This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Channel Revenue Management provides claim research tools, which you can use to obtain information about customers, transactions, and accruals that are associated with claims. You can view claim details, identify duplicate claims, split a claim and find the cause for the claim.
Information in this section will enable you to:
View claim details
Split claims
Understand duplicate claims
Understand claim history and history rules
The process of investigating, resolving, and settling claims is a time consuming and costly manual process. If you choose to enable rule based settlement, you can automate the investigation and resolution of claims, implement direct approval based on the system parameter defaults you specify, and approve all claims pending your approval using the Claims: Mass Approval page. You can navigate to this page from the Claims page. For more information on this method of automation, see Implementing Rule Based Settlement in the Oracle Accounts Receivable Deductions Settlement Implementation Guide.
The claim details page includes the following information:
Basic information including the claim number, date, type, reason, action, owner and status.
Customer information including the customer name, account number, bill-to and ship-to addresses, contact, broker, sales representative, reference (customer debit memo) and reference date.
Amount information including the claim amount, in both functional currency and transaction currency, and exchange rate information.
Duplicate claim information that consists of a list of claims that might be duplicates of the claim that you are researching. If duplicate claims are discovered, then you can mark them as duplicate. Claims marked as duplicates are automatically closed.
Auto assign owner information that includes details of owners who were automatically assigned to the claim based on the modifications made to the claim information.
For the check settlement method, Oracle Channel Revenue Management issues an invoice into the Payables system against which a check is issued to the vendor. When the check is created the claim is closed. Occasionally, a Payables invoice may be cancelled before it creates a check. For example, if the claim contains errors and the approver did not notice. In order to handle these type of exceptions:
The Claim Settlement Fetcher concurrent program will find any cancellation on the AP invoice so that the claim status is changed back to open.
In case of promotional claims, if the invoice is cancelled, the system will revert the status of the claim back to open.
Any time an AP invoice is cancelled in Payables and the claim status reverts back to open, the system l records the activity on the claim's history. This will provide you with an orientation on all actions performed on the claim.
During check settlement, the claim number becomes the invoice number in Payables. Since this invoice number must be unique, if the invoice is cancelled and the same claim is settled once again with a check, the AP interface will send out an error message and append the invoice number with a suffix of “-1”.
For example, if claim CLA123 is settled with the check settlement method, it creates an invoice CLA123 in AP. If, for some reason, the invoice is cancelled in AP, the claim status reverts back to open in Channel Revenue Management. If the same claim is settled once again with a check settlement method, the system will add an invoice number of CLA123-1 in AP..
Use the concurrent program Update Claims – Payable Settlement Methods to handle exceptions for settlements related to Oracle Payables. This concurrent program lets you:
Reopen a claim when the corresponding invoice is canceled in Oracle Payables.
Synchronize settlement documents and vendor information from Oracle Payables invoice to Oracle Channel Revenue Management claims when check, check status, or vendor information is updated in an Oracle Payables invoice.
Claim split enables you to split a claim into multiple smaller claims and facilitates the process of research and settlement. Split claims share the same master claim number, with the addition of a suffix as an identifier. When a claim is split, you can see the balance and the running total of the amount that is assigned to the new claims. If the entire amount of the claim is not allocated to the split claims, then the unassigned balance remains on the original claim. Splitting a claim enables you to:
Settle only a part of a claim
For example, a customer submits a claim for $10,000, but you can validate only $5,000. You split this claim into two claims, validate and settle one of them, and keep the remaining claim open for further investigation.
Facilitate the investigation of a claim caused by multiple reasons
For example, a customer submits a claim for $100,000 that is based on an audit of their records. After the initial investigation, you determine that it comprises of three earlier claims that the customer believes they never received payment for. To further investigate the claim, you split it into three claims to investigate each reason separately.
Settle only the valid portion a claim
Sometimes, customers may submit claims where only a part of the claim is valid. You can split such claims, verify, and settle the part you have verified. The other part of the claim may be left open for further investigation, or it may be charged back to the customer.
For example, a customer submits a claim for a short shipment and to claim promotional discount. The promotional discount part is valid, but the short shipment part requires further investigation. You can split the claim into two claims, settle the one for the promotional discount, and leave the other claim open for further investigation.
The following example shows in more detail how a claim with multiple reasons might be split.
You send an invoice to a customer for $100,000. You receive a check for $20,000 that includes an $80,000 deduction. Because the customer does not give any reason for the deduction, you create a deduction in Oracle Receivables by using the default reason--Unknown.
After some investigation, you determine that the customer has deducted $30,000 for promotions, $40,000 due to shipping errors, and $10,000 due to pricing errors. You can split the claim one of two ways:
| Deduction Number | Status | Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| DED1 | Cancelled | $0 | Unknown |
| DED1_1 | Open | $30,000 | Promotions |
| DED1_2 | Open | $40,000 | Shipping Errors |
| DED1_3 | Open | $10,000 | Pricing Errors |
| Deduction Number | Status | Amount | Reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| DED1 | Open | $30,000 | Promotions |
| DED1_1 | Open | $40,000 | Shipping Errors |
| DED1_2 | Open | $10,000 | Pricing Errors |
Notice that each claim number includes the original number of DED1. This number is used in Oracle Receivables for tracking purposes. All the outstanding balances and amounts that are processed for the root claim and each of the split claims are tracked in Oracle Channel Revenue Management.
Note: After a claim is split, the parent and the child claim are treated as separate claims during claim research. The fund balances in a child claim cannot be modified.
Rules for Splitting Claims With Claim Lines
The following guidelines and examples will help you split claims with claim lines. For the application to automatically split a line, the line amount must be for the full amount of the claim. In this example, the line is for less than the full amount; therefore, you must manually assign the line amount to the split claims.
For example, assume the total amount of a claim is $400.
If there are no claim lines, then the claim can be split any way as long as the amounts still total $400.
If there is a claim line for $300, then you can split the claim as follows:
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $350 and includes the claim line for $300, and Claim 2 = $50 with no claim line.
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $60 and has no claim line, and Claim 2 = $340 and includes the claim line for $300.
If there is a Claim line for $400 (the claim total), then you can split claim line automatically as follows:
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $300 with a claim line of amount $300, and Claim 2 = $100 with a claim line of amount $100. You can do this by just giving the split claim amount $300 and $100 from the UI. You cannot use this functionality if the claim line has already been associated with earnings. If there are any associated earnings, you must manually adjust the association and split claim line first.
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $0 and has no claim line, and Claim 2 = $400 and includes the claim line for $400.
If you have multiple claim lines whose sum is less than the total claim amount (for example Line 1 = $300 and Line 2 = $40), then you can split the claim as follows:
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $380 and includes Line 1 for $300 and Line 2 for $40, and Claim 2 = $20 with no claim lines.
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $350 and includes Line 1 for $300, and Claim 2 = $50 and includes Line 2 for $40.
Split it into two claims where Claim 1 = $30 and has no claim line, and Claim 2 = $370 and includes Line 1 for $300 and Line 2 for $40.
If you have multiple claim lines whose sum equals the total claim amount (for example Line 1 = $300 and Line 2 = $100), then you can split the claim into two claims where Claim 1 = $100 and includes Line 2, and Claim 2 = $300 and includes Line 1.
Splitting a claim into multiple smaller claims facilitates the process of research and settlement. You can split claims to settle only a portion of a claim, and to facilitate the investigation of a claim caused by multiple reasons. Split claims share the same master claim number, with the addition of a suffix as an identifier.
To split a claim, log in to Oracle Channel Revenue Management as Oracle Trade Management User.
As a prerequisite, an open claim should exist.
Navigation: From the Claim tab, click the Claims subtab, then the claim. In the Claim Main page, click the Split subtab.
Notes:
Claim Type and Reason: If you leave these fields blank, then the type and reason of the parent claim is defaulted.
Amount: Enter the amount for the split claim.
Line: Select a line if the claim has:
Multiple line amounts
A single line that is for less than the total claim amount
You must explicitly assign line amounts to be split along with the claim. For information on rules for splitting claims with claim lines, see About Claim Split.
The new claims are generated after you click Update.
Sometimes, customers may raise multiple claims for the same transaction. There may also be multiple deductions referring to the same offer or invoice. These claims and deductions are termed as duplicate claims. Before settling a claim, you can search for duplicate claims and deductions based on the reference numbers or names. After you identify a duplicate claim, you can mark it as duplicate after which the duplicate claim is removed. You can also mark multiple claims as duplicate. Both the deduction and claim serve as a reference to each other for future audits.
The Duplicates subtab enables you to automatically search for related claims and gives you a summary view of all claims with similar or same customer debit memo numbers or invoice numbers, thus allowing you to identify duplicate or invalid customer claims more quickly.
For example, a customer deducts, and references the debit memo number as DM0123. Due to an error, the customer again deducts using the same debit memo but this time the number is read as DMO123 (the letter O instead of the number zero). When you access the Duplicates function, you can automatically see a listing all the claims with similar customer debit memo numbers. You can drill down into each of them and determine further if they are really duplicates.
Duplicate claims are multiple claims and deductions, which the customers raise against the same transactions and invoices.
To mark a claim as duplicate, log in to Oracle Channel Revenue Management as Oracle Trade Management User.
As a prerequisite, an existing claim with duplicates should exist.
Navigation: From the Claim tab, click the Claims subtab, then the claim. In the Claim Main page, click the Duplicates subtab.
If any duplicate claims exist, they are displayed here.
Notes:
Verify if the information is duplicate and make a note of the claim numbers that have duplicate information. Click Main, and select the duplicate claim number in the Duplicate LOV, and Click Update.
Claim history enables you to record various changes made to a claim during the course of investigation. The Administrator sets up history rules to define the fields and information that must be captured in Claim history.
After the history rules are set up, the system records all the changes that are made to the selected fields, and enables you to trace back all the changes that have been made to the claim. This provides every claim with a complete audit trail. If a customer conducts post-audit activities and disputes the resolution of different claims, the organization can produce complete documentation of all the changes that were made to the claim resulting in resolution for the disputes.
For example, History Rules may be created for a customer contact point. Every time the customer contact is changed, it is captured in Claim history. You are assigned to the claim and you interact with the customer contact--John during research and obtain certain information. Later on, John leaves the customer organization, and the new customer contact is Mary. You change the Contact field on the claim from John to Mary. Because this field is set up with History Rules, the change is automatically captured in the History of a claim. In future, if any disagreement arises over the information supplied by the customer, you can trace back that the information had come from the original contact person John.