Setting Up Web Employees Expense Reporting
Setting up expense reporting:
2. Set the default expense address in the Financials Options window. From Payables, navigate to the Human Resources region of the Financials Options window. This will be the default mailing address for checks for each new employee you enter in the Enter Person window.
3. Set up employees. From Payables, navigate to the Enter Person window. For each employee who will use Expense Reporting, enter the following values:
- Home and/or office address
- Default expense account, including cost center
4. Enable Payables currencies and Payables currency options. If you are not already using multiple currencies with Oracle Applications, and you plan to use multiple reimbursement currencies or multiple receipt currencies with Expense Reporting, you must enable the currencies you plan to use with Expense Reporting. Use Payables to navigate to the Currencies window to enable currencies. See: Currencies Window.
Enable your Payables currency options in the Currency region of the Payables Options window. To allow reimbursement in a currency other than your functional currency, you must enable the WebExpenses:Allow Non-Base Pay profile value to Yes in the System Profile Values window (see Step 7). To use multiple currencies you must also enable the Use Multiple Currencies Payables option.
5. Enter your expense report Payables options. From Payables, navigate to the Expense Report region of the Payables Options window and select your options.
6. Define the employee as a supplier. Use either of the following methods:
- Enable the Create Employee As Supplier option in the Payables Options window to automatically create suppliers from employees when you submit Payables Invoice Import. See: Expense Report Payables Options.
- Enter the employee as a supplier in the Suppliers window before submitting Payables Invoice Import for expense reports. See: Entering Employees as Suppliers.
7. Choose the profile values used by Expense Reporting. Use the System Administrator responsibility to navigate to the System Profile Values window to set the following profile options:
- WebExpenses:Allow Non-Base Pay
- WebExpenses:Override Approver
- WebExpenses:CC Overrider Req
- WebExpenses:Enable DescFlex
- WebExpenses:Overrider Required
- WebExpenses:Purpose Required
- WebExpenses:Report Number Prefix
- Journals: Display Inverse Rate
8. Customize the online HTML help. Your employees will see this help when they use the help icon in Web Employees. The HTML files are located in the following directory:
/OA_HTML/<language> virtual path
They are: APWHLEX1, APWHLEX2, APWHLEX3, APWHLEX4, and APWHLEX5.
Suggestion: Make a copy of all custom HTML files and store the copies in a directory protected from upgrades.
9. Customize your Expense Reporting messages.
You may want to customize the following Expense Reporting messages. For instructions on how to edit messages, see: Messages Oracle Applications Object Library online help. For more information on how to use the Message Dictionary Generator, see: Oracle Applications Coding Standards.
- AP_WEB_EXP_SUB_INSTRUCTIONS. Appears after an employee presses the Submit Report button. Include in this message any additional instructions for your employees regarding your organization's reimbursement process. For example, include instructions about what to do with receipts.
- AP_WEB_DISCON_UPLOAD_INSTR. Appears after an employee chooses the Upload Expense Spreadsheet function. Include in this message any instructions for your employees regarding the use of the Upload Expense Spreadsheet function. You may also want to include in this message an HTML link to download the expense spreadsheet.
Suggestion: The Download Expense Spreadsheet function prompts the user to save an .xls file and does not include any online help to assist the user in this process. Rather than including this function with any responsibility you set up for Web users, you may want to have users download the expense spreadsheet from an area where help is available. For example, you may want to have users download the expense spreadsheet from the Upload Expense Spreadsheet function, where you can edit the AP_WEB_DISCON_UPLOAD_INSTR message to include help about how to download the spreadsheet and how to use the spreadsheet to enter receipt information.
- AP_WEB_EXP_REPORT_SAVE. Appears after an employee presses the Save Report button. Include in this message any instructions for your employees regarding the use of the Restore Expense Reports function. For example, you may want to highlight that the Save Report button, does not submit an expense report. To submit an expense report, you need to press the Submit Report button.
All three of the above messages support both text and HTML.
Use the Oracle Applications Object Library Messages window to edit messages. All Expense Reporting messages use the AP_WEB* prefix in the message name. You may also want to edit Wizard messages. All Wizard messages use the AP_WEB_WIZARD* prefix in the message name. All Wizard messages support both text and HTML.
Attention: For HTML-based messages, do not include any hard returns in any messages. Instead, use the HTML tag <BR> for line break.
Suggestion: Make a copy of all custom messages and store the copy in a directory protected from upgrades. Messages are stored in the following directory:
During an upgrade, apply the upgrade patch. Then use the Message Dictionary Generator (FNDMDGEN) to restore your customized message file.
10. Register Oracle Self-Service Web Applications users. In the Users window, create Web Employees users. Assign the Expense Reports responsibililty and the Workflow responsibility to each Web Employees user. See: Defining a Responsibility.
The securing attribute for the seeded Expense Reports responsibility is ICX_HR_PERSON_ID. To allow a Web user the ability to enter expense reports and to review the status of expense reports for more than one employee, define an additional securing attribute value (ICX_HR_PERSON_ID) for each employee to which you will allow access to expense reports for this employee.
Enter the Web user in the Person field.
The seeded Expense Reports responsibility includes the following functions:
- Create New Expense Report: Enter new expense report.
- View Expense Report History: View approval and payment status of expense reports.
- Upload Expense Spreadsheet: Upload receipt information entered in expense spreadsheet.
Attention: To use the expense report spreadsheet, you must use Microsoft Excel 5.0 or higher.
- Download Expense Spreadsheet: Download expense report spreadsheet used for disconnected expense report entry.
Suggestion: The Download Expense Spreadsheet function prompts the user to save an .xls file and does not include any online help to assist the user in this process. Rather than including this function with any responsibility you set up for Web users, you may want to have users download the expense spreadsheet from an area where help is available. For example, you may want to have users download the expense spreadsheet from the Upload Expense Spreadsheet function, where you can edit the AP_WEB_DISCON_UPLOAD_INSTR message to include help about how to download the spreadsheet and how to use the spreadsheet to enter receipt information. For information on how to edit messages, see the previous step, Customize your Expense Reporting messages.
- Modify Expense Reports: Restore and edit saved expense reports. You also use this function to restore expense reports that are rejected by management during the workflow approval process. Once you restore an expense report, you have the option of reviewing and editing, then either saving, canceling, or submitting the expense report.
The seeded Workflow responsibility includes the following functions:
- View Notifications: View notifications sent by Workflow.
- View Progress: View the progress of the workflow process for a selected document.
The securing attribute for the seeded Workflow responsibility is ICX_HR_PERSON_ID.
14. Configure Workflow to enforce your business rules and to route expense reports to the appropriate people. See: Expense Reporting Workflow.
See Also
Expense Reports
Applying Holds to Expense Reports
Applying Advances Against Expense Reports
Modifying and Reviewing Existing Expense Reports
Paying Expense Reports
Payables Invoice Import Program
Purging Expense Reports or Invoices You Have Imported
Expense Report Templates