New Features in Oracle Receivables - Release 11
The following features are new in this release of Oracle Receivables.
New Features
Cross Currency Receipts
Receivables lets you apply a cash receipt in one currency against one or more invoices issued in different currencies. For example, you can apply a receipt denominated in Canadian dollars to an invoice issued in US dollars. You can also apply multiple payments in any predefined currency to a single invoice. Receivables automatically calculates the foreign exchange gain or loss caused by rate fluctuations between your functional currency and the foreign currency between the invoice date and the receipt date.
You can also generate a report that lets you identify and analyze your cross currency receipts in detail and determine whether the cross currency rates used by your customers are acceptable. Receivables also supports the unique characteristics of currencies that are fixed-rate denominations of the Euro.
See: Cross Currency Receipts.
Notes Receivable
Receivables lets you process future-dated checks and promissory notes as notes receivable. When a note reaches its maturity date, money is automatically transferred from the note issuer's bank to the note holder's bank.
See: Notes Receivable.
Payment Application Rule Sets
Receivables supports a user-defined hierarchy of payment application rules. You can define a flexible set of rules to control how your payment is applied to your transaction balances (for example, line, tax, freight, and other charges). Within each rule set, you can specify the exact order in which Receivables applies the payment. Alternatively, you can define how the payment will be prorated among line types.
See: Receivables Application Rule Sets.
Transaction API
The Transaction Application Programming Interface (API) lets you use Oracle Order Entry or another third party application to create, update, and delete invoices, credit memos, and debit memos in Receivables. The API allows other systems to create transactions on demand which can potentially reduce the time required to transfer transactions. The API features full validation to ensure transaction integrity and can be used in addition to, or instead of, AutoInvoice.
See: Importing Transactions Using the Transaction API.
Multiple Organization Enhancements
You can now assign a default salesperson at the customer site level in a multiple organization environment. Additionally, you can create centralized statement and dunning sites for each customer in a multiple organization environment.
See: Assigning a Business Purpose to a Customer Address.
User Definable Dunning Letters
Receivables lets you create your own, custom dunning letters using the Dunning Letters window. Instead of opening and editing one of the ten dunning letter template files that Receivables provides, you can create an unlimited number of dunning letters and enter customized information for each.
See: Creating Dunning Letters.
View Dunning History
The View Dunning History window lets you view a transaction's complete dunning history. You can view the dunning history for any Receivables transaction, regardless of your dunning method.
Additionally, if the transaction you are viewing uses the Staged Dunning method, you can modify its dunning level in this window. You may want to do this, for example, if your customer has remitted payment for a past due item, and you want to ensure that it is not included in your next dunning submission.
See: View Dunning History.
Prevent Updates to Customer Addresses
In a sales tax environment, Receivables calculates tax based on the address components of your sales tax structure (for example, State.County.City). Since tax rates can change over time, modifying one of the customer address components could cause the tax for transactions previously assigned to this address to be invalid, and therefore be in violation of US sales tax audit requirements.
Receivables will not let you modify a customer address if both of the following are true:
- the system option Allow Change to Printed Transactions is set to No
- at least one printed, posted, or applied transaction exists for this bill-to or ship-to site in Receivables and that transaction has at least one associated tax line
See: Entering Customer Addresses.
AutoLockbox Enhancements
Receivables provides several new methods for matching receipts with transactions when you import receipts using AutoLockbox.
Lockbox uses the Match Receipts By method that you specify at the Lockbox and your customer or customer site when determining how to apply each receipt. If the customer number or MICR number is not provided in your transmission, Lockbox tries to identify the customer and the invoice to which each receipt should be applied based on whatever information is included. Lockbox always searches for a match in the following order:
- Consolidated Billing Invoice Number
- Other (custom defined number)
If Lockbox cannot find a match after searching for each type of number in the sequence, it applies the receipts using the AutoCash Rule Set defined for this customer.
Additionally, Receivables lets you specify a Remaining Amount Rule Set for your customer profile classes. This rule set lets you control how Receivables will apply any leftover receipt amount created by a partial receipt application during Post QuickCash.
See: How AutoLockbox Applies Receipts and Defining Customer Profile Classes.
Query Customers Using Variable Criteria
Receivables lets you search for customer information using additional criteria. Using the Find Customers window, you can look up a customer based on a phone number or view all customers within a given city, state, county, province, country, postal code, or area code.
Default Tax from Natural Account
You can optionally default your tax information based on the natural account of the items that you sell or the services that you provide. Receivables lets you optionally enforce the relationship between natural account and tax, thereby preventing updates at the transaction level. This feature is primarily a requirement for implementations in Germany, Japan, and parts of Scandinavia where tax factors significantly influence the chart of accounts structure.
Typically, revenue accounts are classified and set up to reflect the current tax regime and comply with VAT rules. For example, in Germany, where there are two rates of VAT (standard at 15% and reduced at 7%), revenue accounts may be classified not only by revenue classifications, but also by tax rate.
See: Setup Steps for Value Added Tax.
Tax Inclusive
Receivables lets you enter invoice amounts that include tax. This feature is required in countries such as Latin America, Japan, and Canada where unit prices often include tax. Tax inclusive tax codes calculate tax and transaction amounts based on tax codes that you define as inclusive or exclusive.
See: Tax Inclusive.
US Sales Tax Reporting
You can integrate the Receivables US Sales Tax Report with Reports eXchange to sort and display your periodic sales tax return information in a custom format. Using Reports eXchange you can integrate the US Sales Tax Report with a third party tax preparation program to generate signature-ready tax returns.
See: US Sales Tax Report.
Multiple Reporting Currencies
The Multiple Reporting Currencies (MRC) feature allows you to report and maintain accounting records at the transaction level, in more than one functional currency. You do this by defining one or more reporting sets of books, in addition to your primary set of books. In your reporting sets of books, you maintain records in a functional currency other than your primary functional currency. You can set up as many reporting sets of books as you need and associate them with a primary set of books.
Typically, you use MRC in the following situations:
- You operate in a country with an unstable currency and you need to concurrently report your business in a hard currency.
- Your company is multinational and you need to report financial information in a common functional currency other than that of the transaction or your primary functional currency.
- You operate in a country that is part of the European Monetary Union (EMU), and you want to concurrently report in Euro in preparation for the single European currency.
See: Multiple Reporting Currencies in Oracle Applications.
Documents on the Desktop
This feature lets you save an Oracle Applications window and the current record to the Navigator for future access. For example, you are viewing information about Customer ABC in the Customer Calls window, but another task requires your immediate attention. You 'save' the Customer Calls window and the current record to the Navigator. Later, you can quickly reopen the window from the Navigator and resume your work. This saves you time as you do not have to reopen the window and manually requery the information that you need.
The following Receivables windows provide this functionality:
