Oracle Internet Expenses Setup and Administration

This chapter covers the following topics:

Internet Expenses Setup

Internet Expenses Setup provides the administrator with the self-service pages necessary to manage the setup of Internet Expenses. To use Internet Expenses Setup, you must have access to the Internet Expenses Setup and Administration responsibility. See: Assigning Responsibilities to Users for more information.

Internet Expenses Setup is organized into the following areas. Each area is represented by a tabbed region:

Internet Expenses Administration

Internet Expenses Administration provides the administrator with the self-service pages necessary to manage the administration of Internet Expenses. To use Internet Expenses Administration, you must have access to the Internet Expenses Setup and Administration responsibility. See: Assigning Responsibilities to Users for more information.

Internet Expenses Administration contains the Credit Card tab.

Credit Card

Use the Credit Card tabbed region to administer your credit card programs. In the Credit Card Transactions page you can view the credit card transactions that were uploaded to the database. See: Credit Card Transaction Administration. In the New Credit Card Accounts page you can view the new accounts that were created during credit card upload. Use this page to activate and assign cards to employees. See: New Credit Card Account Administration.

Policy Compliance and Violation Types

Internet Expenses also provides enforcement, audit, and reporting functionality for policy violations.

Internet Expenses provides four different options to enforce your policies:

  1. By setting up schedules. See: Setting Up Schedules in Oracle Internet Expenses.

  2. By setting up credit card usage policies. See: Setting Up Credit Card Policies.

  3. By setting up exchange rate behavior. See: Setting Up Exchange Rate Behavior.

  4. By setting up receipt required behavior at the template level. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

The following table describes the violation types defined for Internet Expenses, including setup navigation, affected expense categories, and whether there is a monetary violation:

Violation Setup Navigation Expense Categories Affected Monetary Violation
Airfare Policy: Schedules Airfare No
Credit Card Required Credit Cards: Card Usage All cash expenses except Mileage and Per Diem No
Daily Limit Policy: Schedules Car Rental, Accommodations, Miscellaneous Yes
Daily Meals Sum Limit Policy: Schedules Meals Yes
Exchange Rate Limit Policy: Exchange Rates All except Mileage and Per Diem (cash and other expenses only) Yes
Individual Occurrence Limit Policy: Schedules Meals Yes
Number of Days Policy: Schedules Miscellaneous No
Receipt Missing Expense Report Template in Oracle Payables All except Mileage and Per Diem No

Note: You can define tolerances for monetary violations. See: Creating Policy Schedules.

Setting Up Schedules in Oracle Internet Expenses

Use the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility to set up your policy schedules and rate schedules for expenses reporting. Policy schedules let you enforce the policy guidelines that your company follows whereas rate schedules just calculate the expense amounts.

The schedules that you create provide rules, thresholds, and guidelines for calculating and validating expense reports prepared by your employees. You can set up one or more schedules for each of these expense categories:

The basic steps required to create and use schedules are:

  1. Define prerequisites. This step is required only for manually created schedules.

  2. Create schedules manually or through the upload process and activate them.

  3. If required, implement client extensions for per diem and mileage schedules.

  4. Select the appropriate expense category on the expense report template.

  5. Assign the schedule to the expense type.

When a self-service user enters an expense type assigned to one of these expense categories, Internet Expenses uses the active schedule assigned to the expense type to make these calculations:

For more information on how schedules, expense categories, and expense types are related, see: Defining Expense Report Templates.

There is setup information common to many schedules, such as locations, reimbursement currencies, and employee roles. In addition, schedules require information specific to its expense category, such as vehicle type for mileage schedules and meal allowances for meals schedules.

For detailed information about creating rate and policy schedules, see:

Creating Policy Schedules

Create policy schedules for your employees to use when they submit expense reports. Policy schedules contain the rules, rates, and allowable tolerances to use for a given expense category and time period. You can define policy schedules that reflect the guidelines of your company, or policy schedules that conform to the statutory requirements of a country where you operate. Because you define policy schedules at the site level, you can create different schedules with the guidelines appropriate to each division or sector of your operations.

As a self service user enters items in an expense report, Internet Expenses compares the values entered to the values and value ranges specified by the active policy schedule. If there is a policy violation, based on the profile option setup, the user may receive a message and must either change the value or enter a justification for the existing value. Internet Expenses provides a series of alerts to the approvers in your company for all expense reports submitted with policy violations.

A policy schedule contains one or more schedule periods. Because policy guidelines and statutory requirements change frequently, you can create different time periods and modify the rates and values of a policy schedule for each period. Internet Expenses uses the policy guidelines associated with the applicable period to validate expense reports. When you create a new schedule, you can:

When you apply an end date to a policy schedule, Internet Expenses automatically applies the same end date to the open period within the schedule. If the schedule was assigned to expense types, Internet Expenses prompts you to automatically apply the same end date to each expense type. (If any of these expense types are included in an itemization setup, then they are no longer available for itemization.) Once the system date is past the end date plus grace period, an end-dated schedule is no longer available in the Expense Report Templates window. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

You can create policy schedules for the expense categories Accommodations, Airfare, Car Rental, Meals, and Miscellaneous and assign them to each expense item that requires policy compliance. Expense reporting for mileage and per diem requires the use of rate schedules. See: Rate Schedules.

Note: Meals and accommodations schedules can also be created by uploading per diem rates provided by the U.S. government. See Creating Schedules through the Upload Process.

Business Rules for Policy Schedules

Business rules determine the information that policy schedules use to validate expense reports. A policy schedule consists of line records based on the combination of values belonging to each rule. For example, if a schedule uses the Locations rule with three locations and the Roles rule with three employee roles, there is a separate line record for each combination of role and location. If an expense report violates any line rule record, Internet Expenses responds according to the setting of the OIE: Enable Policy Validations profile option. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options.

The business rules for policy schedules are:

Currency

The Currency rule is a mandatory rule for all categories except the Airfare category, which does not use this rule. This rule governs the activity of reimbursement currencies on a schedule. The choices are Single Reimbursement Currency, Multiple Reimbursement Currencies, and Location Currency Rates. A company that wants to create one schedule per operating unit may prefer the Single Reimbursement Currency rule. A company that wants to create one schedule only may prefer the Multiple Reimbursement Currencies rule. The Location Currency Rates rule is of particular interest to those customers that want to define their business rules in the currency of the location of the transaction, as opposed to the reimbursable currency. In this context, one schedule can theoretically be used by all employees, regardless of their reimbursement currency preference.

Locations

The Location rule takes into account travel locations to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific locations, and a single rate for all locations not specified in the schedule. Use the Search function to create a list of locations for the schedule.

For per diem rate schedules, a rate is established based on the location selected by users. This location rule is not available for mileage rate schedules. Also see Setting Up Locations.

Roles

The Roles rule takes into account the self service user’s role in your company to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific employee roles, and a single rate for all roles not specified in the schedule. Use the Search function to create a list of roles for the schedule.

The Roles rule is a mandatory rule for the Airfare category. Also, you cannot define rates for the Airfare category.

Note: Because the Employee Roles rule often uses a business group to identify employee roles, use of this rule can make a schedule business group-specific.

Tolerance Limits

The Tolerance Limits rule allows for a tolerance level above the amount limits that users can enter on expense reports. This rule provides two options:

If the OIE: Enable Policy profile option is set to Prevent Submission, then the user cannot submit an expense report when the reimbursable amount exceeds the amount limit plus the tolerance. If the profile option is set to Prevent Submission, but tolerances are not defined, policy violations are still detected and recorded. In addition, users are warned of any policy violations prior to submitting expense reports.

If the OIE: Enable Policy profile option is set to either Warn Users or Inform Approvers, then any tolerance limits you defined are not used.

The Tolerance Limit rule is not used with airfare schedules.

Daily Limits

The Daily Limits rule is an embedded rule in the Accommodations, Car Rental, Meals, and Miscellaneous categories. You can set up the maximum permitted amount per day using this rule.

For the Meals category, the rule is called Meal Limits and includes special rules for calculating limits. You have the following options for the Meal Limits rule:

If you do not select the Daily Limits rule, daily limits are still enabled on the Schedule Details page, with a default of Daily Sum. If the expense report contains a value for the number of attendees, then Internet Expenses divides the meal amount by the number of attendees and treats the result as a single value for validation against the policy schedule. The number of attendees is not available for entry when the daily sum option is used. For more information, see: Setting Up Expense Category Fields.

If more than one Meals policy schedule is assigned to the same expense report template, Internet Expenses validates the sum of meal totals against the schedule with the lower value. For example, you assign dinner to Schedule A with a Daily Sum Limit of $100 and lunch to Schedule B with a Daily Sum Limit of $75. Internet Expenses validates the sum of dinner and lunch against Schedule B, for $75.

Number of Days

The Number of Days rule applies to the Miscellaneous category only. This rule prevents users from reporting an expense if the number of days entered on the expense report is less than the schedule number of days.

Setting Up a New Policy Schedule

Set up one or more policy schedules and schedule periods for each expense category that you require for employee expense reporting. The task flow for setting up a policy schedule is similar for all expense categories except Airfare.

See: Navigating the Schedules Setup for information about using the Internet Expenses Setup pages to create policy schedules.

See: Setting Up a New Airfare Policy Schedule for information about creating a policy schedule for the Airfare category.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up policy schedules, you may need to complete one or more of these tasks:

To set up a new policy schedule:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Select the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility for the applicable site.

  3. Choose the expense category to create the schedule that you want.

  4. Click the Create New Schedule button to navigate to the General Information page.

  5. Enter a Schedule Name and Description, and a Start Date for the schedule.

    • You may want to use a schedule name that identifies the usage of this particular schedule.

    • You can enter a Start Date prior to the system date in order to make this schedule available for expense reports over the prior periods that apply to the schedule.

  6. Select the Currency Rule and the Optional Rules to use for this schedule.

  7. Click Next to navigate to the Business Rules page.

    Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and the rules that you selected. See: Business Rules for Policy Schedules for an explanation of each rule.

  8. Select the values that you want for each rule, then click Next to navigate to the Schedule Periods page. See: Search Function.

    Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and a line record for the first schedule period.

  9. Enter a Period Name and Start Date. Internet Expenses defaults the schedule start date as the read-only start date for the first period. You must enter a start date for subsequent periods.

    Define periods that relate to the type of schedule you are creating. For example, you can define annual periods for fixed expenses, or create seasonal periods that reflect seasonal price fluctuations, such as for hotels. If you want to duplicate seasonal periods, ensure that you duplicate them in the same order that they were originally defined.

  10. Do not allow gaps or overlaps between periods. To create a set of periods with continuous date sequences, you can create a new period or use the Duplicate icon to copy the periods and enter the updates that you want.

  11. Click the Details icon to navigate to the Period Details page to enter the rate for each line record.

    By default, Internet Expenses displays all records. You can use the Search function to display the records that you want.

  12. If this is a Miscellaneous schedule, enter a Minimum Number of Days.

    This value specifies the minimum number of days that must be reported on an expense line to qualify for declaring miscellaneous expenses.

  13. Enter the appropriate values for each line record. You can use the Mass Updates button to apply the same percentage to selected records.

  14. Click Return to save your work and return to the Schedule Periods page.

  15. Click Activate to activate the schedule.

  16. Define expenses report templates, and assign expense categories and policy schedules to expense types. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

Setting Up a New Airfare Policy Schedule

Set up airfare policy schedules to determine the class of air ticket that your employees can purchase. The setup for airfare policy schedules uses the Employee Roles rule to assign a specific ticket class to each employee role. Internet Expenses creates an “All Other” record to assign a ticket class to all roles not specified in the schedule.

You assign ticket class assignments at the schedule period level. You can create additional period records and change individual ticket assignments according to your company requirements.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up policy schedules, you may need to complete one or more of these tasks:

To set up a new airfare policy schedule:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Select the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility for the applicable site.

  3. Navigate to the Airfare expense category.

  4. Click the Create New Schedule button to navigate to the General Information page.

  5. Enter a Schedule Name and Description, and a Start Date for the schedule.

  6. Use the Search Function to create a list of employee roles for this schedule, then click Next to navigate to the Schedule Periods page.

  7. Enter a Period Name and Start Date.

  8. Click the Details icon to navigate to the Period Details page.

  9. Select the Domestic and International Class of Ticket that you want for each employee, and the ticket class assignments to use for All Other employees.

  10. Click Activate to activate the schedule.

  11. Save your work.

  12. Assign the Airfare expense category and policy schedules to expense types. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

Updating Policy Schedules

You can modify the business rule assignments to a policy schedule until you activate the schedule. Once you activate a schedule and assign it to an expense template, you cannot add or remove the business rules on a schedule.

You can apply end dates to rules records for Multiple Currencies, Locations, and Employee Roles. When the system date passes the end date plus grace period, Internet Expenses sets all schedule records that use end-dated rule values to the status Inactive. You can view the status of individual schedule records by clicking the History icon for a schedule or schedule period.

Rate Schedules

A rate schedule contains the rules and rates for calculating the reimbursable amounts for mileage and per diem. The Cash and Other Expenses page provides self service users with separate sections for entering and calculating mileage and per diem expenses. Internet Expenses adds these amounts to the user's credit card and receipt-based expenses to provide a total for an expense report.

You can define rate schedules that reflect the guidelines of your company, or rate schedules that conform to the statutory requirements of countries that your employees visit. Because you define rate schedules at the site level, you can create different schedules with the guidelines appropriate to each division or sector of your operations.

Business rules determine the information that rate schedules use to calculate rates for mileage and per diem. A rate schedule consists of line records based on the combination of values belonging to each rule. For example, if a per diem rate schedule uses the Locations rule with three locations and the Time-Based Entry rule with four time intervals, the schedule calculates a different per diem rate depending upon the applicable combination of location and time interval that the user enters on the expense report.

When you create a new rate schedule, it is recommended to enter a start date prior to the system date, in order to make your new schedule available for expense reporting over the prior periods that apply to the schedule. If the schedule was assigned to expense types, Internet Expenses prompts you to automatically apply the same end date to each expense type. Once the system date is past the end date plus grace period, an end-dated schedule is no longer available in the Expense Report Templates window. See: Defining Expense Report Templates for more information.

Creating Mileage Rate Schedules

Create mileage rate schedules for your employees to use when they submit expense reports. A mileage rate schedule can take into account distance traveled, type and category of vehicle, type of fuel, and the number of passengers.

Business Rules for Mileage Rate Schedules

The business rules for mileage rate schedules are:

The Per Diem Type controls the availability of Free Meals and Free Accommodations rules.

Currency

The Currency rule is the only mandatory rule for rate schedules. This rule determines the way in which Internet Expenses chooses a currency for the calculation of reimbursable amounts. See: Creating Policy Schedules.

Roles

The Roles rule takes into account the self service user's role in your company to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific employee roles, and a single rate for all roles not specified in the schedule. Use the Search Function to create a list of roles for the schedule.

Passengers

The Passengers rule assigns a rate to use for each passenger in the vehicle (other than the driver). The calculated amount becomes part of the reimbursable amount according to this formula:

(mileage rate * distance) + ((rate per passenger * number of passengers) * distance) + (sum (rate for each additional rate type selected * distance)) = reimbursable amount

You can define a single passenger rate for the entire period or a different passenger rate for each line record. The passenger rate can be a fixed amount or a percentage of the mileage rate. The maximum number of passengers available for selection in expense reports is limited to 10.

Note: If you define passenger rate as a single value at the period level, you must choose Single Reimbursement as the Currency rule for the schedule.

Distance Thresholds

The Distance Thresholds rule uses distance traveled to determine the reimbursable rate. This allows you, for example, to apply a different rate to an employee who travels under 100 miles to employees who regularly travel several thousand miles in the same time period.

You can select one of two options to indicate how distance threshold should be used for mileage rate calculation.

  1. Per Period. Threshold is applied to the distance traveled in the entire period.

    The schedule periods determine the periods of distance accumulated. Internet Expenses displays the current and two prior periods of distance data on the employee's Expenses Preferences page.

  2. Per Trip. Threshold is applied to the distance traveled in a trip.

    Each mileage expense line is considered as a trip. Accumulated mileage does not have any effect on the rate.

You create a set of intervals with designated mileage thresholds, and assign the rate to use for each interval. The value that you enter becomes the threshold for the first interval. This table displays an example:

Thresholds Entered Intervals Created
3000 2 intervals: the first up to and including 3000, and a second interval greater than 3000.
100, 1000, 5000 4 intervals: the first up to and including 100; the second greater than 100 and up to and including 1000; the third greater than 1000 and up to and including 5000; the fourth greater than 5000.

Note: You can only have one rate schedule in use per operating unit at any given time that makes use of the Distance Thresholds rule. If you want to create and apply a new rate schedule that makes use of Distance Thresholds, you must disable the previous schedule by applying an end date.

Vehicle Categories

The Vehicle Categories rule determines which vehicles are available for mileage reimbursement and the rate to use for each vehicle. Internet Expenses provides the categories Personal (employee-owned), Business (company-owned), and Rental (rented or leased). You can define additional categories in the Lookups window. See: Defining Payables Lookups for Oracle Internet Expenses. You can also specify for each category if the vehicle type and fuel type are required fields.

Vehicle Types

The Vehicle Types rule determines which types of vehicle and vehicle engine sizes are available for mileage reimbursement and the rate to use for each type. Internet Expenses includes a number of standard vehicle types, such as cars, vans, and motorcycles. You can define additional vehicle types in the Lookups window. See: Defining Payables Lookups for Oracle Internet Expenses.

Fuel Types

The Fuel Types rule determines which fuels used in vehicles are available for mileage reimbursement and the rate to use for each fuel. Internet Expenses includes a number of standard fuel types, such as gasoline, diesel, and electricity. You can define additional fuel types in the Lookups window. See: Defining Payables Lookups for Oracle Internet Expenses.

Note: If you enable vehicle or fuel types rules, you may want to ensure that your use of vehicle attributes is consistent across all schedules for the same operating unit or expense report template. Otherwise the defaults that users define on their Expenses Preferences pages may not work in all cases.

Additional Rates

The Additional Rates rule determines which rate types are available for mileage reimbursement, and the rate to use for each type. The calculated amount becomes part of the reimbursable amount according to this formula:

(mileage rate * distance) + ((rate per passenger * number of passengers) * distance) + (sum (rate for each additional rate type selected * distance)) = reimbursable amount

In some countries, additional amounts are paid over the base mileage rate based on certain criteria. For example, if the user carries heavy equipment in the vehicle, the user is reimbursed an additional amount over the base mileage rate. You can define the rates for each combination of additional rate type and other selected rules.

Setting Up a New Mileage Rate Schedule

Set up one or more mileage rate schedules and schedule periods that you require for employee expense reporting.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up mileage rate schedules, you may need to complete one or more of these tasks:

To set up a new mileage rate schedule:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Select the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility for the applicable site.

  3. Navigate to the Mileage expense category.

  4. Click the Create New Schedule button to navigate to the General Information page.

  5. Enter a Schedule Name and Description, and a Start Date for the schedule.

    • You may want to use a schedule name that identifies the usage of this particular schedule.

    • You can enter a Start Date prior to the system date in order to make this schedule available for expense reports over the prior periods that apply to the schedule.

  6. Select Miles, Swedish Miles, or Kilometers as the Distance Unit of Measure to use for the schedule.

  7. Select the Currency Rule and the Optional Rules to use for this schedule.

  8. Click Next to navigate to the Business Rules page.

  9. Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and the rules that you selected. See: Business Rules for Rate Schedules for an explanation of each rule.

  10. Select the values that you want for each rule, then click Next to navigate to the Schedule Periods page. See: Search Function.

    Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and a line record for the first schedule period.

  11. Enter a Period Name and Start Date. Internet Expenses defaults the schedule start date as the read-only start date for the first period. You must enter a start date for subsequent periods.

  12. Do not allow gaps or overlaps between periods. If you want to create a set of periods with continuous date sequences, you can create a new period or use the Duplicate icon to copy the periods and enter the updates that you want.

  13. Click the Details icon to navigate to the Period Details page to enter the rate for each line record.

    By default, Internet Expenses displays all records. You can use the Search Function to display the records that you want.

  14. If you selected the Passengers rule, enter the passenger rates.

  15. If you selected additional rates, enter the rate for each rate type combination. Additional rates are shown in a separate table below the mileage rates.

  16. Enter a value for each line record. You can use the Mass Updates button to apply the same percentage to selected records.

  17. Click Return to save your work and return to the Schedule Periods page.

  18. Click Activate to activate the schedule.

  19. Assign the Mileage expense category and rate schedules to expense types. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

Uploading Accumulated Mileage for Mid-Year Implementations

Companies implementing Internet Expenses during a financial or tax year must upload accumulated mileage for their employees from their legacy systems because, in some countries, this mileage can cause a difference in rates and tax consequences. Use the Upload Accumulated Mileage program to upload accumulated mileage into Internet Expenses. The program accepts a semicolon-delimited ASCII text file in the following format:

The Upload Accumulated Mileage program converts accumulated mileage to kilometers, derives the person ID from Oracle HRMS using the employee number, and creates a row for each person in the input file.

Prerequisite steps for enabling users:

  1. Create a mileage schedule and assign it to a template.

  2. Run the Upload Accumulated Mileage program.

  3. Assign an expense reporting responsibility to users.

Warning: The Upload Accumulated Mileage program is intended only to support mid-year implementations. Do not use this program after the implementation is completed and Internet Expenses is enabled for use. See: Upload Accumulated Mileage program, Oracle Payables User Guide.

Parameters

File Name. Enter the filename including the full file path.

The file must reside in utl_file_dir.

Organization. Enter an organization to limit the program run to this operating unit only. Leave the field blank to run the program for all organizations.

Period Date. Enter all active periods in the mileage schedule with distance threshold rules available to the selected organization through expense templates.

Distance Unit of Measure. Enter the unit of measure for distance. The options are Miles and Kilometers.

Creating Per Diem Rate Schedules

Create per diem rate schedules for your employees to use when they submit expense reports. A per diem rate schedule can take into account travel locations, rates per unit of time, and free meals and accommodations. Per diem rate schedules also use the currency and employee role business rules.

You can define two types of per diem schedules based on schedule type.

Business Rules for Per Diem Rate Schedules

The business rules for per diem rate schedules are:

The per diem type controls the availability of the Free Meals and Free Accommodations rules.

Currency

The Currency rule is the only mandatory rule for per diem rate schedules. This rule determines the way in which Internet Expenses chooses a currency for the calculation of reimbursable amounts. See: Creating Policy Schedules.

Locations

The Location rule takes into account travel locations to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific locations, and a single rate for all locations not specified in the schedule. Use the Search function to create a list of locations for the schedule. Also see Setting Up Locations.

Roles

The Roles rule takes into account the self service user's role in your company to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific employee roles, and a single rate for all roles not specified in the schedule. Use the Search Function to create a list of roles for the schedule.

Time-Based Entry

The Time-Based Entry rule lets you create different rates based on different time periods.

Time period. Select a time period to define how the trip duration is organized into rate periods for per diem calculation.

Rate Periods. Define the time thresholds and the per diem eligibility criteria to enforce your company’s policies. You can define the minimum trip duration for per diem eligibility, thresholds for standard rates, and thresholds for same day rates.

Note: If an expense template has many per diem expense types, and only some per diem rate schedules use the Time-Based Entry rule, then the Start and End Times, End Date, and Number of Days columns are hidden on the expenses entry multi-row pages. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

Note: For schedules that do not use the Time-Based Entry rule, you can define First and Last Day Rate percentages in the Schedule Details page.

Multiple Locations Rules

You can define the rules to calculate the location rate per period that must be used when the employee travels to multiple destinations. Multiple locations rules are applicable only when an employee travels to multiple destinations within the same rate period. The multiple locations rules will be available only if the location rule is selected as an optional rule.

The rules to determine the per diem rate are:

For non-time based entry, you can enable entry of multiple locations as part of the Locations rule setup.

Multiple Locations in Expense Entry. If a multiple locations rule is enabled for the per diem expense type in expenses entry, users can enter the locations visited and the time spent at each location. Internet Expenses will apply the multiple locations rule associated with the expense type to derive the applicable per diem rate.

Time-Based Per Diem in Entry

If the time-based rules are enabled for the per diem expense type in entry, then the user must enter a start date and time, and an end date and time. Internet Expenses calculates the rate periods based on the start and end times and applies the rules defined in the rate schedule associated with the per diem expense type.

To determine the per diem rate per period, Internet Expenses applies the eligibility rules and thresholds in the following order:

Free Meals

The Free Meals rule assigns deduction values for free meals during the expense reporting period. You can define a single deduction value, deduction values for each meal type, or deduction values by number of meals. After the user enters the free meals, Internet Expenses uses the deduction assignments on the schedule to calculate the total deduction for free meals. This deduction amount for each rate period is then subtracted from the per diem rate for the rate period. The free meals optional rule will only be available for the Meals and Meals and Accommodations per diem type.

Note: Enter the minimum amount as zero to avoid a negative value for the reimbursement amount.

Free Accommodations

The Free Accommodations rule assigns either deduction or reimbursement amounts for free accommodation during the expense reporting period. After the user enters the number of free accommodation days, Internet Expenses uses either the deduction or reimbursement assignment on the schedule to calculate the total deduction or reimbursement for free accommodation. This amount is then subtracted from or added to the per diem rate for the rate period. The Free Accommodations optional rule will only be available for the Meals, Accommodations, and Meals and Accommodations per diem types.

Night Rate Eligibility Rules

Use Night Rate Eligibility Rules to define your company’s policies for reimbursing amounts for free accommodations. This region is available only if Add amounts to reimbursable amount is selected as the Free Accommodations optional rule. You can define the minimum hours of night stay required during a specified time frame to qualify for the night rate. The user is eligible for free accommodations or night rate allowances only if there is no hotel expense claim for the rate period.

You can select one of the two options to define the night rates used:

Business Rules for Allowances Schedules

The business rules for allowances schedules are:

There are no specific rules for allowances. The allowances type determines the allowance rules and amounts that you can define.

Currency

The Currency rule is a mandatory rule for rate schedules. This rule determines the way in which Internet Expenses chooses a currency for the calculation of reimbursable amounts. See: Creating Policy Schedules.

Locations

The Location rule takes into account travel locations to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific locations, and a single rate for all locations not specified in the schedule. Use the Search function to create a list of locations for the schedule. See: Setting Up Locations.

Roles

The Roles rule takes into account the self-service user's role in your company to determine valid rates. You can define individual rates for specific employee roles, and a single rate for all roles not specified in the schedule. Use the Search Function to create a list of roles for the schedule.

Defining Allowances

Based on the allowances type, you can define meal allowances, accommodation allowances, or both. The allowances type can be Meals, Accommodations, or Meals and Accommodations.

Meal Allowances

You can define the allowance method and a time period used for meal allowance calculations.

Accommodation Allowances

Accommodation allowances are enabled if the allowances type is Accommodations or Both. No additional setup is required.

Setting Up a New Per Diem Rate Schedule

Set up one or more per diem rate schedules and schedule periods that you require for employee expense reporting.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up per diem rate schedules, you might need to complete one or more of these tasks:

To set up a new per diem rate schedule:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Select the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility for the applicable site.

  3. Navigate to the Per Diem expense category.

  4. Click the Create New Schedule button to navigate to the General Information page.

  5. Enter a Schedule Name and Description, and a Start Date for the schedule.

    You may want to use a schedule name that identifies the usage of this particular schedule.

  6. Select the schedule type as Per Diem.

  7. Select the per diem type to indicate the type of per diem defined in the schedule. Select:

    • Meals, if the per diem rate contains only meal rates

    • Accommodations, if the per diem rate contains only accommodation rates

    • Meals and Accommodations, if the per diem rate contains both meal and accommodation rates

    • Others, for all other types of per diem

  8. Select the Currency Rule and the Optional Rules to use for this schedule.

  9. Click Next to navigate to the Business Rules page. See: Business Rules for Rate Schedules for an explanation of each rule.

  10. Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and the rules that you selected.

  11. Select the values that you want for each rule, then click Next to navigate to the Schedule Periods page. See: Search Function.

    Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and a line record for the first schedule period.

  12. Enter a Period Name and Start Date. Internet Expenses defaults the schedule start date as the read-only start date for the first period. You must enter a start date for subsequent periods.

  13. Do not allow gaps or overlaps between periods. If you want to create a set of periods with continuous date sequences, you can create a new period or use the Duplicate icon to copy the periods and enter the updates that you want.

  14. Click the Details icon to navigate to the Period Details page to enter the rate for each line record.

    By default, Internet Expenses displays all records. You can use the Search Function to display the records that you want.

  15. Enter a value for each line record. You can use the Mass Updates button to apply the same percentage to selected records.

  16. If you selected the Free Meals or Free Accommodations rule, in the Free Items Calculation Method column choose whether to enter percentage values or specific amounts.

  17. Click Return to save your work and return to the Schedule Periods page.

  18. Click Activate to activate the schedule.

  19. Assign the Per Diem expense category and rate schedules to expense types. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

You can also create per diem schedules through the upload process. See Creating Schedules through Upload.

Setting Up a New Allowances Rate Schedule

Set up one or more allowances rate schedules and schedule periods that you require for employee expense reporting.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up allowances rate schedules, you may need to complete one or more of these tasks:

To set up a new allowances rate schedule:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Select the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility for the applicable site.

  3. Navigate to the Per Diem expense category.

  4. Click the Create New Schedule button to navigate to the General Information page.

  5. Enter a Schedule Name and Description, and a Start Date for the schedule.

    You may want to use a schedule name that identifies the usage of this particular schedule.

  6. Select the schedule type as Allowances.

  7. Select the allowances type to indicate the type of allowance defined in the schedule. Select:

    • Meals, to define meal allowances

    • Accommodations, to define accommodation allowances

    • Meals and Accommodations, to define meal allowances and accommodation allowances

  8. Select the Currency Rule and the Optional Rules to use for this schedule.

  9. Click Next to navigate to the Business Rules page. See: Business Rules for Rate Schedules for an explanation of each rule.

  10. Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and the rules that you selected.

  11. Select the values that you want for each rule, then click Next to navigate to the Schedule Periods page. See: Search Function.

    Internet Expenses displays the schedule header information and a line record for the first schedule period.

  12. Enter a Period Name and Start Date. Internet Expenses defaults the schedule start date as the read-only start date for the first period. You must enter a start date for subsequent periods.

  13. Do not allow gaps or overlaps between periods. If you want to create a set of periods with continuous date sequences, you can create a new period or use the Duplicate icon to copy the periods and enter the updates that you want.

  14. Click the Details icon to navigate to the Period Details page to enter the rate for each line record.

    By default, Internet Expenses displays all records. You can use the Search Function to display the records that you want.

  15. Enter a value for each line record. You can use the Mass Updates button to apply the same percentage to selected records.

  16. If you selected the Free Meals or Free Accommodations rule, in the Free Items Calculation Method column choose whether to enter percentage values or specific amounts.

  17. Click Return to save your work and return to the Schedule Periods page.

  18. Click Activate to activate the schedule.

  19. Assign the Per Diem expense category and rate schedules to expense types. See: Defining Expense Report Templates.

Updating Rate Schedules

Internet Expenses lets you set up per diem, meals, and accommodations schedules by uploading rates provided by U.S. government agencies. Using the upload process, you can create a schedule or update an existing schedule. You can access the Upload Rates process from the Requests tab using the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility.

Note: The Upload program cannot be invoked from the concurrent program window in Oracle Applications.

Internet Expenses currently supports the CONUS (CONtinental United States) and the OCONUS (Outside CONtinental United States) rates for upload. The files must be in semicolon-delimited ASCII file format. These files can be downloaded from the Per Diem, Travel, and Transportation Allowances Committee web site.

CONUS and OCONUS files contain per diem rates for meals and accommodations for each location. When the accommodation rate for a location varies by season, the file will contain multiple rates for the location with seasonal start and end dates. In addition, each location rate has an effective start date. The files also provide the rates for all locations not listed specifically. The following two tables describe the CONUS and OCONUS file structures.

CONUS file structure
Description Type
State Char (32)
Locality/City Char (32)
County Char (32)
Season Begin Char (5)
Season End Char (5)
Max Lodging 999
No Government Meals 999
Proportional Meals 999
Max Per Diem Rate 999
Effective Date Char (10)

Note: Max Per Diem Rate = Maximum Lodging + Local Meals Rate + Local Incidentals Rate

OCONUS file structure
Description Type
State Char (42)
Locality/City Char (32)
Season Begin Char (5)
Season End Char (5)
Max Lodging 999
No Government Meals 999
Proportional Meals 999
Max Per Diem Rate 999
Effective Date Char (10)
Off Base Inc. 999
Footnote 999
Footnote Rate 999
Max Per Diem Rate 999
Effective Date Char (10)

Note: Max Per Diem Rate = Maximum Lodging + Local Meals Rate + Local Incidentals Rate

Steps to Create or Update Schedules

Complete the following steps to create or update schedules using the Upload process:

You must save the data file to upload in a directory path listed by the UTL_FILE_DIR parameter in your init.ora file. See: Modifying the init.ora File.

  1. Run the Upload program with your desired parameters.

  2. Review the output and correct invalid locations. Invalid locations appear in the Define Locations page with status of Invalid.

    Note: This step is required only when uploading OCONUS rates.

  3. Optionally rerun the program to upload resolved records.

    Alternatively, you can manually update the schedule. You can enable additional rules, add/remove additional locations, or enter/modify free items deductions/additions using the schedules setup pages.

  4. Optionally activate the schedule.

Creating Schedules through the Upload Process

Internet Expenses uses the parameters selected for the upload process to determine which optional rules to enable for the schedule.

For meals and accommodations schedules, the only optional rule enabled is Daily Limits. Internet Expenses stores the rates as the Daily Sum Limit in the schedule.

For per diem schedules, Internet Expenses determines the daily rate and per diem type using the rate components selected in the Rate Calculation region.

Internet Expenses enables the Free Meals rule if the meals deduction method is selected, and enables the Free Accommodations rule if the Use Free Accommodations check box is selected. Internet Expenses determines whether to use accommodations additions or deductions based on the rate components selected.

The following table lists the per diem type applicable for schedules created through upload:

Per Diem Type Local Meals Rate Proportional Meals Rate Incidental Rate Accommodations
Local Meals Rate X      
Local Meals Rate and Incidentals X   X  
Proportional Meals Rate   X    
Proportional Meals Rate and Incidentals   X X  
Accommodations       X
Local Meals Rate and Accommodations X     X
Proportional Meals Rate and Accommodations   X   X
Local Meals Rate, Incidentals, and Accommodations X   X X
Proportional Meals Rate, Incidentals, and Accommodations   X X X

Note: For schedules created through upload, the per diem type cannot be changed.

During upload, the upload process validates whether the location already exists in Internet Expenses by comparing the city/location, county, state/province, and country fields:

Schedules created through upload will remain in ‘Saved’ status until they are manually activated.

To create a schedule through the upload process:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Go to the Requests tab.

  3. Select the rate type:

    • CONUS - For CONtinental United States rates

    • OCONUS - For Outside-CONtinental United States rates

  4. Select Create Schedule.

  5. Enter the full path of the data file.

  6. Select an expense category.

  7. Enter a unique name for the schedule.

  8. Enter a start date for the schedule and a name for the period.

  9. For expense category - Meals

    Select whether the rate calculation is Local Meals Rate or Proportional Meals Rate.

  10. For expense category - Per Diem

    • Select the Meals check box if the rate calculation includes meals. Select whether the rate calculation uses the local meals rate or proportional meals rate.

    • Select the Incidental Rate check box if the rate calculation includes incidental expenses.

    • Select the Accommodations check box if the rate calculation includes accommodations.

    • Select the free meals deduction as Single Deduction to enter a single meal deduction value for a day. Select Deduction by Meal Type to specify the free meal deduction value based on the type of meal.

    • Select the calculation amount for free meal deductions as amount or percent.

      Note: If Deduction by Meal Type is selected, then the only available option is Percent.

    • Enter the deduction value for the free meals deduction.

    • Select the Use Free Accommodations check box to enable the Free Accommodations rule. Internet Expenses uses Free Accommodations Deductions if the rate calculation includes an accommodations rate, and Free Accommodations Additions if the rate calculation does not include an accommodations rate.

  11. For expense category - Accommodations

    No further selection is required.

  12. Click Upload.

Validating Locations

To validate locations in the file that do not already exist in Internet Expenses, the upload process compares the country of the location against the country names in the FND_TERRITORIES table:

Updating Schedules through the Upload Process

You can use the Upload process to update schedules that were originally created using the upload process. Internet Expenses enforces the existing rules for the schedule for updates.

During upload, the upload process validates whether the location already exists in the schedule by comparing the city/location, county, state/province, and country fields:

To update a schedule through upload:

  1. Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

  2. Go to the Requests tab.

  3. Select the rate type:

    • CONUS - For CONtinental United States rates

    • OCONUS - For Outside CONtinental United States rates

  4. Select Update Schedule.

  5. Enter the full path of the data file.

  6. Select the expense category and name of the schedule to modify.

  7. Select the period type:

    • New - Create a new period.

    • Existing - Modify an existing period. Internet Expenses uses the period start date to determine the period to be updated.

  8. If you selected New as the period type, enter the period start date and period name.

  9. For the Per Diem expense category:

    • Select the calculation amount for free meal deductions as amount or percent.

    • Enter the deduction value for free meals deduction.

  10. Click Upload.

Manually Updating Schedules Created through Upload

Use the schedules setup pages to enable additional rules, add/remove additional locations, or enter/modify free items deductions/additions for schedules created through the upload process. You cannot enter seasonal rates or end date a rate record, however, using the schedule setup pages. You can update schedules until a schedule is assigned to an expense type.

Navigating the Schedules Setup

Use the pages in Internet Expenses Setup to create and maintain your rate and policy schedules. The pages common to each expense category for setting up schedules are:

The schedule setup pages guide you through the process of creating a schedule or modifying an existing schedule. The steps to creating a schedule are:

  1. Enter schedule header information and select the rules to use for the schedule.

  2. Enter definitions for each of the selected rules.

  3. Create periods for the schedule.

  4. Define rates and related information for individual periods.

Summary page

The Summary page is the first page displayed when you choose an expense category. The page shows you the list of schedules for the category and related information.

You can initiate these operations from the Summary page:

General Information page

Internet Expenses displays the General Information page when you click the Create New Schedule button or the Update General icon in the Summary page. Filling out the General Information page is the first step in creating a schedule.

Use this page to:

Business Rules page

Internet Expenses displays the Business Rules page when you click the Next button on the General Information page or the Back button on the Schedule Periods page. Filling out the Business Rules page is the second step in creating a schedule.

Use this page to enter specific definitions for each rule that you selected in the General Information page. By default, Internet Expenses applies the definitions that you enter to all periods of the schedule. You update rule definitions in the Business Rules page; these changes apply to the current and all future schedule periods. You will enter individual rule values for each schedule period using the Period Details page.

Schedule Periods page

Internet Expenses displays the Schedule Periods page when you click the Next button on the Business Rules page or the Update Details icon on the Summary page. Defining periods and entering period details information is the third step in creating a schedule.

The Schedule Periods page displays the periods belonging to the schedule. A schedule period designates the mileage and per diem rates or the policy rates to use on employee expense reports for a given time period. By default, Internet Expenses creates the first period when you define the schedule business rules and navigate to the Schedule Periods page. You can create additional periods and modify the values in each period to suit your business needs.

You must enter the start and end dates of schedule periods in chronological order. The start date of the next period must be the day following the end date of the previous period. The start and end dates cannot overlap, and you cannot have gaps between periods.

You can initiate these operations from the Schedule Periods page:

Period Details page

Internet Expenses displays the Period Details page when you click the Details icon for a given period. Use the Period Details page to update information for a period. You can use the Search Function to display the period records that you want.

Internet Expenses generates period records based on the rules that you selected for the schedule. Internet Expenses automatically generates a separate read-only period record for each combination of rule definitions belonging to the schedule. You enter values for each record individually, or update existing values individually or using Mass Updates. You can also click the History icon to view the change history for a specific line record.

Buttons

The buttons on the Internet Expenses Setup pages provide the functionality described below:

Each time you make changes to an existing schedule, you must click Activate again to apply these changes.

Note: You should only use these buttons to navigate Internet Expenses Setup. If you attempt to navigate from a page that contains unsaved data by clicking menu tabs or page links, Internet Expenses does not save the data and does not warn you that the data will be lost.

Common Setup Features

Use these features in Internet Expenses Setup to help you display and update information for schedule setup:

Update as a Group/Mass Updates

The buttons Update as a Group and Mass Updates display a Mass Update page. Use the Mass Update page to apply the same set of updates to many records at once.

To enter mass updates:

  1. Select the records that you want to update from the current page.

  2. Click the Update as a Group or Mass Updates button.

    Internet Expenses displays the records that you selected from the previous page in a read-only table, with the updatable fields in a separate region.

  3. Enter the values that you want in each field.

  4. Click the Apply button to apply these values to each record in the table. Internet Expenses returns to the previous page.

Search Function

Use the Search function in Internet Expenses Setup to perform these operations:

Display Updatable Records

Use the Search function in the Define Locations page, Define Exchange Rate Behavior page, and schedule details pages to display selected records for creation and update. By default, Internet Expenses displays all updatable records.

To select the records that you want:

  1. Choose a column name from the Search choice list.

    The choice list contains the searchable column names belonging to the table of the current page.

  2. Enter a column value in the available field. You can enter a partial value with the percentage (%) wildcard character.

  3. Click the Go button to display the results of your search.

    If you have unsaved data when you click Go, Internet Expenses gives you the option to save before continuing with the search. If you continue the search without saving, any unsaved data is lost.

Creating a List of Records

Use the Search function to create a list of operating units, or to create lists of business rule values for locations, multiple reimbursement currencies, and employee roles to use for your schedule definitions. The operating unit list appears on all pages that require setup at the operating-unit level. The schedule rules lists appear on the Business Rules pages.

You first create an Available list using search criteria. You then create the correct list by drawing from the records in the Available list. You can add and remove records in the Available and current lists at any time.

To create a list of active records:

  1. If you are creating an Available Employee Roles list, select a business group and role type to use to create your Available list. If the role type is Job, then you must also select a business group, because a role type may be unique across business groups.

  2. In the Available list, check the Select box of the records that you want, then click the Add to Schedule button to create an active list.

  3. Update records in the active list:

    • Enter an End Date. If you do not enter an end date, the record remains active.

    • Add new records from the Available list.

    • Click the Remove icon to remove a record. Once a schedule is active and assigned to one or more expense types, you cannot remove rule values. If you add new rule values to a schedule that is already active, you can remove these new values until the schedule is re-activated.

History Page

You can click on the History icon to view the change history of a schedule, period, or line record. The History page lists the date and type of change, and which user made the change.

Rate and Policy Schedule Statuses

Rate and policy schedule records can have these statuses:

  1. Null - Default status for new schedules.

  2. Saved - Status when schedules are created by auto-generation, when the user duplicates a period or schedule, or when the user modifies an existing active schedule and saves the work.

    Note: Saved records are not referenced during expenses entry, only active records are referenced.

  3. Active - Status when the user activates a schedule by clicking the Activate button on the Schedule Periods page.

  4. Duplicated - Status when a user duplicates a period or an entire schedule, without saving or activating the schedule.

  5. Inactive - Status when the details record is inactive and the user cannot reference the record during expenses entry.

    Note: A record will have a status of Inactive only when its schedule rule values have been end-dated and the system date is past the end date plus the grace period.

  6. Archived - Status of old records is changed to Archived when the user modifies an active record. Archived records are not displayed on the schedule details page. You can only view them on the Schedule History page.

    Note: The Archived status ensures that you can return to previous records.

Updating Per Diem Schedules

You can modify the business rule assignments to a rate schedule until you activate the schedule. Once you activate a schedule and assign it to an expense template, you cannot add or remove the business rules on the schedule. You can add or end date locations and roles in a schedule even after it is activated.

You can apply end dates to these rules - Multiple Currencies, Locations, and Roles.

Defining Operating Units

If your company uses multiple operating units, set up and maintain the list of operating units that require Internet Expenses definitions. The operating units that you select appear in the definition tables on all applicable setup pages. The features in Internet Expenses that require setup at the operating-unit level are:

The first time that you access the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility, the system defaults to your own operating unit and displays the Context tabbed region for you to set up a list of operating units. You can use the Context tab at any time to update the list of operating units.

You can perform setup tasks that are operating unit-specific for every operating unit that you define, or for your single operating unit if you have not defined operating units.

Note: If you have function security enabled with access only to the operating unit you are assigned, or if you do not use Multi-Org functionality, then you do not have access to this setup page.

Defining operating units. Define a list of active operating units in the Context tabbed region. The operating units in this list appear in the definition tables on all pages that require setup at the operating-unit level. If you do not define a list of operating units, you can only perform setup on the one operating unit that the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility is assigned to.

Removing operating units

You can remove operating units from the current list at any time. If you have already assigned definitions to an operating unit that you want to remove, the definitions remain active.

Expense Allocations

Set up Internet Expenses to allow end users to update and validate accounting flexfield segments for individual expense lines. Internet Expenses also lets users update multiple expense lines at the same time. This is useful, for example, for users who consistently charge expenses to accounts that are not part of their usual accounting.

Internet Expenses can provide automatic validation of the account code combinations that users enter. Managers can review the account code combinations on expense reports.

Splitting Expense Allocations

You can also set up Internet Expenses to let users split expense lines into multiple distributions.

This is useful, for example, when a consultant travels to a city to work on two assignments for two different cost centers. In this case, the consultant might need to allocate a single expense such as airfare to two different cost centers.

Non-Project Enabled Expense Lines. When enabled, users can split expense lines and update accounting flexfield segments on the resulting distributions.

Project Enabled Expense Lines. Users can split one or more expense lines for the following items:

Internet Expenses also lets users split expenses based on the receipt amount.

Users can use one of the following criteria:

Reviewing and Approving Expense Allocations With Oracle Approvals Management

If Oracle Approvals Management (AME) is installed, then approval requests for expense allocations can be routed, directly and in parallel, to the appropriate approvers. See: Integrating with Oracle Approvals Management.

Manager Approvals. When expense lines are split into multiple distributions, the distributions might require different approval chains. For example, the approval chains could be different for two different cost center owners or project managers. In such cases, the expense report can be routed in parallel to different approvers.

Note: If an expense report is rejected by one approver, then the entire expense report will be rejected.

Approvers can see the total expense report amount as well as the total amount that requires their approval, and can drill down to the expense allocations. Users can see the list of approvers and their approval status.

Auditor Approvals. After manager approvals are complete, the auditor performs a review of the expenses and approves or rejects the expense lines accordingly. Auditors can also view and update the accounting on split expense lines. When auditors update the accounting, the same validation rules that were applicable during expenses entry are used. See: Expense Allocations Update and Validation.

When both manager and auditor approvals are complete, the expense report transactions are exported into the Payables Open Interface tables. The Payables Open Interface tables Import APIs will then be used to indirectly import expense report transactions from the Open Interface tables to the Payables Invoice tables. For information about auditing expense reports and managing expense report auditors, see: Oracle Audit Management.

Project Expense Allocations

Users can update both project and account allocation information depending on the setup. Based on the setup, the following different situations can occur for project expense allocations:

  1. When expense lines are project-enabled and marked as 'Required' for project entry, users can update only project allocation information.

  2. When expense lines are project-enabled but not marked as 'Yes with account allocations', users can update accounting information, provided that project information is not also entered on the expense line.

  3. Users can update both accounting information in addition to project information on the same line.

See: Setting Up Expense Allocations.

Tip: Projects users should define their projects and tasks as Required for project entry to make the entry process simple and consistent.

Note: If you set up expense allocations to allow Oracle Projects users to update both project information and accounting information, splitting expense lines is not allowed.

Note: Use the Project Expense Report Account Generator to default accounting, or use an accounting client extension. See: Project Expense Report Account Generator.

Allocation Sets

Users can create allocation sets for allocation updates that they frequently perform. Reusable allocation sets, or aliases, significantly expedite expense allocations entry. Users can create allocation sets either using the Expenses Preferences pages or while creating an expense report.

Using the Expenses Preferences pages, users can split expense lines using these allocation methods:

Note: If rounding is required, the rounded amount will be added to the last selected line.

Setting Up Expense Allocations

Complete the following tasks to set up expense allocations:

  1. Using the Internet Expenses Setup responsibility, set up the accounting flexfield behavior for your company charts of accounts. For each chart of accounts, define which segments of the accounting flexfield are visible on expense lines, and which of the displayed segments are updatable by the user.

    Note: You can set up exceptions to the accounting flexfield behavior at the set of books level. See: Defining Accounting Flexfield Segment Behavior.

  2. Set the OIE: Enable Expense Allocations profile option to enable expense allocations according to your requirements. See: Controlling Expense Allocations Functionality.

    You can set the display of accounting flexfield segments and online validation as user-definable or automatic. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options.

  3. Optionally enable projects entry, according to your requirements, using the OIE: Enable Project Allocations profile option.

  4. Optionally enable projects entry using the PA: Allow Project-Related Entry in Oracle Internet Expenses profile option.

    Note: To enable projects entry, both the OIE: Enable Project Allocations and PA: Allow Project-Related Entry in Oracle Internet Expenses profile options must be set to Yes or Required.

  5. Optionally enable the splitting of expense allocations, according to your requirements, using the OIE: Enable Expense Allocation Splitting profile option.

  6. Optionally enable the project expenditure organization for end users, according to your requirements, using the OIE: Enable Project Expenditure Organization profile option.

  7. You can choose to customize the building and validating of code combinations. See: Accounting Client Extensions.

When enabled, automatically or by the user, an additional page called Expense Allocations appears on the expenses entry pages just before the Review page. On this page, the user can update accounting flexfield segments or project-related information according to the setup. In addition, users can create aliases in their Expenses Preferences to expedite expenses entry. See: Allocation Sets.

Controlling Expense Allocations Functionality

You can control expense allocations functionality using the following profile options:

This table illustrates how various combinations of profile option settings control expense allocations functionality.

Using profile options to control expense allocations functionality
Num Expense Allocations Functionality OIE: Enable Expense Allocations PA: Enable Time and Expense OIE: Enable Project Allocations OIE: Enable Expense Allocation Splitting
1

  • Project-enabled expense lines are available for accounting updates.

  •  Splitting is not available.

 Any value Yes or Required Yes with account allocations or Required, with account allocations Any Value
2

  • Project-enabled expense lines that do not require a project are available for accounting updates, if a project has not been entered.

  • Project-enabled expense lines that require a project are not available for accounting updates.

  • Splitting is available for both projects and accounts.

 Any value other than No Yes or Required Yes or Required Yes or Required with reason
3

  • Accounting entry is available.

  • Project allocations is not available.

  • Splitting is available.

 Any value other than No No No Yes or Required with reason
4

  • Accounting entry is available.

  • No project-enabled expense lines are available.

  • No splitting is allowed for expense lines.

 Any value other than No No No No
5

  • Project-enabled expense lines are available for entry of project/tasks.

  • Project enabled expense lines are available for splitting.

 No Yes or Required Yes or Required Yes
6

  • Project-enabled expense lines are available for entry of project/tasks.

  • Splitting is not available for expense lines.

 No Yes or Required Yes or Required No
7

  • Expense Allocations functionality is not available during expenses entry.

 No No No Any value

Note: The PA: Enable Time and Expense profile option Yes value is effective only if the OIE: Enable Project Allocations profile option is set to Yes.

Defining Accounting Flexfield Segment Behavior

Use the Chart of Accounts pages to designate the display of accounting flexfield segments on expense reports. The default for each chart of accounts is that accounting flexfield segments are not displayed.

You can also set up exceptions to the accounting flexfield behavior at a more granular, set of books level. This lets you set divergent rules for different sets of books. For example, within a chart of accounts, countries that use their own set of books may have different accounting flexfield segment behavior requirements.

The options for defining the behavior of set of books exceptions are the same as that of the chart of accounts setup. The behavior of each set of books is identical to the chart of accounts except where defined differently in the Set of Books region in the Chart of Accounts page.

Prerequisites

Before you can define accounting flexfield behavior, you must:

Setup Pages

For each chart of accounts or set of books, you have these options to define the behavior of each accounting flexfield segment:

Security Rules

You can define security rules to restrict user access to certain account segment values. See: Defining Security Rules, Oracle Applications Flexfields Guide.

Value Set Validation

You can use the following value set validation types with Oracle Internet Expenses:

Expense Allocation Updates and Validation

When a user enters an expense report, Internet Expenses defaults the user’s cost center and account for the expense report, based on the human resources setup of the accounting flexfield. If enabled, users can change the cost center at the header level for the expense report. For line-level expense allocations, users can make changes to account segments according to the expense allocations setup, including expense lines where the expense type is assigned a particular account on the expense report template.

The hierarchy of changes to the default expense account take precedence in this order:

If the expense report is project-related and the user enters projects for expenses, then the accounts created by the Project Expense Report Account Generator take precedence over any of these changes. See: Project Expense Report Account Generator.

Note: You cannot update expense allocations on expense lines that are charged to an Oracle Projects project and task, unless the OIE: Enable Project Allocations profile option is set to Yes, with account allocations or Required, with account allocations.

Example of Expense Account Updates

This example illustrates the update hierarchy described above.

Assume this setup for expense reports:

The following updates are applied to the expense account and expense lines:

Validation of Accounting Code Combinations

During expenses entry, the system validates changes to account code combinations on expense lines only. If you enable online validation with the OIE: Enable Expense Allocations profile option, then the validations occur prior to submitting the expense report. If you do not enable online validation, or if the expense report is project-related, then validation occurs during the workflow process.

These updates to the expense account are validated at the expense report header level:

These updates to the expense account are validated at the expense report line level:

Note: Internet Expenses allows the use of dynamic insertion, if permitted by your validation rules.

If the expense report fails in workflow due to validation errors, the Notification page sent to your designated personnel provides a drilldown to review and update the applicable expense lines.

After expense report submission, Internet Expenses provides approvers with the details of all accounting flexfield segment updates on the expense report.

Internet Expenses also lets you customize the creation and validation of account code combinations. See: Overview of Implementing Client Extensions.

Setting Up Locations

Set up and maintain a list of locations that your company uses for expenses reporting. Internet Expenses uses location information for:

You maintain a list of locations that are available for expenses reporting. These locations appear as valid choices in the merchant fields, per diem and policy compliance schedule setup pages, and in self-service users' expense reports. You can add locations or apply end dates to locations as often as you need.

If you have more than one language installed in your system, you can translate location information from the base language into each installed language. The translation of location information is a manual process that is not validated by Internet Expenses.

There are three tasks related to the setup of location information:

Prerequisite

Before you can set up locations in Internet Expenses, you must set up countries and territories.

Defining Locations

Enter and maintain the list of locations that your employees need for expenses reporting. You can update location information and add new locations to your list at any time. You cannot delete locations, but you can deactivate a location by using the End Date field.

Use the Define Locations page to enter locations. You can set up locations as City or Country locations. If you have existing location records, you can use the Search Function to display the records that you want.

You define Country locations to define policies at the country level. For example, a company with operations in the United States can define a policy schedule with the location as United States. If users select any location within the United States as their expense location, and if there are no rates defined for that location, then Internet Expenses will use the rate defined for the United States.

The important fields for defining locations are:

Additional fields that apply to city locations are:

The combination of values for Location, Description, and Country/Territory identifies a single location record. Each location record must be unique. You can define several locations in one country or territory, and use the Description field to specify the use of each record.

This table provides an example of location records:

Location Description Country/Territory
San Francisco San Francisco metropolitan area United States
New York, NY New York City United States
United States All other US locations United States
London Greater London area United Kingdom

Note: If your company has a credit card program, define your locations so that they match the locations on your credit card transactions. This helps ensure that Internet Expenses defaults location information correctly on expense reports.

Translating Locations

The Expenses Locations page displays a table of the languages installed in your system. The table indicates the status of the translation of locations into each language [Fully Translated - Yes/No]. To translate location information, click the Translate icon of the language that you want in order to display its Translate Locations page.

Use the Translate Locations page to translate location records into an installed language. You can use the Search Function to display the records that you want. The search results table displays location records with updatable fields for:

Internet Expenses displays the base language values for you to use as a reference for your translations. Internet Expenses does not validate the accuracy of your translations.

When you have finished translating records and click Done, Internet Expenses returns to the Expenses Locations page and marks Yes in the Fully Translated column of the applicable language.

Once Internet Expenses marks a language as Fully Translated, this validation is not reversed. It is up to the responsible administrator to ensure the translation of current location records and all new location records into each installed language.

Applying End Dates to Locations

Apply end dates to location records to remove them from the list of locations. If you set a value other than null in the OIE: Grace Period profile option, then the location remains active until the system date is past the end date plus grace period days. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options.

Internet Expenses applies these rules to the use of end-dated locations on schedules and expense reports:

Locations in Expense Entry

Your location setup determines the display and behavior of location information on expenses entry pages.

Multi-row pages

These pages display location fields only if all expense types use location-based schedules, unless you have merchant fields enabled. If you have merchant fields enabled, then Internet Expenses always displays location fields with a list of values.

The list of values contains:

Details pages

If there is no schedule assigned, or if the assigned schedule is not location-based, then these pages display location fields for text entry only. If the assigned schedule is location-based, or if you have merchant fields enabled, then Internet Expenses displays location fields with a list of values.

Expenses Preferences page

The list of values in the location field contains the sum of all active locations used on all location-based schedules and on enabled merchant fields. For enabled merchant fields, this includes all countries defined for all operating units.

Policy Validation

If the expense report uses both location-based schedules and merchant fields, Internet Expenses applies policy validation in this way:

Note: There is no location validation against text-entry location fields.

Defaulting Locations for Credit Card Expenses

For expense reports with location-based schedules, Internet Expenses attempts to default a value in the Expense Location field. Internet Expenses attempts to default a location by finding a match between the location information in the credit card transaction and your location setup. It attempts to find a match in this order:

Internet Expenses only defaults a location if there is one exact match. Internet Expenses does not default a location if there are multiple matches.

Defining Approval Notes Languages

You can define a language to use in each available operating unit in your company for approval communications that are sent to users concerning the auditing of expense reports.

The language you define applies to the seeded messages in the Audit Expense Reports page that are used by these functions:

If you do not define an approval communication language for an operating unit, then Internet Expenses uses the operating unit base language.

Note: Text entered by auditors and users always displays in the language it was entered in.

Defining Future-Date Tolerances

You can define a future-date tolerance for each available operating unit in your company. A future-date tolerance determines how Internet Expenses manages the submission of future-dated expense reports. Employees can submit future-dated expense reports according to the values that you specify.

Note: Future-dated expense reports are allowed only in a multiple organization environment.

You can define a warning tolerance and an error tolerance for each operating unit. A warning tolerance sends the user a warning message after the specified number of days. An error tolerance prevents submitting future-dated expense reports after the specified number of days.

You enter tolerance values in days. Internet Expenses adds the number of days you enter to the system date to determine the tolerance level. If you enter a tolerance value of 0, then users receive a warning or cannot enter an expense date greater than the system date.

Note: To prevent problems with time zones, Internet Expenses adds one day to the future-date tolerances that you define.

Setting Up Contact Us

Oracle Internet Expenses has a Contact Us global link at the top of each page. By clicking this link, users can communicate with the designated contact in your organization. To determine what the link opens, you configure Contact Us with the contact types described in this table.

Contact Type What Contact Us Opens
Create Service Request Oracle iSupport service request create flow
Create Service Request (Remote Instance) Oracle iSupport service request create flow
Disabled Not applicable; the Contact Us global link is not rendered
Email Composer E-mail composer window, addressing the help desk by default
Formatted Page with Email Routing Formatted Web page where users can enter questions or problems to send to the help desk via e-mail
URL Help desk Web page

By defining rules, you determine the Contact Us behavior based on specified criteria. For example, your organization's help desk is organized by region. You can define a rule for users in the Americas region to access an e-mail composer window, and another rule for Asia Pacific users to create a service request.

Contact Us Setup Steps

  1. Determine the contact types to use. Consider whether your organization implements Oracle iSupport (either on the same or a different instance as Internet Expenses), relies on e-mail to communicate with the help desk, or has a Web page for contacting the help desk.

    Tip: To determine whether Oracle iSupport is on a remote instance, contact your system administrator. In general, iSupport is on the same instance as Internet Expenses if the server name in the URL for the Internet Expenses home page and the iSupport Create Service Request page are the same. If not, then Oracle iSupport is remote.

  2. Configure Oracle iSupport and Oracle TeleService if you are using the Create Service Request or Create Service Request (Remote Instance) contact type. See: Integrating with Oracle iSupport and Oracle TeleService.

  3. Define rules if you are using multiple contact types. See: Defining Contact Us Rules.

  4. Test your rules. See: Testing Contact Us Rules.

  5. If you are using the Formatted Page with Email Routing contact type, optionally personalize the submit and confirmation pages.

    Enable personalization, and click Contact Us to open the formatted page and personalize it as needed, for example by modifying prompts or hiding fields. See: Oracle Application Framework Personalization Guide.

Defining Contact Us Rules

Contact Us rules, including the default rule, let you determine what users get when they click the Contact Us global link. Set a default contact type to enable the Contact Us link, or select the Disabled contact type to disable the link.

If you enable the link, you can also define any number of additional rules to apply specific contact types, including Disabled, based on responsibility, organization, user, language, or any combination thereof. In each rule, you specify criteria that must be true for a specific contact type to be used.

When users click Contact Us, the rules engine evaluates the rules based on your defined sequence, until the first rule with valid criteria is found. The contact type defined in that rule is used to determine what the Contact Us link opens. If no rule criteria are true, or no rules are defined other than the default, then the default contact type is applied.

Contact Type Attributes

You must enter attributes for any contact type you select, as described in this table.

Contact Types Attributes You Enter
Create Service Request

  • Service Request Type: The category of the problem that the service request is created for.

    Note: Select only service request types that users have access to based on the iSupport responsibility mapping. See: Integrating with Oracle iSupport.

  • Product Name: The inventory item that has the problem, for example a specific software.

The new service request defaults with your entered attributes, which users can still modify when they create the request.
Create Service Request (Remote Instance) The ID of the default service request type and product, as well as information about the remote instance that Oracle iSupport is on. Contact your system administrator for the remote server protocol, name, and port. For the IDs, see: Finding IDs for Remote Instance Attributes.
Disabled None.
Email Composer The e-mail address of your help desk.
Formatted Page with Email Routing The e-mail address of your help desk.
URL The URL of your help desk Web page.

Finding IDs for Remote Instance Attributes

Service Request Type ID

  1. Log in to the remote instance and use a Service responsibility.

  2. Query the service request type you want to use. See: Setting Up Service Request Types, Oracle TeleService Implementation and User Guide.

  3. From the Help menu, select Diagnostics > Examine.

  4. In the Examine Field and Variable Values window, enter:

    • Block: TYPES

    • Field: INCIDENT_TYPE_ID

    The number that appears in the Value field is the service request type ID.

Product ID

  1. Log in to the remote instance and use an Inventory responsibility.

  2. Search for the item that you want to use. See: Searching for Items, Oracle Inventory User's Guide.

  3. From the Help menu, select Diagnostics > Examine.

  4. In the Examine Field and Variable Values window, enter:

    • Block: MATCHING_ITEMS

    • Field: INVENTORY_ITEM_ID

    The number that appears in the Value field is the product ID.

Related Topics

Setting Up Contact Us

Testing Contact Us Rules

After Contact Us rules are initially defined or subsequently updated, create test cases to test the rules. Based on parameters you enter for the test, you can find out which contact type would be used given the defined rules. For example, you specify Spanish as the session language in the test case, and a Contact Us rule was defined with Spanish as a criterion. The test results would provide the contact type and corresponding attributes that were defined in this rule.

You can also test the rules against an expected or desired result. For example, you want the Contact Us link to open the help desk Web page if the session language is Spanish. The test would inform you if the actual behavior is different, so that you can correct the rules to get the desired result.

Prerequisites

To create and run Contact Us test cases:

  1. Specify one or more parameters for the test case.

  2. Click Get Results to run the test.

    The test evaluates your parameter values against the Contact Us rules, to determine the rule with matching criteria and the corresponding contact type that would be used. The result fields are automatically populated with the test results.

    If the results are not valid, check your rule definitions.

    Note: Internet Expenses lets you enter your own results if you decide to create test cases before defining the Contact Us rules. You would not click Get Results, but proceed to the next steps and run the tests from the main test case page, after the rules are defined.

  3. Optionally enter a unique test name and save the test.

  4. From the main test case page, you can update or rerun saved test cases, and even run all the saved tests at one time.

    If the expected results from one or more test cases do not match the actual results, Internet Expenses lists those tests and lets you either investigate the discrepancy or accept the actual results as the expected results. Accepting actual results automatically updates the result fields in the relevant test cases.

Related Topics

Setting Up Contact Us

Setting Up Exchange Rates Behavior

Define exchange rate behavior for each operating unit in your company. Internet Expenses uses the definitions that you enter to validate the exchange rates that users enter for foreign currency receipts. Exchange rate behavior applies only to cash and other expenses, and not to credit card expenses.

If a user enters an exchange rate value, or overrides a defaulted value, the value entered is validated against the current exchange rate definitions. If the exchange rate value violates these definitions, Internet Expenses responds according to the setting of the OIE: Enable Policy Validations profile option. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options.

Note: The exchange rate that defaults into a self-service user's expense report is not necessarily the exchange rate from the GL Daily Rates table, but the policy exchange rate, which is the GL Daily Rates table exchange rate plus any allowance that you set in the Define Exchange Rate Behavior page.

A common situation that necessitates validating exchange rates is when users enter the inverse rate of what they should enter. For example, if the currencies involved in an expense report are British pounds sterling (GBP) and US dollars (USD), the conversion rates approximate to 1 GBP for every 1.5 USD, or 1 USD for every .67 GBP. Users traveling from the United States to the United Kingdom should use a receipt exchange rate of .67 but may instead enter 1.5. Internet Expenses then treats this as a policy violation out of tolerance.

You set exchange rate behavior definitions for each operating unit in the Define Exchange Rate Behavior page. The definitions for exchange rate behavior include the defaulting behavior of an exchange rate into an expense report, exchange rate types, exchange rate percentage allowances, and exchange rate tolerances for individual currencies.

Important: You must define exchange rates for the currencies that you intend to use on expense reports before you set up policy schedules. If an exchange rate is not defined for a reimbursement currency, then Internet Expenses cannot record any policy violations that may occur on the applicable expense lines.

Prerequisites

To set up exchange rates

  1. Navigate to the Exchange Rates page.

    The Exchange Rates page displays the active operating units and their current exchange rate definitions.

  2. Click Define Defaults to navigate to the Define Exchange Rate Behavior page.

  3. If necessary, use the Search Function to display the operating unit records that you want.

  4. Navigate to the first operating unit record.

  5. Select the Enabled check box.

Set exchange rate behavior

Set the basic exchange rate behavior and allowances for each operating unit.

  1. In the Default Exchange Rates field, select:

    • Yes to default the exchange rate without allowance.

    • Yes, with Allowance to default the exchange rate with allowance.

    • No to enter an exchange rate manually.

    • User Definable to let the user decide whether to default exchange rates.

      Selecting User Definable activates the Default Exchange Rates check box in the Expenses Preferences page. Users can check this box to default exchange rates into their expense reports, or leave the box unchecked to enter exchange rates manually.

  2. Enter an Exchange Rate Type.

  3. Enter a value in the Exchange Rate Allowance % field. The Exchange Rate Allowance field is used for the following purposes:

    • To define any policy violation limits.

      Internet Expenses will detect a policy violation only if you enter a value in this field. If this field has no value, then Internet Expenses will not detect any policy violations, regardless of whether or not defaulting is enabled.

    • To default an exchange rate with a percentage allowance. This field is only used for defaulting purposes if the Default Exchange Rate Fields is set to Yes.

      When the field is used for defaulting purposes, the value you enter increases the exchange rates in the GL Daily Rates table by the percentages you enter. For example, you can add a percentage allowance to allow for less favorable rates for travel abroad.

  4. In the Default Tolerance % field, you can enter an exchange rate fluctuation tolerance to use for all currencies in this operating unit. The fluctuation tolerance is applied to the base exchange rate plus the exchange rate allowance percentage that you previously defined, if there is one. The base exchange rate is the exchange rate derived from the GL daily rates table for the applicable currency on the applicable expense date.

    The defined exchange rate is the base exchange rate plus any allowance that you defined.

    The fluctuation tolerance lets users enter a value for the exchange rate above the defined exchange rate without generating a policy violation.

    Note: Tolerances are enforced only when the OIE: Enable Policy profile option is set to Prevent Submission and the value in the Default Tolerance % field is not null. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options.

Define tolerance levels for individual currencies

Use the Define Tolerances page to define an exchange rate fluctuation tolerance for individual currencies. This is useful, for example, for countries that experience significant fluctuations in their short-term exchange rates.

  1. Click the Tolerance Details icon to display the Define Tolerances page.

  2. Use the Search Function to display the currencies that you want.

  3. In the Tolerance % fields, enter the fluctuation tolerance for each currency.

  4. In the Default Tolerance % field, enter the fluctuation tolerance to use for all other currencies in this operating unit. If you define tolerances for individual currencies, then you must enter in this field the fluctuation tolerance to use for all currencies not specifically defined.

  5. Save your work.

    Once you define tolerances for individual currencies, the Individual Currencies Tolerance % column in the Exchange Rates page is set to Yes.

  6. Repeat steps 5 to 13 for each operating unit.

Related Topics

Conversion Rates, Oracle General Ledger User's Guide

Managing Advances

Advances are created in Oracle Payables as prepayment invoice types. Once an advance is paid to an employee, the advance becomes available in Oracle Internet Expenses for application.

You can control the usage of advances in Internet Expenses. You can set up Internet Expenses to let either end users or Payables personnel apply advances. Or, if required, you can let both end users and Payables personnel apply advances.

Setting Up Advances

You control who can apply advances, and update advance details, by setting the OIE: Enable Advances profile option:

See: Optional Profile Options in Oracle Internet Expenses.

Applying Multiple Advances

Internet Expenses lets end users or Payables personnel, depending on your setup, apply one advance per expense report.

Note: For this manual application of a single advance in Internet Expenses, the Oracle Payables Apply Advances option must not be selected.

Alternatively, you can let Oracle Payables automatically apply multiple advances to an expense report, if multiple advances are required to cover expenses.

To enable the application of multiple advances in Oracle Payables:

Available advances are automatically applied when the expense report is imported to Oracle Payables.

Note: When an expense report is exported into Payables, Payables will automatically apply the oldest available advance to the expense report, if the following conditions are met:

See: Applying Advances Against Expense Reports, Oracle Payables User Guide.

For more information on using the Apply Advances option in Oracle Payables, see: Expense Report Payables Options, Oracle Payables Implementation Guide.

Note: Advances that have been selected for application to an employee's expense report are still candidates for application to an invoice in the Invoice workbench.

Handling Remaining Advance Amounts

You determine how remaining advance amounts are handled by setting the OIE: Carry Advances Forward profile option:

  1. Carry Advance Forward. To allow the application of any remaining advance amounts to subsequent expense reports, set the OIE: Carry Advances Forward profile option to Yes.

  2. Do Not Carry Advance Forward. To restrict the application of an advance to only one expense report, set the OIE: Carry Advances Forward profile option to No. Any remaining advance amount must be paid back to the employer.

Note: Countries that rely on document sequencing to assign unique voucher numbers to documents should set the OIE: Carry Advances Forward profile option to Yes. Otherwise, the repayment of remaining advance amounts to the employer could result in internal invoices with document sequencing issues.

See: Optional Profile Options in Oracle Internet Expenses.

Managing Advance Repayments in Oracle Payables

This example illustrates one way to manage advance repayments in Oracle Payables.

Example

An employee received an advance of $1,000 USD. $600 USD was applied to an expense report and exported into Oracle Payables. The remaining amount of $400 USD must be paid back to the employer.

  1. Create a debit memo invoice in Payables for the amount the employee must pay back to the employer ($400).

  2. When the refund for $400 is received, create a refund payment in Payables and select the debit memo created in step 1.

  3. Retire the advance:

    • Create an internal standard invoice for $400.

    • Apply the advance to the internal invoice.

Note: To ensure that the advance status reflects its true state, Step 3 must occur after the employee has paid back the advance balance.

Setting Up Expense Fields

Set up additional fields for your rate and policy schedules to capture detail information on expense lines. Additional fields can capture expense category information for statutory or company requirements, such as monitoring transaction activity with merchants that have special arrangements with your company, or capture information for individual expense types, such as special company expenses like entertaining customers or employee incentives.

You can set up additional fields that apply either to an expense category or to individual expense types. When a user chooses an expense type that is assigned an additional field rule, or is assigned to an expense category with additional field definitions, the defined fields appear in the Additional Information section of the Expense Line Details page. If you have defined descriptive flexfields for an expense type, these flexfields also appear in the Additional Information section. See: Setting Up Descriptive Flexfields.

When you define additional fields, you set the field behavior of each additional field that you want to use. The available behaviors for each additional field are:

Note: For the Merchant Name settings, the value Required takes precedence over the value Enabled.

Setting Up Expense Category Fields

Define additional expense fields for an expense category using the Expense Category pages. You set the definitions for an expense category at the operating unit level. The fields you define appear on all expense reports for the given operating unit.

Before you can set up additional fields for an expense category, you must define a list of active operating units. See: Defining Operating Units.

This table describes the additional fields available for each expense category.

Expense Category Field/Option Name Purpose
Accommodations End Date Provide an end date to confirm the validity of this accommodation line.
Accommodations Merchant The name of the accommodation service.
Airfare Merchant The airline name.
Airfare Class of Ticket First Class, Business, Coach.
Airfare Ticket Number The ticket number.
Airfare Location From The originating location.
Airfare Location To The destination location.
Car Rental Merchant The name of the car rental service.
Meals Number of Attendees The number of attendees.
Meals Attendees The names of the attendees.
Mileage Distance Unit of Measure Use Miles or Kilometers as the default unit of measure.
Mileage Daily or Trip Distance Enter either the daily distance traveled or the total trip distance.
Mileage Location Fields Designate the locations traveled To and From.
Mileage Vehicle License Plate Number Enter the license plate number of the vehicle used for travel.

These exceptions apply to expense category field settings:

Setting Up Expense Type Fields

Define additional expense fields for an expense type using the Expense Type Data Rule pages. Use these pages to create rules for capturing additional data for an expense type. The rules you define indicate the behavior for collecting information about employees and/or non-employees for expenses that relate to attendees or recipients.

You first determine whether this rule pertains to employees, non-employees, or both. You then indicate whether to require the inclusion of the employee entering the expense report as an attendee or recipient.

Note: Internet Expenses considers contingent workers, such as temporary employees, consultants, and contractors, as non-employees. Contingent workers do not appear in lists of values that pertain to employees only.

For non-employees, first select the types of attendees and recipients to include in this rule. You can choose as many types as apply. You can also add to the list of attendees and recipient types by adding new lookup codes for the lookup type OIE_ATTENDEE_TYPE. See: Defining Payables Lookups for Oracle Internet Expenses for more information.

Note: If the rule includes non-employee information, you must select at least one attendee or recipient type.

After you select attendee and recipient types, indicate the field behavior to use for each of the additional fields.

The fields you define for a particular rule appear on all expense reports for the given expense types assigned this rule. You assign expense type data rules to expense types in the Expense Report Templates window. See: Defining Expense Report Templates for more information.

Required Attendees and Recipients Validation

If a rule pertains to both employees and non-employees, then the expense report owner (in other words, individual seeking reimbursement) must enter at least one individual other than themselves in either the employee or non-employee table.

Note: If a rule requires the inclusion of the expense report owner as an attendee or recipient, their name will default in the list of employees.

Setting Up Merchant Fields

Set up additional fields on detailed expense lines to capture merchant information for expenses incurred in other countries. You can use this information for VAT reporting and for statistical purposes, such as using line-level merchant information when you reclaim VAT paid to domestic and foreign tax authorities for employee expenses, or capturing merchant information required by tax authorities for statutory reporting.

Use the Define Merchant Fields page to define a set of merchant field records. A single merchant field record consists of a particular location and the settings for each merchant field to use with this location. This table shows the merchant fields and their corresponding purpose.

Field Name Purpose
Merchant Name The name of the supplier.
Merchant Receipt Number The receipt number for this expense line.
Merchant Tax Registration Number The supplier tax registration number.
Merchant Taxpayer ID The supplier taxpayer ID number.
Merchant Reference Additional supplier reference, such as contact name, address, or purchase order number.

The available behaviors for each field are:

For each applicable operating unit, create a set of records for every location that your company uses for expenses reporting. You should create records for every country or territory that you report on and claim VAT. You can also create a setting for all locations not specifically defined in the operating unit.

Check the Enabled box to activate merchant usage for each location that you define. You can, for example, define locations and leave the Enabled boxes unchecked to activate usage at a later time. If all Enabled boxes remain unchecked, then Internet Expenses does not use the merchant field functionality for this operating unit.

Note: The Merchant Name field setting in the Merchant Fields page takes precedence over the Merchant field settings in the Expense Fields pages.

Reporting on Merchant Information

After users submit merchant information on an expense report, this information is transferred to the invoice created in Oracle Payables. You can report on merchant information contained in these invoices using the Financial Tax Register. In the Financial Tax Register, set the Third Party Reporting Level parameter to Merchant. See: Financial Tax Register, Oracle E-Business Tax Reporting Guide for more information.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up additional merchant fields, you must:

To set up merchant fields:

  1. Navigate to the Merchant Fields page.

    The Merchant Fields page displays a table with the available operating units and their update history.

  2. Click the Define icon for the first operating unit that you want.

    Internet Expenses displays the Define Merchant Fields page for the selected operating unit.

  3. Enter a location in the first Country/Territory field.

    You can only enter countries and territories that you use in location records.

  4. Set the behavior of each of the merchant fields.

  5. Check the Enable box to activate this record.

    Note: If you have set up tax calculation, then activated records are immediately available for expenses entry.

  6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for each location that you want to define.

  7. In the header region, set the behavior of each of the merchant fields for all locations not defined in the table.

    The header region becomes activated once you check at least one Enabled box.

  8. Save your work.

  9. Repeat steps 2 to 8 for each operating unit.

Setting Up Credit Card Policies

In the Use Policy subtab, you can define the policies for credit card usage and enforcement of transaction submission.

Defining credit card policies

Use the Define Credit Card Usage page to set your usage policies. Usage policies encourage employees to use their corporate credit cards for certain expenses. You can limit the amount of cash expenses an employee can report for certain expense categories. Employees who exceed the predefined limit receive a message reminding them to use their corporate credit card for this kind of expense. The auditor and manager are also notified of the policy violation.

Defining credit card transaction submission policies

Use the Enforce Credit Card Transaction Submission page to encourage employees to submit their credit card expenses promptly. You can enforce submission by setting an age limit for the transactions. Internet Expenses compares the system date to the posted date of the transactions to determine if a transaction is older than the limit. If an employee has unsubmitted transactions older than the age limit, the employee is prevented from submitting cash only expense reports until they submit at least one outstanding credit card transaction.

Setting Up Credit Card Expense Mapping

You can use credit card expense mapping to default expense types when users select and add transactions to expense reports. Use card expense mapping rules in Internet Expenses to associate your credit card provider's transaction codes with card expense types. Transaction codes, such as MIC (Major Industry Codes) or SIC (Sub Industry Codes), are assigned to transactions by the credit card provider and are used to indicate the type of goods or service that the transaction was for.

Once you have associated these transaction codes with card expense types, map the expense types in Oracle Payables to expense items. Internet Expenses uses these expense items as the default expense types for transactions during credit card expense entry.

Tasks to Perform for Credit Card Expense Mapping

  1. Create a new lookup in the Oracle Payables Lookups window using your credit card provider transaction codes. Enter the credit card provider transaction codes as values for the new lookup. See: Defining Payables Lookups for Oracle Internet Expenses for more information.

  2. If you need additional card expense types, extend the Card Expense Type lookup (CARD_EXPENSE_TYPE) in the Oracle Payables Lookups window.

  3. Define a mapping rule using the new lookup you defined in step 1 as the source. The mapping rule associates the transaction codes with the card expense types. See: Defining Mapping Rules for more information.

  4. In the Card Programs window, select the column that stores the card provider transaction codes during transaction loading. Make sure you select the column that corresponds to the transaction codes that you used in step 1. See: Defining Credit Card Programs for more information.

  5. In the Card Programs window, select the mapping rule you defined in step 3. During validation, the system uses the mapping rule to store the appropriate card expense type value in the FOLIO_TYPE column. See: Defining Credit Card Programs for more information.

  6. In the Expense Report Templates windows, assign the card expense types to expense template items. See: Defining Expense Report Templates for more information.

    Note: If you are using the combined load and validate concurrent programs, and you don’t define mapping rules, the FOLIO_TYPE column will either not have a value, or default to one of the following values: Air, ATM, Car Rental, Hotel, or Restaurant.

Process Flow

The system references the Source Column specified for the credit card program to determine which column in the AP_CREDIT_CARD_TRXNS_ALL table to obtain the transaction codes from. For each transaction, the system attempts to match the source column transaction code to the value used in the mapping rule. If a match is found, the system stores the associated card expense type value in the FOLIO_TYPE column. If no match is found, the system uses the mapping rule’s default card expense type value. If no default is provided, the FOLIO_TYPE will be null.

For example:

When the validation program is run, Meals is stored in the FOLIO_TYPE column for credit card transactions that have the Family Restaurant SIC code. During expenses entry, the Meals expense type defaults for these transaction. For credit card transactions that have the Fast Food Outlets SIC code, Miscellaneous is stored in the FOLIO_TYPE column. During expenses entry, the Miscellaneous expense type defaults for these transactions.

Defining Mapping Rules

To define mapping rules:

  1. Create a mapping rule for your provider’s credit card transaction codes.

    • Log in to Oracle Applications with the user name and password appropriate for the installation.

    • Select the Internet Expenses Setup and Administration responsibility for the applicable site.

    • Navigate to the Card Expense Mapping page.

    • Click the Create Mapping Rules button.

    • Create a mapping rule for each lookup type that you need by completing the required fields. For the Lookup Type, select the lookup that you created in step 1 of the overview.

    • Click the Continue button to proceed to create the mappings for the mapping rule.

  2. Create the mappings for the mapping rule.

    • Choose the default card expense type for the mapping rule. Any lookup codes that you do not define or do not assign to an expense type will be mapped to this card expense type.

    • Define the mappings for this mapping rule by choosing which source lookup code to associated with which card expense type.

    • Click the Finish button to complete the mapping.

  3. Repeat steps 1-2 for each set of credit card provider transaction code you need.

Setting Up Credit Card Data File Download

Set up your system to download credit card transaction data files from your credit card providers. The credit card data file download works in conjunction with the corresponding credit card loader and validation program to download the data files from the credit card provider.

This process is only available for American Express data files and the American Express Transaction Loader and Validation Program.

Tasks to Perform for Credit Card Data Download

  1. Obtain your account details and digital certificate from American Express. Inform American Express that you intend to use the Oracle integration for data file download.

    Note: American Express should set up your profile so that you receive an uncompressed file. 

    You will need the following information:

    • American Express customer account information, including the user name and password. The Oracle integration uses the same user name and password for the data file download.

    • American Express digital certificate in PKCS#12 format, .pfx file, along with a password for the digital certificate.

    Note: American Express currently provides proprietary software for downloading and uploading files from and to American Express servers. The Oracle integration with American Express does not provide upload services. If you have requirements to upload files to American Express, you must use this proprietary software.

  2. Set up Oracle Wallet. Convert the American Express digital certificate to an Oracle Wallet, and export the Wallet into a BASE64 encoded format.

    Note: Because American Express assigns one digital certificate per customer, you only need to set up one Oracle Wallet for all of your American Express card programs.

    1. Create an Oracle Wallet directory and copy the American Express digital certificate into the directory using the name ewallet.p12.

      Follow the examples below (for UNIX or Windows), where:

      • Mykeys.pfx is the digital certificate

      • /some/dir/wallet is the Oracle Wallet directory

      UNIX:

      % mkdir /some/dir/wallet% cp Mykeys.pfx /some/dir/wallet/ewallet.p12

      Windows:

      C:\> mkdir C:\some\dir\walletC:\> copy Mykeys.pfx C:\some\dir\wallet\ewallet.p12

      Important: Because the digital certificate is used by the American Express Transaction Loader and Validation concurrent program, you must use a directory residing on a host on the concurrent processing tier. In addition, the directory should have restricted access, with Read access for the concurrent program.

    2. Launch the Oracle Wallet Manager according to the examples below (for UNIX and Windows).

      UNIX:

      % $ORACLE_HOME/bin/owm

      Windows:

      C:\> cd %ORACLE_HOME%\binC:\> launch.exe %ORACLE_HOME%\bin owm.cl

    3. Open the Oracle Wallet by entering the directory where you created the Oracle Wallet. In our examples, the UNIX directory name is /some/dir/wallet and the Windows directory name is C:\some\dir\wallet.

      Oracle Wallet prompts you for a password. Enter the password that American Express provided for the digital certificate.

    4. If necessary, update the password using the Oracle Wallet Change Password command.

    5. Export the Oracle Wallet using the Oracle Wallet Export Wallet command. Oracle Wallet prompts you for a file name.

      Use any naming standard in keeping with your business requirements, and provide read access to the file for the concurrent program.

  3. Create a download directory for the American Express data files.

    The directory requires Read-Write access for concurrent programs, and should have limited access for all other users.

  4. If the file downloads occur through a proxy server, set the WEB_PROXY_HOST profile option with the proxy server name and the WEB_PROXY_PORT profile option with the proxy server port.

  5. Define the data file transfer parameters for each American Express card program that you intend to use. See: Defining Data File Transfer Parameters for more information.

After you complete the tasks for credit card data download, you can use the American Express Transaction Loader and Validation Program to download credit card transaction data files from American Express. The concurrent program downloads the file into the secure directory that you created and names the file <concurrent program request id>.amx. The program does not delete any files from the directory. See: American Express Transaction Loader and Validation Program, Oracle Payables Implementation Guide.

Defining Data File Transfer Parameters

Use the Data File Transfers pages to set up the data file transfer parameters for each applicable card program. This table describes the values to enter for each parameter.

Parameter Name Description
Wallet Path The full path to the exported Oracle Wallet.
Wallet Password The Oracle Wallet password.
Username The user name provided by American Express that identifies your customer account.
Password The password for the American Express customer account.
Remote Filename If American Express provided you with a filename for the download from their server that is different from the standard filename based on your user ID, enter the filename. Otherwise, leave this field blank.
Secure Directory The full path to the directory where the downloaded data files are stored.
Server The name of the American Express server to connect to for the data file download.

Note: The server name is normally mgw06.americanexpress.com. American Express also provides the server mgw02.americanexpress.com for data file transfer testing.

Troubleshooting the Data File Download

If the data file download is unsuccessful, the system displays one or more error messages to help you isolate the source of the problem. An unsuccessful data file download is normally due to a problem with one or more of these areas:

You should check all of your setup values and settings for all of the programs involved in the download. If you are using a proxy server, ensure that the proxy server and port are set properly.

For American Express server and concurrent program problems, you can install and use the American Express proprietary software to download the data files from the American Express server. If the data file download using the American Express software is unsuccessful, then the server is the likely cause of the problem. If the download is successful, then the concurrent program is the likely cause.

The concurrent program log files lists the downloaded filename and any error messages, if errors occurred during the download.

If you need to use the American Express software to download the data files, you can still upload the files to the AP_CREDIT_CARD_TRXNS_ALL table using the concurrent program. Run the program using the American Express filename as the value for the Data File parameter.

Credit Card Transaction Administration

Use the Credit Card Transactions Page to view the credit card transactions that were uploaded to the database. Internet Expenses can only validate transactions from accounts that are activated. See: Credit Cards Process Activities and Process Invalid Credit Card Transactions Process for more information.

Note: You can only view credit card transactions for organizations that you have access for. Access is granted through the MO: Security Profile profile option. See: Specifying Values for Internet Expenses Profile Options for more information.

New Credit Card Account Administration

New credit card accounts that are detected during upload are displayed on the New Credit Card Accounts page. Internet Expenses attempts to automatically match credit card accounts to the names of individuals in your organization. If an account is not automatically assigned, you must assign the accounts before the accounts can be used by the account owners. See: Process Unassigned Credit Cards Process for more information.

Assigning Accounts

To assign an account:

  1. Navigate to the New Credit Card Accounts page.

  2. Search for the records you wish to assign.

  3. Click the Assign icon for the account you wish to assign.

  4. Choose the name of the individual you want.

  5. Click Apply. Accounts are automatically activated when they are assigned.

Activating Accounts

To activate an account:

  1. Navigate to the New Credit Card Accounts page.

  2. Click the Activate icon for the account that you wish to activate.