New Features in Payables Release 11
Oracle EDI Gateway Integration for Inbound Invoices
You can use Payables and Oracle EDI Gateway to import invoice data from your suppliers. Through the EDI translator of your choice, Oracle EDI Gateway receives invoice information from your suppliers and creates an inbound invoice data file (ASC X12 810/EDIFACT INVOIC). Oracle EDI Gateway uploads the supplier's invoice information directly into Payables in the new Payables Invoice Open Interface. You can then import the invoices using the new Payables Open Interface Import Program. Invoices are then ready for approval and payment.
Payables and Oracle EDI Gateway will proactively notify your suppliers of problem invoices. For example, if your supplier transmits a duplicate invoice or an invoice that does not reference a valid purchase order, Payables and Oracle EDI Gateway create an outbound application error acknowledgement (824/APERAK) that notifies your supplier that you have not accepted the invoice.
See: Payables Open Interface Import Program
Invoice Open Interface
The new Payables Open Interface accomplishes high volume invoice import complete with all of the features of online invoice entry, including:
- Proration of tax, freight and miscellaneous charges
- Direct account entry, no need to specify code combination identifiers
- Merge of account segment information, for example, override the cost center on a blanket purchase order
This Payables Open Open Interface is an integral part of Payables' integration with the Oracle EDI Gateway to support inbound invoices, but you can also use it to import invoices from any external sources.
See: Payables Open Interface Tables.
Oracle Workflow Integration
Oracle Payables integrates with Oracle Workflow to help you automate business processes for accounts payable documents, including:
- Invoices entered through the new Invoice Open Interface
- Procurement card transaction review and approval
For example, if an invoice comes in for a supplier site with outstanding prepayments, Oracle Workflow can send a notification to the Accounts Payable manager, or designate. Using Oracle Workflow, you can create additional workflow rules that meet the specific requirements of your business. It's easy to keep your employees and trading partners in the loop, whether by email, web or forms-based notifications and responses.
See:
Payables Open Interface Workflow
Credit Card Transaction Employee Workflow.
Credit Card Transaction Manager Workflow
Procurement Cards
You can streamline your procure-to-pay process by implementing a Procurement Card program. When your employees purchase goods with procurement cards, you can reduce transaction costs and eliminate low-amount invoices.
With Release 11, you can import Procurement Card transaction and statement files from your card issuer, automatically generate transaction accounting distributions, and create invoices to pay the card issuer.
For additional flexibility, employees can use Oracle Web Employees to verify Procurement Card transactions, override default transaction accounting, dispute transactions, and identify personal transactions.
See: Procurement Cards
Euro Settlement
Payables supports businesses operating in the European Monetary Union (EMU) during their transition from national currency to the common Euro currency. With Payables you can pay an invoice in a currency other than the invoice currency, for currencies defined with fixed exchange rates due to their participation in the EMU. For example, you can enter an invoice in an EMU currency and pay it in Euro, or vice versa.
See: Cross Currency Payments for Fixed-Rate Currencies
Applications for the Web Integration
With Release 10.7, your employees can use Oracle Web Employees to enter expense reports using a standard web browser. Integration with Oracle Workflow and Payables ensures that you reimburse only those expense reports that are approved by both management and by the accounts payable department.
With release 11., we added the Signing Limits window to support the definition of your organization's spending authority hierarchy for expense reports. Additionally, the Expense Report Templates window and the Expense Reports windows now support new features available with Release 11 of Web Employees.
Payables integration with Web Employees supports the following Web Employees functionality:
- Disconnected Expense Report Entry. Mobile employees can enter expense report receipt information without being connected to a network and save the expense report as a spreadsheet file. To submit the expense report for approval, simply upload the spreadsheet into Web Employees.
- Tax Indicator for Receipt. Expanded tax support for receipts allows employees to indicate whether a receipt amount includes tax. You can use this indicator to automatically calculate a tax amount for an expense item or to identify recoverable VAT.
- Authorized Delegate Expense Report Entry. Authorized employees can enter an expense report for another employee (for example, an executive assistant can enter an expense report for a manager).
- Define a Threshold Amount for Requiring Receipts. The accounts payable department can define an amount threshold for an expense type above which a receipt is required. Oracle Workflow enforces this requirement.
See: Web Employees Expense Reporting.
Tax Defaulting Enhancements
Payables can default tax information from a variety of sources. You can customize the source hierarchy that Payables uses to default the tax name onto documents throughout Payables.
Payables provides the following sources for tax defaulting:
You select the sources you want to use in the above hierarchy and specify the sequence of the hierarchy. When you create a document, for example, an invoice, Payables searches the source hierarchy you have defined until a source value is found, at which point the search will stop.
The PO for Matched Invoices source allows you to default the tax code from a taxable purchase order line shipment to a matched invoice. You can override this default at the invoice distribution level. If the purchase order shipment is taxable but there is no tax code assigned, Payables will search the remaining tax source defaults to determine the correct tax for the invoice.
You can use the Account option to default the tax name based on the expense or asset account you enter. In the Tax Options window in General Ledger, you can assign tax names to accounts. In addition, you can use the new Enforce Tax From Account Payables option to apply a hold to an invoice if the tax name does not match an account to which it has been associated. This feature is primarily a requirement for implementations in Germany, Japan, and parts of Scandinavia where these factors largely influence the structure of the chart of accounts.
See: Defaulting Tax In Payables
Flexible Payments
For a single invoice, you can make electronic payments to different bank accounts. You specify which supplier bank account will receive payment for a scheduled payment. At the supplier site level you can set a default primary bank account for a supplier site to use. This value defaults to the scheduled payment, and you can change this default any time before payment.
See: .Bank Accounts Region of the Suppliers and Suppliers Sites Window:
Multiple Reporting Currencies
The Multiple Reporting Currencies (MRC) feature enables you to inquire and report on your accounts payable transactions in any currency, not just the functional currency of your primary set of books. With Multiple Reporting currencies, you enter your transactions in your main set of books, then Oracle Payables automatically converts these transactions to your desired reporting currencies and stores the transactions in separate sets of books, one for each currency. You can then run standard reports or perform online inquires in any of your reporting currencies.
You will benefit from using MRC in the following situations:
- During the European Monitary Union transition to the Euro. Use MRC to report and account transactions in the Euro, the pan-European currency, in addition to your national currency.
- While operating in countries with unstable currencies. Use MRC to report and manage transactions in a stable currency for planning and control purposes.
- If your enterprise is multi-national. Use MRC to report and manage transaction level information in a common currency across your enterprise.
See: Multiple Reporting Currencies in Oracle Applications.
