Oracle® Fusion Applications Financials Implementation Guide 11g Release 6 (11.1.6) Part Number E20375-07

Home

Contents

Book List

Contact Us

Previous

Next

PDF

19 Define Expense Policies and Rules

This chapter contains the following:

Configuring Approval Rules: Explained

Defining Approval Rules: Explained

Cash Advance Approval Rules: Explained

Setting Up Approval Rules for Delegated Expense Reports: Explained

Configuring Expense Policies: Points to Consider

Expense Category-Specific Fields: Explained

Capturing Tax-Related Information in Expense Reports: Explained

Capturing Company-Specific Information: Explained

Expense Types: Explained

Expense Templates: Points to Consider

Expense Report Payment Hold Rules: Explained

FAQs for Define Expense Policies and Rules

Configuring Approval Rules: Explained

Approval rules are configurable rules for expense report approval. Oracle Fusion Expenses supports flexible and configurable approval rules for expense report approval using the Approvals Management Extensions (AMX) of the Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite (BPM). BPM provides the interface to administer the approval rules. A BPM Worklist administrator, such as a user with the Financial Application Administrator (FUN_FINANCIAL_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR) role can access the approval rules in the BPM Worklist.

When you submit an expense report, Expenses invokes the expense report approval process, which in turn invokes a set of approval rules created in AMX to build the list of approvers. AMX then sends out approval notifications to the approvers every time it receives a response to an approval notification. AMX sends out approval notifications to the next set of approvers in the approval list. This process is repeated until all approvals are complete.

The approval rules are managed through the BPM Worklist application. Users who are authorized to manage the approval rules see an Administration link displayed in the upper right corner of the application. To create new rules or modify existing rules, click the Administration link, click the Task Configuration tab, click the Data Driven tab, and then select the FinExmWorkflowExpenseApproval approval flow in the left panel.

The expense approval flow contains the following predefined rulesets:

• Approval by supervisor based on report amount

  • Additional serial approval rules for configuration

  • Additional parallel approval rules for configuration

• Approval by project managers in parallel mode

• Approval by cost center owners in parallel mode

• Approval by a specialist based on expense types in parallel mode

• Approval by project managers in serial mode

• Approval by cost center owners in serial mode

• Approval by a specialist based on expense types in serial mode

Approval by Supervisor Based on Report Amount

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports using the supervisory hierarchy is called ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet. The predefined rules include the following:

• Approval of expense reports with report total over 1000 by the immediate supervisor

• Automatic response for all expense reports with report total equal to or less than 1000

You can change the predefined rules, delete the rules, or add additional rules as needed. The following table lists the parameters for the ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet ruleset.

Additional Serial Approval Rules for Configuration: An additional predefined ruleset for serial approval is called ExpenseReportApprovalStage : CustomSerialParticipantRule. This ruleset does not contain any predefined rules. You can use this ruleset for any additional combination of approval rules that needs to be executed sequentially with respect to the rules in ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet.

Additional Parallel Approval Rules for Configuration: An additional predefined ruleset for parallel approval is called ExpenseReportApprovalStage : CustomParallelParticipantRule. This ruleset does not contain any predefined rules. You can use this ruleset for any additional combination of approval rules that needs to be executed in parallel to the rules in ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet.

Approval by Project Managers in Parallel Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports by project managers is called ProjectManagerApprovalStage : ProjectManagerRuleSet. This ruleset has a single predefined rule. The rule says that if the total amount charged to projects is more than zero, the expense report is sent to the project manager for approval. Further, if expenses are charged to more than one project, the applicable project managers receive the approval notification in parallel. The approval is complete when all project managers identified as approvers have approved the expense report.

You can change the predefined rules, delete the rules, or add additional rules as needed. The following table lists the parameters for the ProjectManagerApprovalStage : ProjectManagerRuleSet ruleset.

Approval by Cost Center Owners in Parallel Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports by cost center owners is called CostCenterApprovalStage : CostCenterRuleSet. This ruleset has the following predefined rules:

• If the total amount charged to cost centers other than the employee's default cost center is more than zero, the expense report is sent to the cost center owner for approval.

  • If expenses are charged to a cost center other than the employee's default cost center, the applicable cost center owners receive the approval notification in parallel. The approval is complete when all cost center owners identified as approvers have approved the expense report.

• If the cost center of the expenses is the same as the default cost center of the employee, automatic response is generated indicating that there is no cost center-specific approval.

You can change the predefined rules, delete the rules, or add additional rules as needed. The following table lists the parameters for the CostCenterApprovalStage : CostCenterRuleSet ruleset.

Approval by a Specialist Based on the Expense Types in Parallel Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports based on the template name or any attributes of the expense type is called ExpenseApprovalStage : ExpenseRuleSet. This ruleset has the following predefined rules:

• If the template name for any of the expenses is Relocation Expenses, then the expense report is routed to approval by a predefined user.

• If the expense reports do not contain any expenses with the expense template Relocation Expenses, then an automatic approval response is generated indicating that there is no special approval.

You can change the predefined rules, delete the rules, or add additional rules as needed. The following table lists selected parameters for the ExpenseApprovalStage : ExpenseRuleSet ruleset.

Approval by Project Managers in Serial Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports in serial mode by project managers is called SerialProjectManagerApprovalStage : SerialProjectManagerRuleSet. This ruleset contains the same rule as the rule for approval by project managers in parallel, but the ruleset is configured to send out the approval notifications sequentially to the approvers in the list. Each notification to a subsequent approver is sent only after the current approver approves the expense report. If the current approver rejects the expense report, the approval process is complete and the expense report is returned to the user.

Approval by Cost Center Owners in Serial Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports by cost center owners is called SerialCostCenterApprovalStage : SerialCostCenterRuleSet. This ruleset contains the same rule as the parallel approval, but the ruleset is configured to send out the approval notifications sequentially to the approvers in the list. Each notification to a subsequent approver is sent only after the current approver approves the expense report. If the current approver rejects the expense report, the approval process is complete and the expense report is returned to the user.

Approval by a Specialist Based on Expense Types in Serial Mode

The predefined ruleset for approval of expense reports based on a template name or any attributes of the expense type is called SerialExpenseApprovalStage : SerialExpenseRuleSet. The ruleset contains the same rule as the parallel approval, but the ruleset is configured to send out the approval notifications sequentially to the approvers in the list. Each notification to a subsequent approver is sent only after the current approver approves the expense report. If the current approver rejects the expense report, the approval process is complete and the expense report is returned to the user.

Defining Approval Rules: Explained

Approval rules are configurable rules for expense report approval created in Approval Management Extensions (AMX). Oracle Fusion Expenses provides nine predefined rulesets. By using the BPM Worklist, you can define new approval rules or modify existing ones in AMX. To manage approval rules, you must be a BPM Worklist administrator, such as a financial application administrator.

If you are authorized to manage the approval rules, you can:

• Modify existing approval rules

• Define new approval rules

• Understand and apply properties of rules and rulesets

If you are authorized to manage the approval rules, an Administration link displays in the upper right corner of the BPM Worklist. To define new approval rules or modify existing ones, click the Administration link, click the Task Configuration tab, click the Data Driven tab to display the Data driven configuration page, and then select the FinExmWorkflowExpenseApproval task from the left hand pane named Tasks to be configured.

Each ruleset contains one or more approval rules. Each approval rule has an approval condition and a list of approvers. The list of approvers derived for each ruleset is called a participant. To generate the list of approvers, each rule requires a list builder to be associated with it.

Each expense report can only satisfy one rule within a ruleset. If an expense report does not satisfy any rule in a ruleset, the approval process errors and an incident is reported in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control.

Modify Existing Approval Rules

In the Data driven configuration page, select a ruleset to modify and click the Edit icon in the Tasks to be configured pane. You can now add, modify, or delete rules within the specified ruleset. The changes take effect when you click the Commit Task icon in the Tasks to be configured pane. Saving changes by clicking the Save icon saves the changes, but it does not activate them. If needed, you can undo changes by clicking the Reset icon.

Define New Approval Rules

To create new rules, you must provide values for the following rule components:

• Condition: Criteria that an expense report must satisfy

• Response type: Required or FYI. A response from the approver is required or the notification is informational.

• List builder: Creates a list of approvers for a specific notification

To define a condition, select a value from the list of values in the left-most condition field in the IF region. The Condition Browser displays. In the Condition Browser, open a view object (folder) and select the attribute that you want to use as the criteria. You can add multiple conditions to a rule. An example of a condition is: ExpenseReport.expenseReportTotal more than 1000.

The following table lists view objects (folders) that are visible in the Condition Browser with their associated attributes and descriptions.

Each approval notification generated from an approval rule must have a response type of Required or FYI. You specify the applicable response type in the THEN region on the Data driven configuration page of the BPM Worklist. If the approver should take an action in response to the notification, click the Required radio button. If the approval notification is designed as information only, click the FYI radio button.

Each rule requires a list builder to build the list of approvers. The following table shows the list builder types that are available in the BPM Worklist with their associated descriptions.

Each list builder type requires values for specific fields to build its approval list. In the THEN region on the Data driven configuration page of the BPM Worklist, select a type of list builder from the List Builder drop-down list and click the Create Action button. The Add Variable dialog box displays where you add specific variables for specific list builders.

The following table indicates the fields associated with each list builder type for which you must select specific values.

For more information on configuring approval rules, see the Using Task Configuration section of the Using Approval Management chapter in the Oracle Fusion Middleware Modeling and Implementation Guide.

Understand and Apply Properties of Rules and Rulesets

The following are properties of rules and rulesets that you need to understand and apply.

• For each expense report, one rule must be true within each ruleset. If the expense report does not satisfy any rule in the ruleset, the approval process will error.

• Since there can be only one rule that applies in a ruleset for each expense report, you must configure the rules at the most granular level applicable and use priority within the rule to differentiate overlapping conditions. AMX does not support nested conditions.

• All rulesets are executed in parallel or in serial with respect to the Expense Report Approval Stage.

• Serial rulesets are designed to execute the approval process in a sequential order. The approvers in the approval list for any rule included in these rulesets are notified in a sequential order.

• To deactivate a ruleset, check the Ignore this participant checkbox for that ruleset.

• If the participants cannot be determined, then AMX sends out a failure notification to the user with an incident identifier. Administrators can access the incident details through the Support Workbench of the Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control application and restart the approval process in Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control after resolving the issues in the incident report.

Cash Advance Approval Rules: Explained

Cash advance approval rules are configurable rules for approving cash advances. A cash advance is an advance payment to an employee that covers out-of-pocket and incidental expenses while traveling or legitimate business expenses.

Oracle Fusion Expenses integrates with Approvals Management Extensions (AMX) of the Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite (BPM) to allow deploying companies to build flexible approval routing rules. This ensures that proper approval authority is enforced.

The BPM Worklist provides an interface to administer the cash advance approval rules based on your company's business needs. A BPM Worklist administrator, such as a user with the Financial Application Administrator (FUN_FINANCIAL_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR) role can access the cash advance approval rules in the BPM Worklist.

When you submit a cash advance request, Expenses invokes the cash advance approval process, which in turn invokes a set of cash advance approval rules created in AMX to build the list of approvers. AMX then sends out approval notifications to the approvers identified by the cash advance approval rules. This process is repeated until all cash advance approvals are complete.

The predefined cash advance approval rule routes every cash advance request by an employee to his or her immediate supervisor for approval. Once the immediate supervisor approves the cash advance request, it is automatically sent to the expense auditor for final approval.

If you are authorized to manage cash advance approval rules, you can:

• Navigate to the BPM Worklist.

• Modify the predefined cash advance rule.

Navigate to the BPM Worklist

The cash advance approval rules are managed through the BPM Worklist application. Users who are authorized to manage the cash advance approval rules see an Administration link displayed in the upper right corner of the application.

To create new rules or modify existing rules, click the Administration link, click the Task Configuration tab, click the Data Driven tab, and then select the FinExmWorkflowCashAdvanceApproval approval flow in the left panel. The cash advance approval flow contains the predefined ruleset: Approval by immediate supervisor.

Modify the Predefined Cash Advance Rule

The predefined ruleset for approval of cash advances using the supervisory hierarchy is called CashAdvanceApprovalStage: CashAdvanceApprovalRuleSet. This predefined cash advance rule defines the approval of cash advances of any amounts by the immediate supervisor.

You can modify the predefined cash advance rule by performing any of the following tasks:

• Modifying the predefined cash advance rule

• Adding new cash advance rules

• Deleting existing cash advance rules

The following table lists the parameters for the predefined CashAdvanceApprovalStage : CashAdvanceApprovalRuleSet ruleset. You can modify these parameters to accommodate your cash advance approval needs.

The administrator of the cash advance approval rules can perform the following modifications:

• Create additional rules.

  For example, you can define new rules to conform to your company's cash advance approval policies.

• Add additional levels of supervisory approval.

  For example, if the cash advance amount exceeds the threshold that the administrator configured, the cash advance request is sent to the next supervisory level for approval.

• Set up automatic cash advance approval.

  For example, if the cash advance amount is below a certain amount, then the cash advance is automatically approved and it does not require the supervisor's approval. This feature expedites the approval process for smaller amounts, since the need to wait for the supervisor's approval is eliminated.

To modify an existing cash advance approval rule in the Data Driven configuration page, select the ruleset to modify and click the Edit icon in the Tasks to be configured pane. You can now add, modify, or delete rules within the specified ruleset. The changes take effect when you click the Commit Task icon in the Tasks to be configured pane. Saving changes by clicking the Save icon saves the changes, but it does not activate them. If needed, you can undo changes by clicking the Reset icon.

Setting Up Approval Rules for Delegated Expense Reports: Explained

Oracle Fusion Expenses enables you to delegate expense entry to another person. To understand the approval process for delegated expense reports, it is necessary to understand the distinction between preparer, or creator, and owner. The person who submits an expense report for another person is called the preparer. The person who incurs the expenses is called the owner of the expense report.

Expenses provides predefined approval rules to support delegated expense report approval. When a preparer submits an expense report, the following approval process ensues.

• Approval by expense report owner

  In the first part of the approval process, the expense report is routed to the expense report owner for approval. The expense report has a status of Pending Individual Approval. The rule set for this part of the approval process is called the ExpenseReportApprovalStageExpenseReportD : ExpenseReportOwnerRuleSet in the BPM Worklist application.

• Approval by preparer's manager

  In the second part of the approval process, the expense report is routed to the preparer's manager hierarchy for approval. The Expense report has a status of Pending Manager Approval. The rule set for this part of the approval process is called ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet in the BPM Worklist application.

This topic discusses the following two scenarios that require you to modify the rule sets if your company enables delegated expense entry.

• Bypass approval by owner

• Start approval with owner's manager

Based on your company policies, any one of the following scenarios can apply:

• Only bypass approval by owner

• Only start approval with owner's manager

• Both bypass approval by owner and start approval with owner's manager

• Neither bypass approval by owner nor start approval with owner's manager

Bypass Approval By Owner

If your company policy does not require expense report approval by the expense report owner, you can modify the rule set to bypass this approval. When bypassed, the expense report status is set to Pending Manager Approval. The expense report is routed to approvers based on the existing approval rules.

To bypass approval by the owner, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to the Oracle BPM Worklist application.

2. Click the Administration link displayed in the upper right corner of the page. The Administration tab appears.

3. Click the Task Configuration tab.

4. Click the Rules tab.

5. In the Tasks to be configured pane, select the FinExmWorkflowExpenseApproval task.

6. From the Select Ruleset choice list, select the following predefined ruleset: SoaOLabel.ExpenseReportApprovalStageExpenseReportD : ExpenseReportOwnerRuleSet .

7. On the far right of the page, select the Ignore this participant check box. This action tells the approval rule to ignore the owner as the first approver in the approval rule.

8. To save the modified ruleset, click the Save icon in the Tasks to be configured pane.

9. To commit the modified ruleset, click the Commit task icon in the Tasks to be configured pane.

Start Approval with Owner's Manager

The approval process routes the expense reports to the preparer's manager hierarchy.

If your company policy requires expense reports to be routed to the owner's manager hierarchy for approval, perform the following steps.

1. To navigate to the expense report approval taskflow, perform steps 1-5 in the preceding section.

2. From the Select Ruleset choice list, select the following predefined ruleset: SoaOLabel.ExpenseReportApprovalStage : ExpenseReportRuleSet.

3. Click the Edit task icon (pencil) on the Tasks to be configured pane.

4. Expand the ExpenseReportManagerApproval rule.

5. In the List builder action 1 region, click in the Starting Participant field and scroll to the right until you see ("supervisory",Task.creator,.

6. In the Starting Participant field, replace Task.creator with Task.payload.Expense Report Owner as shown in the following table.

   
   

   Predefined Value	Changed Value
   HierarchyBuilder.getManager("supervisory",Task.creator,-1,"","")	HierarchyBuilder.getManager("supervisory", Task.payload.Expense Report Owner,-1,"","")

7. To save the modified ruleset, click the Save icon in the Tasks to be configured pane.

8. To commit the modified ruleset, click the Commit task icon in the Tasks to be configured pane.

Configuring Expense Policies: Points to Consider

To enforce compliance with your company's expense policies, Oracle Fusion Expenses provides the following functionality for which you can specify options:

• Receipt required

• Corporate card usage

• Conversion rate

Specifying a Receipt Required Policy

If your accounts payable department requires a receipt for each expense, then you must specify the following for each expense type that you define in the Create Expense Type page:

• A receipt requirement rule that reflects your company's receipt policy. A receipt can be required for cash only or corporate card and cash.

• An expense amount, above which a receipt is required

• Warning and error tolerance percentages so the application knows when to warn the user, if opted, of a receipt required policy violation or, in the case of an error, actually prevent submission of the expense report

Warnings are tracked by the application. You can view them in the Expense Items region of the Edit Expense Report page, whereas errors are not tracked because they prevent submission of the expense report.

Specifying a Corporate Card Usage Policy

Expenses enables you to set up corporate card usage policies to enforce the use of corporate cards. These policies increase your control of the cards by enforcing compliance with the usage policies.

You specify corporate card usage policies in the Edit Corporate Card Usage Policy popup by initially specifying cash limits for expense categories. A cash limit is a cash ceiling, above which an employee must pay the expense by using a corporate card. An expense category represents a grouping of expense types. For example, the expense category of Airfare represents the following group of expense types: International Air and Domestic Air.

In addition to the cash limit, you must also specify tolerance percentages for warnings or errors as they relate to the cash limits for the expense categories. The following table illustrates how the warning and error tolerance percentages work for corporate card usage policies.

If the employee enters a cash amount over $105 for a car rental on the expense report, a warning displays, if opted, that reminds the employee to use a corporate card, instead of cash, for car rental charges over $100. Warnings are tracked by the application. You can view them in the Expense Items region of the Edit Expense Report page.

If the employee enters a cash amount over $110 for a car rental on the expense report, the application prevents submission of the expense report. Consequently, errors are not tracked by the application.

Specifying a Conversion Rate Policy

You can define conversion rate behavior for each business unit in your company. These definitions enable you to enforce conversion rate policies and to validate the conversion rates that employees enter for foreign currency receipts. If you enter a conversion rate value in an expense report, or override a defaulted value, the value you enter is validated against the current conversion rate definitions.

You specify the following conversion rate behavior in the Edit Conversation Rates and Policies page:

• Type of conversion rate, whether Corporate, Spot, or User

• Whether you want the conversion rate to default onto a newly created expense report

  Note

  The default conversion rate is only applicable to cash transactions.

• Warning and error tolerance percentages so the application knows when to warn the user, if opted, of a conversion rate policy violation or, in the case of an error, actually prevent submission of the expense report

• Warning and error tolerance percentages, if opted, for specific currencies

The following table illustrates how warning and error tolerance percentages work for conversion rate policies.

If the employee enters a cash amount for a meal of 25 GBP on the expense report and indicates a conversion rate above 1.65795, a warning displays, if opted, that reminds the employee to use a conversion rate less than 1.65795. Warnings are tracked by the application. You can view them in the Expense Items region of the Edit Expense Report page.

If the employee enters a cash amount for a meal of 25 GBP on the expense report and indicates a conversion rate above 1.7369, the application prevents submission of the expense report. Consequently, errors are not tracked by the application.

Expense Category-Specific Fields: Explained

An expense category is a broad application-defined expense classification, such as Accommodations, Airfare, Car Rental, and Meals. Each expense category has fields associated with it, known as category-specific fields. For example, Accommodations is an expense category that has the following category-specific fields: Merchant Name and Checkout Date. You can capture additional expense information for each expense category by optionally enabling the category-specific fields provided with the application. The category-specific fields are visible in the expense report based on the display behavior you set. You can set the display behavior for each category-specific field as follows:

• Hidden, where the field is not displayed.

• Required, where the field is displayed for each expense item in the expense category and the user is required to enter data.

• Optional, where the field is displayed for each expense item in the expense category, but the user is not required to enter data.

You can enable the display behavior for the category-specific fields in each expense category by business unit. The fields you enable will display for all expense reports for the selected business unit.

Capturing Tax-Related Information in Expense Reports: Explained

You can display tax-related fields in expense reports for the purpose of capturing tax-related information. To capture tax-related information, you must enable the option to display tax-related fields in expense reports by selecting the Display tax fields on expense report check box on the Edit Tax Fields page. Then, for each business unit, define the display behavior of each tax-related field. You can define the display behavior of tax-related fields for all locations and then define exception display behavior for specific countries. For example, Merchant Name and Taxpayer ID are tax-related fields for which you can define display behavior.

The display behaviors available for each tax-related field are as follows:

• Hidden where the tax-related field is not displayed in the expense report.

• Optional where the tax-related field is displayed for each expense item in the expense category, but the user is not required to enter data.

• Required where the tax-related field is displayed for each expense item in the expense category and the user is required to enter data

Capturing Company-Specific Information: Explained

You can configure Oracle Fusion Expenses to capture additional company-specific information on the expense reports for each expense line by enabling descriptive flexfields provided at the expense type level. A descriptive flexfield is an extendable field that captures additional information. For each expense type, you can capture up to 15 fields of additional information. This can be context-sensitive information based on the expense type or information that is collected across expense types called global descriptive flexfields.

You can perform the following steps to enable the capture of additional company-specific information in expense reports.

1. Set up descriptive flexfields.

2. Enable descriptive flexfields.

Set Up Descriptive Flexfields

Set up the descriptive flexfield, EXM_EXPENSES, that is provided by the application by entering the expense types and the fields you want to show for each expense type on the Manage Descriptive Flexfields for Expense Reports page.

To implement context-sensitive or global descriptive flexfields in Expenses, you must:

• Identify the expense types on the line level for which you want to capture additional information and the specific fields you want to add for each expense type. These fields are context-sensitive descriptive flexfields.

• Identify the common information that you want to capture across expense types. These fields are global descriptive flexfields.

• Determine how you want the context-sensitive and global descriptive flexfields to render to the user.

Enable Descriptive Flexfields

To capture the additional information defined in the descriptive flexfields, you must enable descriptive flexfields in the expense report by setting the system option, Enable Descriptive Flexfields, to Yes on the Manage Expenses System Options page. By default, this option is set to No.

You can set this option at the implementation level on the Manage Expenses System Options page, which applies to all business units, or you can specify exceptions for specific business units on the Create System Options: Specific Business Unit dialog box.

Expense Types: Explained

An expense type is a potential expense that employees or contingent workers can incur that you define during setup. Expense types are granular expenses. For example, if Accommodations is an expense category, then possible expense types are Hotel, Motel, and Bed and Breakfast.

Setting up expense types in Expenses is explained by the following actions:

• Creating expense types

• Itemizing expense types

• Project-enabling expense types

• Enabling tax classification code defaulting

Creating Expense Types

When you create an expense type on the Create Expense Type page, you assign an account to the expense type. This enables the application to allocate expenses to a specific account. Additionally, you can optionally specify whether receipts are required when users submit expense reports for approval. You can also require submission of a receipt over a specified amount. This requirement can be set up for cash expenses, corporate card expenses, or both.

After you create expense types, you can associate them with corporate card expense types on the Card Expense Type Mapping tab of the Create Expense Template page. Corporate card expense types come predefined with Expenses or you can add them as additional lookups. Associating defined expense types with corporate card expense types enables Expenses to correctly derive expense types during the corporate card transaction upload process.

Itemizing Expense Types

Itemization is the breaking down of charges in a granular fashion so they can be applied to specific accounts. Itemization applies to both corporate card expense types and cash.

You set up itemization behavior on the Itemization tab of the Create or Edit Expense Type page according to your company's requirements by deciding whether to enable, disable, or require itemization by employees or contingent workers when they create an expense item during expense entry. During this setup, you also decide whether expense types you define are eligible during expense entry for itemization only, or whether they are also available as an independent, single expense type.

You can specify whether a corporate card expense type is a candidate for automatic itemization on the Card Expense Type Mapping tab of the Create or Edit Expense Template page for those expense types that have itemization set up. If you enable automatic itemization for an expense type, you must then select a default itemization expense type. A default itemization expense type is an expense type to which expenses default when they are outside the defined itemization. For example, if a deploying company maps corporate card expense types to expense types and identifies a default itemization expense type called Miscellaneous, then when the corporate card feed file is uploaded to Expenses, any unmapped expense types default to the Miscellaneous expense type.

Project-Enabling Expense Types

Project-enabled expense types are associated with a project expenditure type in Oracle Fusion Project Costing if the user is allowed to enter project information. For example, a project-enabled expense type enables a consultant to allocate his consulting expenses to a specific project and its tasks during creation of an expense report.

On the Project Expenditure Type Mapping tab of the Create Expense Type page, you can set up project-enabled expense types by selecting the Enable projects check box. To project-enable expense types, you must also select a default project expenditure type, which is a project expense type to which unspecified project unit expenses are assigned. Additionally, you can optionally specify whether receipts are required for project expenses when the user submits an expense report.

The project-enabled expense type can be mapped to a specific project unit and a project expenditure type on an exception basis. It is the association of a project-enabled expense type with a project unit and a project expenditure type that derives accounting in Oracle Projects Costing.

Enabling Tax Classification Code Defaulting

When you create an expense type on the Create Expense Type page, you can optionally specify the tax classification code that applies, if any, to the expense type. The tax classification code specified during the setup of an expense type defaults onto the Create Expense Item page where the user sees it during expense entry. If necessary, the user can override the specified tax classification code when he creates an expense item if the tax field is enabled on the expense report.

Expense Templates: Points to Consider

An expense template is a grouping of related expense types that are defined for a specific business unit. Examples of groupings of related expense types include expense templates for travel, education, and relocation. Expense templates enable companies to control the expense types visible to each business unit. Additionally, if your company processes corporate card transactions and you want the expense types to be automatically assigned during corporate card transaction processing, you must set one expense template as a default expense template.

When creating expense templates, it is advisable to consider the following actions:

• Using expense templates

• Defining default expense templates

• Inactivating expense templates

Using Expense Templates

When employees or contingent workers create expense items in the Create Expense Item dialog box to add to a new or existing expense report for business or personal expenses incurred, they select a specific expense template, followed by an expense type.

The following rules apply to expense templates:

• Each business unit can have multiple expense templates associated with it.

• Expense templates cannot be shared across business units.

  Note

  If your company is established in multiple countries, you must create one expense template per business unit. If your users use multiple languages within a business unit, then you must implement the expense templates in each of those languages.

Defining Default Expense Templates

A default expense template is the first expense template that you create on the Create Expense Template page with corporate card expense type mapping. The application automatically sets such a template as the default expense template, whether or not you select the Set as default check box on the Create Expense Template page. You can also change the default template from one to another, as long as the one you are changing to has corporate card expense type mapping.

The purpose of a default expense template is to default expense types to credit card transactions so when employees or contingent workers visit the Expenses work area to create expense reports, they can see the expense types assigned to the corporate card transactions. The default expense template uses the corporate card expense type mapping to associate expense types with the corporate card transactions. This association occurs when the corporate card feed file containing corporate card charges is uploaded to Expenses.

The following rules apply to default expense templates:

• Each business unit can have only one default expense template associated with it.

• For any business unit, you can have a default expense template associated with it, with additional expense templates.

• For any business unit, you can have a default expense template associated with it, with no additional expense templates.

Inactivating Expense Templates

Deploying companies do not typically inactivate expense templates because they cannot use them after the end date. It is therefore advisable to leave the Effective End Date field blank, unless you intend to retire the expense template. Any expenses that are incurred after an end date cannot be reported using an inactivated expense template. It is more likely that you would inactivate individual expense types, rather than inactivating an entire expense template.

To inactivate an expense template, enter a date in the Effective End Date field on the Create Expense Template page. You can also inactivate individual expense types in the same way on the Create or Edit Expense Type page, but the expense template end date overrides the end date for individual expense types. Note that if the current date is past the expense template end date, an employee or contingent worker can still use the inactivated template to enter expenses on the expense report for the period in which the expense report was active.

Expense Report Payment Hold Rules: Explained

You can set up expense report payment hold rules for individuals and corporate card issuers in the Expense Report Payment Hold region on the Create Receipt and Notification Rule page. You can then schedule and periodically run the Process Expense Report Reimbursement process, which checks whether any payment hold rules are in effect. An expense report payment hold rule is a component of the receipt and notification rule that is assigned to a specific business unit. A payment hold rule places current or future expense reports on hold when receipts are not received or when they are overdue. When expense report payment hold rules are implemented, reimbursement to the individual or payment to the corporate card issuer cannot occur until expense reports holds are released. The Process Expense Report Reimbursement process also checks whether expense report holds can be released.

Payment holds are released in the following ways:

• The expense auditor manually releases the payment hold at his discretion on the Audit Expense Report page by selecting the Release Hold option on the Actions menu.

• Based on receipt status, Expenses detects that receipts are received or waived and automatically releases the payment hold.

Holding expense report payments from individuals and corporate card issuers can include any of the following options:

• Hold payment until receipts are received.

  Each expense report payment is held if required receipts are not received.

• Hold payment if receipts are overdue.

  All submitted expense reports that require receipts are evaluated. If any have outstanding receipts, then payments for all subsequent expense reports are placed on hold.

Your company schedules and periodically runs the Process Expense Report Reimbursement process, which checks whether any payment hold rules are in effect. If they are, Expenses places payment holds on expense reports according to the specified payment hold rules. Individuals who have expense report payments held receive a notification. When receipts are received or waived, Expenses automatically releases holds. Alternatively, the expense auditor can manually release a hold at his discretion.

FAQs for Define Expense Policies and Rules

How can I enforce terms and agreements?

You can enforce expense terms and agreements for all or specific business units by selecting Yes in the Enable Terms and Agreements choice list on the Manage Expenses System Options page. This choice list controls whether employees are required to select the check box entitled I have read the company policies before submitting expense reports.

Can expense types be used across expense templates?

No. You cannot define an expense type in an expense template and reference that same expense type in another expense template.

You can, however, create an expense type with the same name in another expense template. Expense types are template-specific.

How can I enable users to select reimbursement currencies for each expense report?

You must set the setup option, Allow Reimbursement Currency Selection, to Yes and enable multiple currencies in Oracle Fusion Payables. If you do not want to allow users to choose the reimbursement currency, set this option to No.

By default, this setup option is set to No, which means that the expense report will be reimbursed in your ledger currency. You can optionally set the option at the implementation level on the Manage Expenses System Options page, which will apply to all business units, and you can specify exceptions for specific business units in the Create System Options: Specific Business Unit dialog box.

How can I enable users to select payment methods in expense reports?

You must set the system option, Enable Payment Method, to Yes. If you do not want to allow users to select the payment method for reimbursement of each expense report, set the option to No.

By default, this option is set to No. The application uses the default payment method, such as check or EFT, that was set up for the users' reimbursement. You can optionally set the option at the implementation level in the Manage Expenses System Options page, which will apply to all business units, and you can specify exceptions for specific business units in the Create System Options: Specific Business Unit dialog box.

How can I display the bar code?

You must set the system option, Display Bar Code, to Yes. The bar code is displayed in the expense reports and in the printed copies. This system option enables you to fax receipts, along with the expense report cover sheet with the bar code on it, to a server that uses image processing technology to automatically attach receipts to expense reports. You can set this system option at the implementation level in the Manage Expenses System Options page, which applies to all business units, and you can specify exceptions for specific business units in the Create System Options: Specific Business Unit dialog box.

How can I configure expense report number prefixes for different business units?

If you chose alphanumeric prefixes for expense report numbers, then you must enter the Expense Report Number Prefix as a setup option. You can define prefixes at the implementation level on the Manage Expenses System Options page, which applies to all business units, and you can specify exceptions for specific business units or define the prefix for each business unit in the Create System Options: Specific Business Unit dialog box.

How can I enable expense auditors to audit expense reports for specific business units?

How can I create customized expense report audit selection rules?

How can I enable expense auditors to audit expense reports for specific business units?

You can enable expense auditors to audit expense reports for specific business units by assigning them specific expense auditor data roles for the business units. For example, to allow an expense auditor to audit expense reports for the Vision Operations and Vision Services business units, assign the Expense Auditor Vision Operations and Expense Auditor Vision Services data roles, respectively, to the expense auditor.

How can I create customized expense report audit selection rules?

You can create your own audit selection rules by using the Extend Audit Selection Rules API, which corresponds to the EXM_AUDIT_EXT_PUB package. Expenses first evaluates the audit selection rules listed on the Manage Expense Report Audit Selection Rules page to determine if an expense report requires auditing. Expenses then evaluates the rules specified in the Extend Audit Selection Rules API for customized audit rules that apply to your company's expense reports.

How can the administrator enable the Oracle Fusion Expenses mobile application on an iPhone or iPad?

Using the mobile device, users must download and install the Oracle Fusion Expenses mobile application from the Apple Store at http://www.apple.com/iphone/from-the-app-store/. Users require the following information to use the mobile application:

Host URL: If your company has a specific URL for the Oracle Fusion Financials domain, the host URL will be the URL for the Financials domain. The following URL is an example: https://fusion-fin.mycompany.com:7002. If your company has a single URL for the entire Oracle Fusion Applications, then the URL will be the URL for the Fusion Applications. The following URL is an example: https://fusion.mycompany.com. The server must use an https connection.

User Name and Password: This is the user's user name and password that he or she uses to access the Expenses web-based application.

If your company does not enable Fusion applications outside its firewall, users must connect to your company's network using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) for the initial connection and to upload expense items to Expenses web-based application. For convenience, users can enter expenses on the mobile device when they are not connected to VPN.

Previous

Next

Copyright ©  2011-2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Legal Notices

Home

Contents

Book List

Contact Us