having Global Rollouts and need for multiple address styles. Business Case – Need to add country specific address style formats for addresses information which are stored in the different core modules of Oracle Apps including Receivables (for Customer and Remit to Addresses), Payables (Supplier and Payment Addresses), Banks (Bank Branch addresses) Out of the box address styles - Oracle Applications provides one default and five predefined address styles. These address styles cover the basic entry requirements of many countries. The different address styles provided out of the box are: • Default, • Japanese, • Northern European and Southern European, • South American, • United Kingdom/Asia/Australasia, • United States How to add a new Address Style - Let us say the client has a Business requirement to add a new address style for ‘Canada’. The following high level steps can be followed to define this new ‘Canada’ address style. 1. Choose address style database...

Refund Scenario - A supplier will send a request for a deposit of prepayment to the Accounts Payable group. The following is a basic overview of the standard account suggested by Oracle for the entry of a prepayment with a refund from the supplier. 1. Enter a prepayment invoice to the supplier. Prepayment Account (default) - DR. Liability Account - CR. 2. Pay the prepayment invoice to the supplier. Liability Account - DR. Cash Clearing Account - CR. 3. Reconcile payment in cash management. Cash Clearing Account - DR. Cash Account - CR. The supplier sends a refund check for ‘some amount’ (XX) of the original prepayment. ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 4. The Accounts Payable person enters a ‘dummy’ invoice with invoice number ‘Refund XXXXX’ in the amount of the refund. Expense Account DR. ******Cash Account workaround. Liability Account CR. 5. Match the invoice to the original prepayment invoice. Liability Account DR. Pre...

Introduction - This real world case study on proposed item structure for a Food Processing and Distribution Company was based on the requirements of business, gathered through discussions during the implmentation project, as well as recommendations submitted by consultants. 1. Objective The Decision on Inventory Flex fields Structure was taken based on achieving the following Objective: Ø Item code structure across all Product lines & Products is required to be uniform; Ø Item code should be simple and short; Ø Item code numbering should be driven by a simple logic to avoid deciphering the codes by field staff; Ø Item code should be independent of the personal view of the person defining the item; Ø Item code should not be dependent on either supplier or customer codes; Ø Each item should have code and a description to identify the item uniquely; Ø Code should not be repeated in description and vice-versa; Ø Expiry date and location of the item should be identified Ø All item...

1. Purchasing: Financial Options Accounting Information · Liability Account · Prepayment Account · Discount Taken Account · Rate Variance Gain Account · Rate Variance Loss Account Purchasing Options Accruals · Expense AP Accrual Account Receiving Options Receiving Account (need one account per inventory organization; they can be the same). 2. Inventory: Define Organization Parameters - All accounts in this section are required for each inventory organization; they can be the same between orgs. · Inter-Org Transfer Accounts (required for setup) · Inter-Org Receivable Account · Inter-Org Payable Account · Inter-Org Purchase Price Variance Account · Intransit Inventory Account Valuation Accounts · Material Account · Outside Processing Account (this won’t be used, so a suspense account is fine) · Material Overhead Account (this won...

Detailed Functional Components of iExpenses: 1. Expense Report Entry: 1.1 Create Expense Report: · Employees log on to Oracle Web Expense and enter their expense report using a standard Web browser. · Employees enter general information about their expense report in the Report Information region. · Employees enter their expenses in the Enter Receipts region. · iExpense offers a “disconnected solution”, to meet the needs of employees with limited access to the corporate intranet. Employees can enter expense reports off line, and save them for later submission, when intranet access is available. · The disconnected expense reporting process involves the following: · Employees use the Download Expense Spreadsheet function to save a copy of Client’s expense spreadsheet template locally. Employees must be connected to the corporate intranet in order to use the Download Expense Spreadsheet function. · Employees use an expense spreadsheet to enter their expense reports while disconnected ...

Client and Business Case - Global Professional Services Firm executing projects globally wanted to implement Oracle Internet Expenses to support employee expense reporting and reimbursement. Oracle iExpenses was implemented to enable Client employees to independently enter and submit their expense reports on-line, real time, utilizing a standard Web browser or a Web-enabled mobile device. Oracle Workflow was configured to automatically routes expense reports for approval and enforce reimbursement policies. Oracle iExpenses integrates with Oracle Payables and Oracle Projects to provide quick processing of expense reports for payment. Key Features implemented - The implementation of iExpense enabled the client to benefit from the following functionalities: 1. Enable employees to record, and submit expense reports using a standard Web browser. 2. Provide employees a “disconnected solution” when access to a corporate intranet is not available. 3. Use Descriptive Flexfields to enter ...

Client Industry - Banking and Financial Institution Summary - One of my banking clients had a business need to enhance end of day reporting by using a new "processing date" field, by preventing posting of future dated transactions, and storing daily balances to support end of day reporting requirements. Standard Functionality Limitations - since Oracle General Ledger (GL) is a real-time system, the standard posting functionality will update the account balances of detail and summary accounts. When you post to an earlier effective date or open period, actual balances roll forward through the latest open period. If you post a journal entry into a prior year, Oracle GL adjusts your retained earnings balance for the effect on your income and expense accounts. End of day reporting is complicated with a single instance and server time stamp worldwide. Business Case - Banks and Financial Institutions in US are regulated Corporations subject to daily, weekly, monthly, quarter...

What are Summary Accounts? • A summary account is an account whose balance is the sum of balances from multiple detail accounts. • Use summary accounts to perform online summary inquiries, as well as speed the processing of financial reports and Mass Allocations, and Recurring journal formulas. • You do not enter or post transactions directly to summary accounts. Summary Accounts Examples: Company Segment - Summarize companies by major industry; by regions within a country; or by country group. Cost Center Segment - Track functional areas at a detailed level but produce summary reports that group cost centers into one or more divisions. Account Segment - Summarize your accounts by account type: Assets, Liabilities, Equity, Revenue & Expense or more detailed: Current Assets. Detail versus Summary Accounts: • Summary Accounts are updated when journals are posted to a corresponding detail account. They enable online summary inquiries and speed concurrent processing. • Detail Acco...

'X' Concept - One of my clients wanted to get a Trial Balance in the US Sets of Books which will only have Transactions which are entered in US dollars. As per the standard Oracle functionality, if the transaction currency is the same as the SOB functional currency, the Entered Dr and Entered Cr columns are not populated. Only the Accounted Dr and Accounted Cr columns are populated. This creates an issue as the client wants to run a trial balance on transactions entered only in SOB functional currency. High Level Solution - 'X' currency, to overcome this, a solution was developed to use a currency called ‘X’ as the USD books reporting currency. If we take USD (Primary SOB) and USX (Reporting SOB), all transactions in USD in USD SOB will appear as a transaction currency in the USX SOB (foreign currency transaction). This will enable the user to run foreign currency Trial Balance in the USX books on transactions entered in USD.

Client and Business Case - Global Manufacturing client wanted to implement GCS in Oracle GL to enable consolidation within Oracle. The steps involved in configuring GCS are detailed in the following sections. I. DEFINE SETS OF BOOKS (SOB): 1. Where all subsidiaries share a single SOB which consists of the same COA, accounting calendar, and currency, it is purely a reporting kind of consolidation requiring FSG tool. No separate consolidation SOB is required 2. Where each subsidiary and the parent company require their own SOB meet their operational or local accounting needs:- 2.1 If Parent SOB can be touched, then data transfer can take place to the Parent SOB. 2.2 Else, a separate consolidation SOB is required where data transfer has to take place. 3. Where companies use non-Oracle Applications, Create dummy SOBs within the GCS parent’s database instance. Each of these SOBs represent the subsidiary SOBs on disparate application instances. The consolidation can happen to Parent SO...

Client Profile - Global clients who want to implement Consolidation functionality within Oracle GL. Other consolidation methods include Financial Consolidation Hub (FCH) and use of Hyperion cubes to generate Consolidated reports. Consolidation - is the period–end process of combining the financial results of separate subsidiaries with the parent company to form a single, combined statement of financial results. Clients can consolidate any number of subsidiaries that use different SOBs and having different COA, currencies and calendars. GL Consolidation Tools - There are basically two consolidation tools which can be used for consolidation within Oracle GL. 1. Financials Statement Generator (FSG) - Used for consolidating financial information for businesses using a single SOB or using different SOB that share the same calendar and COA. 2. Global Consolidation System (GCS) - GCS is a multi-source consolidation solution that can accumulate information from diverse financial system...

Client Industry - Applicable to all using Oracle Apps Month End Close Dashboard - One of my client's accouting department wanted to know the close status of GL and other Sub-Ledgers in a single screen in Oracle. Currently Oracle does not have the funtionality to display month end close status collectively for all installed applications in a single screen. Hence a custom form was developed to acheive this functionality. Business Case - Client needed a form for viewing the close status of P&L and Balance Sheet accounts for each Company in Oracle General Ledger in a Dashboard. The Dashboard will reflect the close status of Oracle Sub-ledgers as well. A Custom Closing Process Dashboard will need to be developed which will be used by the Accounting department for monitoring the close process in Oracle Financials and initiate requisite action based on certain key reports. Solution Overview - We developed a custom Closing Process Dashboard which will be utilized by Accounting ...

Client Industry - Applicable to clients implementing Oracle General Ledger Business Case - Almost all clients who implement Oracle General Ledger make use of the currency exchange rate interface, since it provides a convenient and automated way for multicurrency processing within Oracle Apps. Many clients make use of this interface to report financials in a common currency as well as to perform inter-company transactions between companies that have 2 different functional currencies. Solution – A simple custom interface program can be written which will import rates automatically from a vendor and will also load these rates into the core GL daily rates table using the delivered daily rates interface tables. Find below a high-level process flowchart which can be used as a starting point to design this interface: 1. Request file is sent to Vendor (Reuters, Bloomberg, Oanda). 2. The encrypted file “XXGLDAILYRATES_XXXX.txt” from the vendor is obtained where XXXX is “mmdd”. 3. If the...

Introduction : Oracle provides over a thousand standard reports within the application. These standard reports are developed to cover common generic needs. Before creating any new reports, one should examine the standard report sets to determine if any meet the requirements. If requirements cannot be met with the standard Oracle report sets, tools are available to create custom reports. The following matrix addresses reporting tool options, including: A brief description Who should be provided the access to the tool? Advantages Disadvantages When is it appropriate to use? (Click anywhere on the below image to ZOOM and read the complete table):

Why SOX Compliance is critical - Top Ten IT Control Deficiencies ( Source: Ken Vander Wal, Partner, National Quality Leader, E&YISACA Sarbanes Conference , 4/6/04): 1.Unidentified or unresolved segregation of duties 2.Operating System access controls supporting financial applications or Portal not secure 3.Database access controls supporting financial applications not secure 4.Development staff can run business transactions in production 5.Large number of users with access to “super user” transactions 6.Former employees or consultants continue to have system access 7.Posting periods not restricted within GL application 8.Custom programs, tables and interfaces are not secured 9.Procedures for manual processes do not exist or are not followed 10.System documentation does not match actual process Segregation of Duties (SOD) Definition: Segregation of duties (SOD) provides the assurance that no one individual has the physical and system access to control all phases of a business proce...

Multi-Org Architecture: 1. Before Multi-Org – Need one server for every set of Books implemented 2. With Multi-Org – One server, multiple sets of Books 3. The multiple organization structure simply partitions key tables to allow for an ORD_ID number per row 3.1 Used to provide security and data segregation. 4. Criteria used to partition tables includes: 4.1 The table contains a GL Account Code (code combination ID). 4.2 There is a business reason for the table to be partitioned (for example, the entity should not be shared). 4.3 The table contains transaction data. 4.4 The table is an interface table where data being loaded is partitioned. 4.5 The table includes a foreign key to a partitioned table and is accessed independently (in other words, not just as a child of a partitioned table). Centralized Processing: 1. Centralized GL, AP, AR, PO, OE, and PA 1.1 Clients can use your balancing segment within your Chart of Accounts to segregate legal entity data 2. Decentralized GL, AP, ...