This chapter covers the following topics:
Partner Funds Management streamlines the submission, approval, and tracking of fund requests as well as the submission and tracking of claims. It enables you to better manage and distribute channel marketing funds to your channel partners. With a centralized marketing, budgeting, and claims management system, including a partner self-service interface to submit fund requests and claims, you can share channel marketing funds with your channel partners to motivate them, build loyalty, and financially assist with marketing activities that will further drive your sales. You can provide funds for a specific time period and base it on fiscal periods of your organization.
You can set up a program benefit that enables partner users enrolled in that program to request channel marketing funds. When a partner user submits a request, it gets routed to the appropriate approver(s). Approvers will be notified of the request and they review the request and approve, reassign, decline, or return the request. When a request is approved and the partner user executes the marketing activity, he/she can submit a claim to redeem money from you. The claim will be routed to the claim approver who will then validate the claim. When the claim gets approved, you can make the payment to the partner user as credit or can issue a check. The system enables you to measure the effectiveness of your channel marketing expenditures by capturing expected performance on incoming requests and actual performance on the claims.
Partner Funds Management provides search capabilities that enable you to locate requests or perform analysis on marketing activity. You can configure Oracle Workflow to control the approval process for incoming requests, which can include any number of levels of approvers.
You can configure notifications to be sent based on any status change of fund requests so that all users are immediately notified via e-mail of any activity they should be aware of. You can access a summary list of fund requests that you have access to in the system and build personal views to quickly find fund requests that you are most interested in, based on attributes like status or marketing activity.
The Fund Request to Partner Claim flow includes the following steps:
Request submission
Request approval
Claims submission
Claims validation
You can set up a program benefit that enables partner users enrolled in that program to request channel marketing funds. Partner users can enter their expected performance when submitting a fund request and their actual performance when submitting a claim. For example, they may expect to generate 100 qualified leads with a particular mass mailing activity and when they submit a claim for that activity, they would specify how many leads were actually generated.
Partner users can select the marketing activity for which they want to receive funding and this selection drives items that will appear in the Expense Breakdown region. You can also capture the expected performance which is the outcome that is expected for an activity. For example, leads that are generated or revenue that is expected. The actual amount will be captured during the claim submission.
When a partner user applies for funds to execute marketing activities, the approver reviews the request and approves, reassigns, declines or returns the request.
When a request is submitted, Oracle Workflow routes the request to the appropriate vendor approver. Workflow manages the entire approval process and notifications can be configured to be sent as soon as the request is approved, reassigned, declined or returned for more information. Oracle Workflow is driven by Oracle Approval Management. (AME)
For more information on workflow, see the Oracle Workflow Guide.
The approval of a fund request includes two approval flows:
Fund Request Approval
Budget Request Approval
The first level approver of the fund request approves, reassigns, declines, or returns the request, asking the partner user to provide additional information to be able to approve the request. Partner users can upload the marketing collateral and enter any additional information for the activity. They can then resubmit the request. When the first level approver approves the request, it is sent to the next level approver.
When the approver reviews a request, she reviews the request to determine if the requested amount can be funded and decides whether to approve or decline the request. He/she can specify what budget(s) to request the funds from.
When an approver approves, declines, or reassigns a request, she can add a reason and provide comments and subsequent approvers can see these comments in the Notes fields. You can set up the security on the comments to enable partner users to see comments or keep it private where only you can view the comments.
The settings are:
Public: Other vendor users can see comments.
Publish: Partner users and other vendor users can see comments.
Private: Only you can see comments.
Once a fund request has gone through all the fund request approvers, budget requests are routed to the appropriate budget request approvers. (as defined in the approval process associated with the fund)
Before a fund request is approved, a default budget request is generated. As an approver, you can also drill into the budget tab and change the budget sourcing. If you are the approver, you can source the budget from one or many budgets. You can access budgets via standard budget security with Oracle Trade Management.
The default budget(s) is defined while creating the benefit. Approval of a budget request is configured in Oracle Trade Management. The budgets can be approved manually or automatically. If the Auto-approval feature is set in Oracle Trade Management, budgets can be approved automatically.
For more information on setting up and managing budgets, see the Oracle Trade Management User Guide.
You can set up different notifications per benefit. The application supports sending notifications about the fund request activity like submission of a request, approval of a request and so on.
The budget request approval rules are set up in Oracle Marketing. For information on setting up approval rules, see Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide.
The system tracks financial liability via budgets. The liability is the amount of money that you have committed to pay out to your channel partners for marketing activities but have not yet paid out. The budget(s) being used for fund requests can be reviewed by any user (who has permission to view that budget) to understand your liability with respect to payments that you have committed and are yet to pay. The liability is displayed in the 'Earned' column in the user interface for the budgets being used for channel marketing funds.
The liability is associated with Oracle General Ledger for safe, conservative accounting. For more information, see the Oracle Trade Management User Guide.
For information on how the system calculates and tracks liability, see the Oracle Partner Management Implementation Guide.
Approvers can reassign requests that are assigned to them for approval, to another vendor user and specify a reason and provide comments. Workflow routes the request to the new approver. The alternate approver gets notified via notifications. Once the alternate approver approves the request, it continues through the approval workflow process.
Approvers can return the request. For example, they could return a request if they want the partner user to submit any collateral related to the marketing activity before approval. You can configure the return reasons.
After the partner user puts the collateral together he/she resubmits the request to the first level approver and attaches the collateral or mails or faxes the collateral. Regardless of whether the request is being submitted for the first time or resubmitted with collateral attached or missing information filled in, the request is routed to the first level approver. Once the first level approver approves the request, it is sent to the next level approver and continues through the approval process.
Approvers can decline a request and provide a reason and their comments.
After a request is approved and the partner user has executed the planned marketing activity, he/she can submit a claim to redeem money from you. You can link the request to the claim and present a summary of the request on the claim activity to streamline claim submission. You can also view a summarized view of the request and view the amount that was approved, the amount that has been claimed so far, and the outstanding amount that the partner user can claim.
The system captures expected performance on the request and the actual performance on the claim, which helps you to analyze the success of marketing expenditures.
Partners can check the status of a claim by logging on to the partner dashboard.
When you submit a claim, the status of the claim is Open in Oracle Trade Management. If it is a valid claim, the approver approves the claim. If the claim is not valid, the approver declines the claim. You can see claim statuses when you log into the system. You can link into the claim, add notes, and add attachments. The payment method is based on the profile (of the partner user) set in Oracle Trade Management. After the approver approves the claim, the system initiates payment.
Note: The claim validation and claim payment features are handled by Oracle Trade Management.
For more information on claims, see the Oracle Trade Management User Guide.
You can search for fund requests to view fund request details or submit a claim.
You can perform advanced searches based on request attributes. You can customize the criteria by adding or removing search attributes. You can save your search criteria and use it as the default view for fund requests.
While searching for a request, you can select the view name, number of rows displayed, description and optionally set the display and sort options. In addition, you can select columns that you want to display in the search results.
Use this procedure to submit a fund request on behalf of a partner user.
Navigation
Log in as a channel manager and navigate to Fund Request Quick Link > Fund Requests page and click Create to display the Create Fund Request. The Create Fund Request page appears. The status and request number of the request will be automatically populated and the status of the request will be Draft.
Prerequisites
None.
Steps
Provide the following information at the Create Fund: Definition page:
Partner and requestor: The Requestor becomes the partner contact for the request, and will receive notifications related to the request.
Benefit: Select the benefit used for the request. The benefits that are available for a partner are determined by the partner's program memberships. If a default benefit has been set up, it is available as well.
Activity: Select a marketing activity for which funding is being requested, and then enter a name and description of the activity in the Request Name and Description fields.
Amount requested: The requested amount is the amount being requested from the vendor to fund the marketing activity. The requested amount will be broken out to the expense level within the Expense Breakdown section.
Partner Contribution: A partner's contribution is how much the partner's company will contribute towards the marketing activity.
Click Continue and provide the following additional information:
Expense Breakdown: This is the breakdown of expenses for the marketing activity. The Total Amount is the amount requested plus the partner user's contribution, for example, you may only fund 50% of the total amount. The line items appearing within the Expense Breakdown are based on the Activity you selected.
Enter the requested amount at the expense breakdown level and the total amount, which includes the partner contribution, for each expense item.
For example, if a partner has requested $1000 and plans to contribute $200, the Total amount of the fund request is $1200. In the Expense Breakdown region, if the activity is Advertising, you can break down the funding request, and request $600 for banners and $400 for posters.
Performance Objectives: This is the outcome that is expected after executing the marketing activity. This information will enable you to measure the effectiveness of marketing expenditures by tracking expected performance on the requests and actual performance on the claim.
Products: These products are the products or product categories that will be promoted by the marketing activity.
Geography: Enter the geographical regions where the marketing activity will be executed.
Click Confirm to submit the request.
Partner fund data can be exported from the Partner Fund Request page to a comma-separated value (CSV) format file by clicking Export. Before exporting the data, a user can personalize the view to display the appropriate information. The CSV format file can be opened in Microsoft Excel or another spreadsheet or database application.
You can approve funding requests from either the Message Center or the Partner Funds page. Navigating via the Message Center Link provides you a list of open notifications, and you can navigate to a funding request from there. You can view the notification indicating that a funding request has been submitted for your approval.
Use this procedure to approve, decline, or reassign a request via the Fund Request Quick Link.
Navigation
Log in as a channel manager and navigate to Fund Request Quick Link > Fund Requests Summary page.
Prerequisites
A fund request has been submitted and you are designated as an approver for fund requests. If you are an approver, the Budget tab is available for your use.
Steps
Select a request in the Pending Approval status and click Update.
The Fund Request Approval page appears.
After reviewing the request, decline, reassign, or return the request, or continue through the approval process:
Click Decline to decline the request. In the Decline Fund Request page, select a decline reason from the list and enter comments, as required. The partner user can view this information and take necessary action.
Click Reassign to reassign the request to another approver. The new approver will receive a notification about the request, and can then take appropriate action.
Click Return to return the request to the partner. In the Return Request page, select a return reason and enter comments that explain why you are returning the request. The partner user can view this information and take necessary action. For example, you can return the request because additional information is necessary for approval.
If you are approving the request, click Approve.
The Request Approval page appears.
Enter the amount that you are approving and add comments, if appropriate.
Click Continue to confirm the approval.
After the approval of the fund request, the partner user executes the marketing activity. The partner user (or channel manager on behalf of the partner user) can submit a claim to redeem money from you. This starts the claims approval flow in Oracle Trade Management in which the claims approver verifies the claim information and approves or declines the claim.
For more information on claims, see the Oracle Trade Management User Guide.
Use this procedure to submit a claim.
Navigation
Log in as a channel manager and navigate to Fund Requests Quick Link > Fund Requests page.
Prerequisites
A fund request must be in the Approved status for the Submit Claim button to be enabled.
Steps
Select the funding request for which you want to submit a claim and click Submit Claim.
The Create Claim page appears.
The Pay To filled is populated with the partner user's organization. The Claim Type field is populated with the value Fund Request. The status of the request is populated in the Status field and the claim number is populated in the Claim Number field.
The Fund Request Summary region displays a summary of the request. You can view the total amount approved, amount that has been claimed, amount that has been paid out, and the outstanding amount. From the claim, you can link directly to the associated fund request. You can also view a summary list of all claims submitted for that request and link through to them.
Select a value from the Payment Type drop-down list.
The payment types are credit memo or check.
Enter details in the Expense Breakdown region.
This is the breakdown of expenses for the marketing activity. The Total amount is the total amount that a partner has requested for the marketing activity. This value should match the Total amount of the fund request. The Requested Amount is the amount requested for each activity. The Available Amount displays the amount that has not yet been claimed for each expense item. You can enter the Claim Amount for each expense item.
Enter details in the Performance Objectives region.
These are the actual results for the marketing activity. This information will enable you to measure the effectiveness of marketing expenditures by tracking expected performance on requests and actual performance on the claim.
Click Save to save your claim and submit it later or click Submit to submit the claim.
The following table provides information on different statuses. You can configure notifications to be sent based on any status change, so that all users are immediately notified via e-mail of any activity they should be aware of.
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | The fund request has been created but has not yet been submitted. |
| Pending Approval | The fund request has been submitted and is awaiting approval. |
| Returned | The fund request has been returned by the approver asking for additional information. |
| Approved | The fund request has been approved. |
| Declined | The fund request has been declined. |
| Closed | The fund request is closed. The Grace Period profile controls how long users have to submit claims for a particular fund request after it's approved date. Once the grace period is over, the status of the fund request changes to 'Closed' and users cannot submit claims for that particular request. |
| Void | The fund request has been made void by a vendor superuser in the vendor organization. System changes the status to Canceled if a superuser voids the request when it is invalid. |
The following table describes various claim statuses.
| Claim Status | Description |
|---|---|
| New | The claim has been submitted. |
| Open | The claimed amount has not yet been paid to the partner user. |
| Complete | The claim has been validated by the claims analyst. |
| Pending Approval | The claim is pending approval from the claims approver. |
| Approved | The claim approver approves the claim. |
| Pending Close | The claim is pending settlement. |
| Duplicate | The claim approver finds that a similar claim has been submitted for a request. |
| Rejected | If the claim information submitted does not match the original request, the claim approver can decline the claim. |
| Closed | The claimed amount has been paid out to the partner user. |
Access to requests is controlled based on user types and permissions.
User Types
Vendor Users - Employees in the vendor organization who can view fund requests that they created. They can also view requests that they have access to, because they are on the partner's channel team. An example of a vendor user is a channel manager who is responsible for managing a set of partner users.
Vendor Managers - Employees in the vendor organization who can view, update, and approve all fund requests.
Vendor Administrators - Employees in the vendor organization who can perform system setup activities.
Vendor Approvers - Employees in the vendor organization who can approve fund requests. After they have performed the approval, they continue to have access to the fund request.
Partner Users - Employees in the partner organization who can view and update fund requests that they created and fund requests where they are identified as the Requestor.
Partner Administrators - Employees in the partner organization who can view and update all fund requests owned by their organization.
Permissions
Super User Permission - [OZF_FUND_REQUEST_SUPERUSER] - Allows a vendor user to view, update, and approve all fund requests.