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Major changes in Purchasing/iProcurement – R12

1. Requisition Creation:

• In R12 iProcurement, users can see a new button for Managing Approval Routing lists in create requisition page under Approvals stage. The functionality remains the same as in 11i, but users can add/delete approvers and can make changes in the routing sequence in iProcurement itself.

• New country field is required when entering a “one-time” ship to address on create requisitions page.        
          
• Oracle has introduced a new feature for Internal Requisitions and Internal Sales Orders. If preparer makes changes for approved Internal Requisition it will be reflected in Internal Sales Order and vice versa.

Oracle supports this feature only for few particular fields.

For Internal Requisition Oracle supports changes to the following attributes:
1. Quantity
2. Need By Date

If preparer updates any of these values, the changes will be reflected in Internal Sales Order.

Similarly, for Internal Sales Order Oracle supports changes to the following attributes:
1. Order Quantity
2. Request Date
3. Schedule Date
4. Arrival Date

If user updates any of  these values in Internal Sales Order, the requester of Internal Requisition will get notification and quantity and Need by Date in Internal Requisition changes automatically.

• In addition to this, if user cancels the Internal Requisition line, the corresponding line in Internal Sales Order will also be cancelled and vice versa.

• And finally, the urgent flag on the internal requisition line will flow onto the internal sales order line as the shipment priority, based on a profile option.


Set ups required:

To get the new functionality, processing constraints need to be disabled for internal sales orders in Order Management.
1. For ‘Update Ordered Quantity’ – Disable the Condition where Validate Template is “Internal Order”.
2. For ‘Update Requested date’   – Disable the Processing Constraint.

2. iProcurement non-Catalog Request:

• In 11i, for a Non-Catalog Request, when requester describe the purchase, there is a chance that it may not be classified into an existing commodity hierarchy. This increases the misclassification of spend information, contract leakage, lower compliance and internal controls.

• In R12, requester creating Non-Catalog requests will have the option of category being predicted for the purchase being made. After the requester clicks on “Add to Cart” they will be able to view a “suggested best fit” category with a list of categories that could be alternate possibilities.

• With this new feature,  all the unstructured requests will be categorized appropriately to aid the downstream spend analysis.
                                      
• So with the new features organizations can analyze the spending according to the Purchasing Category, which helps to easily identify the categories of items that they purchase.

Set ups required:

This feature takes the category value from Oracle Spend Classification(A new module of the Oracle BI Applications). Oracle Spend Classification is a pre requisite to get use of the new feature. Once we set up Oracle Spend Classification, when user clicks on “Add to Cart” they can see the category list for non-catalog items.

This option is not mandatory.

3. Realms:

In R12 realms are replaced by Content Security Management.

Realms from prior releases are converted to content zones.  The new Content Security model allows administrators a more flexible method to control and adjust iProcurement Content (items) available for requisitioning users. It replaces and enhances functionalities previously provided by Realms, System Profiles, Catalogs, and the Extractor.

4. Communication Process:

Oracle R12 supports FYI notifications. So, FYI notifications can be enabled for the viewers to avoid reports and alerts.

FYI notifications set up has to be done in AME. The Set up process is as follows:

1) The first step is to turn on the FYI Approver capability for the “Purchase Requisition Approval” transaction type. The navigation for this is :

1. Choose “Approvals Management Administrator” responsibility
2. In the upper right Quick Links region choose “Configuration Variables”
3. Enter the Purchase Requisition Approval transaction type and click Go
4. At the “Transaction Type” level set variable “Allow For Your Information Notifications” = Yes
5. Click Apply

2) Now go to the “Approvals Management Business Analyst” responsibility . From here choose the “Purchase Requisition Approval” transaction type and we can modify existing Rules or when we create new Rules,there will be a Category field that is now available, where we can choose “For Your Information”.

For any Rule with this choice, the approvers that are returned are FYI and their approval response is not required. They are only notified with FYI notification.

This feature is available only at the Rule level. So to have FYI notifications and regular response required Approval Notifications send to other approvers, multiple AME Rules have to be created.

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Bank model in Cash Management – R12

In R12, banks are moved into Trading Community Architecture(TCA). Now Cash Management owns the internal bank setup definition.

Benefits of new Bank Account model:
  • There is a central place to define internal bank accounts. So with centralized user interface, users can reduce the number of access points to manage bank accounts
  • With the help of Multi-Org Access Control, we can explicitly grant account access to multiple operating units/functions and users, which improves the visibility and control of bank accounts
  • A single Legal Entity is granted ownership of each internal bank account and One or more Organizations are granted usage rights. So, a single bank statement can be reconciled across multiple Operating Units, which helps to simplify reconciliation process.
  • Reconciliation options can now be defined at the bank account level, which provides more flexibility and control to the reconciliation process.
Bank structure in 11i:

Bank structure in R12:
In R12, Banks are part of TCA and the same bank accounts can be used in Payables, Receivables, Payroll and Treasury.

Impact of Upgrade:
All the internal bank accounts of 11.5.10, will be migrated into Centralized Bank model automatically during the upgrade.

Tables to store the bank information in R12:

The new tables that store bank information are now under Cash Management as follows:

CE_BANK_ACCOUNTS                     Contains Legal Entity Level bank account information. Each bank
                                                              account must be affiliated with one bank branch.

CE_BANK_ACCT_USES_ALL           Stores Operating Unit level bank account use information.

CE_PAYMENT_DOCUMENTS           Stores payment Documents to be used for Printed type Payments

CE_BANK_BRANCHES_V                 View: Bank/Branches Info

CE_BANK_ACCT_USES_OU_V        View: Internal Bank Account Uses Info

The following tables were obsoleted in R12, in which Bank Data was stored in R11i:

AP_BANK_BRANCHES
AP_BANK_ACCOUNTS_ALL
AP_BANK_ACCOUNTS_USES_ALL

In R12, Internal bank accounts can be created in Cash Management (Setup -> Banks). Where can we define Supplier (or External) bank accounts?

Supplier (or External) bank accounts can be created in Payables, by using Supplier Entry forms.  In the Payables Manager responsibility:

1. Navigate to Suppliers -> Entry.
2. Query or create your supplier.
3. Click on Banking Details and then choose Create.

After creating the bank account, we can assign the bank account to the supplier site.

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Cash Pooling in Cash Management – R12

Cash Pooling Techniques are used by the Organizations to optimize the funds by consolidating bank balances across multiple bank accounts.

Benefits of Cash Pooling Techniques:

– Minimizes the idle funds by consolidating balances
– Helps to decrease external borrowing costs and increase investment returns
– Allows users to group bank accounts into pooling structures to manage funds effectively

Oracle supports following types of cash pools:

1. Self-Initiated Physical Cash Pools:

When Organizations want to monitor individual bank account balances manually and then physically move cash to or from their accounts based on their preferences, Self-Initiated Physical Cash Pools structure can be used.

We can define the rules in pool definitions, to automatically determine when bank account transfers should be made and for what amounts.

2. Bank-Initiated Physical Cash Pools, or Zero Balance Accounts(ZBA’s):

Bank-Initiated Physical Cash Pools are used When Organizations want to sweep all end-of-day balances automatically to or from the main accounts.

This kind of services will leave zero balances at the end of way. That is the reason, Bank-Initiated Physical Cash Pools are often called as Zero Balance Accounts.

3. Notional Cash Pools:

If Organizations want to track the net balances across all accounts along with individual accounts, then Notional Cash Pools will be used.

In 11i, this functionality was available to Oracle Treasury users, but now it is supported by Oracle Cash Management in R12.

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Types of Invoices in Oracle Payables

Types of Invoices in AP:

The different types of invoices available in Payables are:

1. Standard Invoices: Standard invoices are the invoices issued by a supplier to the buyer, representing the amount due for the products or services the supplier has provided to the buyer.

Standard invoices can be either matched to a purchase order or not matched.

A standard invoice must be positive amount.

2. Mixed Invoices: Mixed invoices are the invoices which can have either positive or negative amounts and can be matched to both purchase orders and invoices.

For example, if there is a mixed invoice for $-1000, you can either match it to an invoice with $-1000 or to a purchase order with an amount $1000.

3. Credit Memo: Credit memo is an invoice raised by the supplier to the buyer with negative amount. It reduces the supplier balance and reduces the liability.

For example the customer has returned some of the goods that he purchased, the supplier sends a credit memo to the buyer to adjust the balance.

4. Debit Memo: Debit memo is an invoice raised by the customer to supplier with negative amount.

The functionality of Debit Memo is same as Credit Memo. Both are to reduce the liability.

The purpose of Debit Memos is to record a credit for a supplier who does not send you a credit memo.

Unlike in AR, both Credit memo and Debit memo are with negative signs in Payables.

5. Prepayment: Prepayments are the invoices raised to record advance payments to a supplier or employee.

6. Expense Reports: Expense reports are the invoices that represent amount due to an employee for all his business related expenses.

7. Retainage Release Invoices: Retainage release is the act of releasing, or paying, that portion of a payment that was withheld until a substantial portion or all of the service procurement work is completed. The amounts retained during the life of the contract must be released and paid to the supplier or sub-contractor once all or a substantial portion of the work is completed.

Oracle Payables uses the Retainage Release Request to create a type of invoice called Retainage Release. A retainage release invoice has lines, which are copied from the original standard progress invoices, which show an amount left to be released.

Retainage release invoices can only be entered manually in the Invoice Workbench window.


8. Withholding Tax:  After you apply withholding tax to an invoice, you can optionally create invoices to remit withheld tax to the tax authority.
                          
Payables can automatically create withholding tax invoices, or you can perform this
task manually. If you choose to automatically create withholding tax invoices, you must choose whether to do this during Invoice Validation or during payment processing.


9. PO Price Adjustment Invoices:  PO Price Adjustment Invoices are used for recording the difference in price between the original invoice and the new purchase order price.

For example, If a supplier sends an invoice for a change in unit price for an invoice you have matched to a purchase order, PO Price Adjustment Invoices can be used to adjust the invoiced unit price of previously matched purchase order shipments or distributions without adjusting the quantity billed.

PO price adjustment invoices can be matched to both purchase orders and invoices.

10. Quick invoices: Used for quick, high-volume invoice entry for invoices that do not require extensive validation and defaults. After entry, you import these into the Payables system. Validation and defaulting occur during import

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