Oracle iReceivables is an Internet-based, self-service application that both your customers and employees can use to access Receivables data. iReceivables provides personalized, secure access to online information using a standard web browser.
iReceivables reduces the cost structure of billing and collections by enabling customers to perform extensive inquiries, dispute bills, pay invoices, and review current account balances, all online. Companies reduce processing time and improve customer service by automating the traditional, manual bill dispute process. With Oracle iReceivables, bill disputes are automatically routed and processed, eliminating the need for intermediaries or paper-based claims management.
Your collectors, salespersons, and customer service representatives can use iReceivables, for example, to review customer accounts, note recent trends, and keep apprised of recent activities. Your customers can use iReceivables to view their account information, print transactions, pay an invoice, dispute an invoice, view the current status of disputes, and contact Receivables personnel with questions or comments.
Oracle iReceivables is part of Oracle's suite of Self-Service Web Applications, and uses the same system architecture and security features as the other applications. This ensures that data is accessible only to the users defined. Whenever your customers use iReceivables, they must provide a user name and password to view Receivables data. Use function security to limit user access to certain functionality, including disputes and invoice payments.
Major features of iReceivables include:
User Interface
Customer Search
Configurable Account Summary Home Page
Account Details Page
Online Aging
Interactive Invoice
Advanced Payment
Payment by Credit Card
Payment by Bank Account Transfer
Multiple Customer Access
External User Self Registration
Dispute a Bill
Credit Memo Request Workflow
Credit Memo Request Display
Multi Print
Multi Pay
The user interface enhances the user experience, providing a rich array of functionality and high performance. For example, the configurable Account Summary home page offers one-click access to most of the tasks to be performed in iReceivables. Hint messages alert the user to special conditions or specific actions that must take place. In addition, IT professionals can configure every iReceivables page to avoid burdening users with unnecessary fields or information, thereby presenting only the most relevant details to each user.
iReceivables provides internal users, such as sales representatives, collections agents and upper management, a customer search engine based on the Oracle database full text indexing. This technology allows an internal user to search for customer account information by transaction number or by using any of these customer data elements: customer name, customer number, tax registration number, contact name, contact phone number, contact fax number, and customer location. A multi-record display of search results allows drill-down to view account details for a customer or customer bill-to site.
Note: If searching for a customer by contact phone number or fax number, include wildcard "%" or "*" in the search string after typing the number. This is a system restriction.
External users with access to multiple customers or multiple sites of a single customer can search for account information by customer name or transaction number.
The search criteria can be customized according to business needs with the custom customer search. Use this to add your own custom search-by attributes for your iReceivables customers and customer sites. These custom attributes can then be used to search for customer accounts in the Customer Search page.
Contact Us Link
In the Customer Search page, the Contact Us link picks the value from the following settings:
If the MO: Default Operating Unit is set for the Site, App, Resp, or User, then for that Operating Unit if the Contact Information rule is set, it displays the value specified in the rule in the Customer Search Page.
If no rule is set, then it picks the WEB_HTML_CALL value from the function ARICONTACTUS.
Customer Search Link
The Customer Search link is available at the top of the Account Summary, Account Details and Transaction Details pages. Using this, customers can quickly navigate back to the Customer Search page.
Additional Information: Search results are not retained when you navigate back to the Customer Search page by selecting the Customer Search link. But they are retained when you select the Return to Customer Search link from the Account Summary page.
The Account Summary page is the iReceivables home page, the first page that customers and all external users see. It displays customer transaction balances, discount alerts, and information on dispute statuses. Customers can also download account statements. This page also contains a configurable information section that the deploying company can customize to provide users with additional information, such as news, FAQs, and policy statements.
The Account Details page displays the customer's latest account activity. Users can view and sort data from invoices, debit memos, credit memos, deposits, guarantees, chargebacks, and payments as well as all the transactions in Oracle Receivables. Customers can download invoice statements using the Export option. The search engine on the Account Details page provides users with the following capabilities:
Web-style transaction search based on transaction numbers, amounts, dates, or related documents such as order number or PO number.
Category, currency, and transaction status search to fine tune the inquiry.
Advanced Search that lets users display transactions that match specific selection criteria based on date range, due-date range, or amount range. For example, a customer or employee can display all transactions for Superior Plumbing Co. with outstanding amounts ranging from $100 to $10,000 and with due dates between 01-JAN-1999 and 01-FEB-1999.
Users can search transactions for a single organization or for multiple organizations within a single search operation.
Multiple Transactions can be searched using any of the following formats:
Enter the transaction numbers separated by comma.
Enter each transaction number in a new line.
Enter the transaction number with wild card characters * (asterisk) or % (percent sign) to search transactions that contain certain characters. For example, 10* or 10% retrieves 1001, 1002, and so on.
Users can also customize the search criteria according to business needs with the custom transaction search:
Use the custom transaction search to add your own custom search-by attributes for iReceivables transactions. All customers can use these custom attributes to search for transactions in the Account Details page. For example, a shipping company can allow its users to search by bill of lading number, or a real estate company can allow its users to search by property address.
Additional Information: A Transaction is added to the Transaction List train, only when you use the Add to Transactions List button. If you click Cancel during the Pay flow, the system removes the transaction if it was not added using the Add to Transactions List button. The Pay and Dispute buttons work normally when you return to the Account Details page if there are no records in the Transactions List.
The Online Aging feature allows iReceivables external users to view the same aging information as collectors in the Receivables Collections workbench. If aging is enabled, the aging buckets appear on the customer's home page alongside the customer's account balance information. The Account Details page also supports searching by aging status. For example, the user can search for all invoices that are “1-30 Days Past Due”. This functionality in the Account Details page lets the user drill down to the transactions that make up an aging bucket total.
iReceivables can be configured to use any of the aging bucket styles defined in Oracle Receivables at site, responsibility, and user levels.
Oracle iReceivables displays invoices in a format that closely resembles a printed invoice, with a real-time Balance Due. Users can display Receivables invoice-specific and invoice line-specific flexfields in the Invoice page. Users can toggle between invoice lines and invoice activities, including adjustments, payments, credits, charges and disputes. Full drill-down capabilities point to related transactions such as payments and credits.
Use the Pay button to make a full or partial payment by credit card or bank account transfer.
Use the Dispute button to dispute a bill online. The dispute request automatically triggers the Credit Memo Workflow process, routing the request for internal approval.
Use the Printable Page button to optimize the invoice presentation for printing on paper.
Export data in comma delimited format.
iReceivables offers an Advanced Payment page to change the default payment method, enter new credit card information, or make a partial payment. The Manage Payment Methods button takes you to the Payment Details page, from where you can manage credit cards and bank accounts at the Account level.
The Manage Payment Methods - Site button enables you to you to manage credit cards and bank accounts at the Site level. If you navigate to the page by selecting All Locations, then credit cards and bank accounts attached to the Primary Bill To is displayed. Else, if you navigate to the page after selecting a specific site, then credit cards and bank accounts attached to that site is displayed.
Users can make both full and partial payment of their invoices by credit card. Once the user sets up a default credit card, iReceivables displays the Quick Payment page where the user can simply click Pay Now to pay a bill. To protect against fraudulent card-not-present transactions, the user can also be prompted to enter the card security code, or the cardholder billing address, or both, as additional means of verification.
iReceivables supports external processing of credit card payments through Oracle Payments.
Users can make both full and partial payments of their invoices by bank account transfer. Once the user sets up a default bank account, iReceivables displays the Quick Payment page where the user can simply click Pay Now to pay a bill. iReceivables also offers an Advanced Payment page to change the default payment method, enter new bank account information, or make a partial payment. Users can also schedule their bank account transfers for a future date.
iReceivables supports external processing of US-only bank account transfer payments through Oracle Payments and the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network. iReceivables also supports external processing of both US-only and non-US bank account transfer payments.
The deploying company can provide its external users with access to multiple customers, or multiple customer sites, or both. A user with access to multiple customers, or multiple sites of a single customer, can use search criteria to access account information for these customers and customer sites.
iReceivables Support External user registration in a Single Sign On (SSO) and a non-SSO environment from iReceivables Portal page, which can be accessed through http://machinename:portnumber/OA_HTML/IrecVisitor.jsp. Users can add a Register Here link to the customer portal so that external customers (Business to Business or Business to Consumer users) can self register for iReceivables Account Management application access to their customer account data. The Self Registration feature uses the Challenge-Response Model. In this model, the user is asked a question pertaining to the customer account to which the user is requesting access. This lets iReceivables verify the user's access privileges.
See: Set Up for Self Registration for more information on the self registration process.
Customers can dispute all or part of an open invoice by choosing the Dispute button in the Invoice page or Activities page. Choosing the Dispute button lets the customer enter the following information about the dispute:
Reason for the dispute.
Numerical amount, amount percentage to dispute, or dispute the Entire Remaining Amount, which is the entire remaining amount available for dispute.
The maximum amount allowed for dispute per invoice is the (Invoice Original Amount – Existing Dispute Amount) of the invoice, where Original Amount is the amount of the invoice section selected, and Existing Dispute Amount is (Total Pending Dispute Amount + Approved Dispute Amount).
Invoice Original Amount = 1000 Already approved dispute amount = 100 Already pending dispute amount = 200 Existing Dispute Amount = Approved Dispute Amount + Pending Dispute Amount Existing Dispute Amount = 100 + 200 = 300 Amount allowed for dispute (current dispute amount) = Invoice Original Amount - Existing Dispute Amount Amount allowed for dispute (current dispute amount) = 1000 - (100 + 200) = 700
Important: (Existing Dispute Amount + Current Dispute Amount) should be <= Original Invoice Amount
Any comments
Once the user submits the dispute, the system creates a credit memo request.
Users can control access to the Dispute Invoice function via function security. The access to the Dispute Invoice function can be allowed or denied for both customers and internal users. If customer access is denied to the Dispute Invoice function, internal users, such as sales or customer service representatives, can still enter a dispute on the customer's behalf.
Additional Information: While creating a new dispute for a single transaction, users can see both canceled and approved disputes, if any.
Using iReceivables, users can dispute multiple transactions at once. Multiple transactions dispute can be performed from Account Details page and Transaction List page.
One dispute per transaction is created.
All the disputes carry the same comments.
Dispute can be created at Total, Subtotal, Freight and Tax levels.
Dispute can be created using Percent or Amount (absolute).
The maximum amount allowed for dispute per invoice is the (Invoice Original Amount – Existing Dispute Amount) of the invoice, where Original Amount is the amount of the invoice section selected, and Existing Dispute Amount is (Total Pending Dispute Amount + Approved Dispute Amount).
Invoice Original Amount = 1000 Already approved dispute amount = 100 Already pending dispute amount = 200 Existing Dispute Amount = Approved Dispute Amount + Pending Dispute Amount Existing Dispute Amount = 100 + 200 = 300 Amount allowed for dispute (current dispute amount) = Invoice Original Amount - Existing Dispute Amount Amount allowed for dispute (current dispute amount) = 1000 - (100 + 200) = 700
Important: (Existing Dispute Amount + Current Dispute Amount) should be <= Original Invoice Amount
The existing dispute amount per each invoice can be seen in the transaction details table.
In the Dispute Review page, Dispute Amount per Invoice and Total Dispute Amount can be seen.
Once the dispute is submitted, all the successful disputes are shown in a table with the transaction number and the dispute request number.
Unsuccessful disputes are shown in another table with the transaction numbers and the reason for failure.
After submitting a credit memo request, the Credit Memo Request Workflow routes the request to the appropriate personnel in your company for approval. If the request is approved, Oracle Receivables automatically creates a credit memo for the disputed amount and notifies the customer either via email or a Workflow web notification. The workflow also notifies customers when their requests are rejected.
The Credit Memo Request display in the Account Summary and Account Details pages summarizes each request and displays the real-time status of the workflow process. Users can review the details of their credit memo requests and the current status of each request.