Options for Validations

Validations are rules that ensure that transactions are valid before they are printed or submitted electronically to payment systems. You use validations to ensure that disbursement transactions, such as invoices, payments, and payment files meet specific conditions before they can be paid.

You can assign validations to payment methods and payment formats. A validation can be executed at the document payable, payment, or payment file level.

In payment processing, it's critical that payment files sent to payment systems and financial institutions are valid and correctly formatted. If this is not done, the payment process is slowed, which results in additional time and cost due to problem resolution. Oracle Fusion Payments helps you achieve straight-through processing by ensuring that payment-related details are valid. To assign validations, you can select from the following options:

• Assigning validations

• Creating user-defined validations

• Selecting from a predefined library of validations

The following table lists the objects you can validate and when validations are executed for the applicable setup.

Object	Payment Method-Driven Validations are Enforced When...	Payment File Format-Driven Validations are Enforced When...
Document Payable	The invoice is saved in the source product. The invoice installment is selected for payment.	The invoice installment is selected for payment.
Payment	The payment is created by building related documents payable together.	The payment is created by building related documents payable together.
Payment File	Not applicable.	The payment file is created.

Assigning Validations

You can assign user-defined validations to any:

• Payment method

• Payment file format

You can assign a validation to whichever object drives the requirement for validation. For example, if your bank format requires a limited number of characters in a specific field, you can assign that validation to the bank format. By doing this, you ensure that the validation is enforced only when applicable. However, if you want to enforce a general validation that isn't specific to the payment method or format, you can consider timing in your decision.

Payments always validates as early as possible for a given object and setup. Document payable validations that are associated with payment methods are enforced earlier in the process than those associated with formats. If you want validation failures handled by the same person who is entering the invoice, you can associate the validation with the payment method. This method is ideal for business processes where each person has full ownership of the items entered. However, if you want focused invoice entry with validation failures handled centrally by a specialist, you can associate the validation with the format. This method is ideal for some shared service centers.

Creating User-Defined Validations

A user-defined validation explicitly specifies the object to which the validation applies:

• Document payable

• Payment

• Payment file

User-defined validations are basic validations that correspond to simple operations. These validations can be used as components, or building blocks, to build more complex validations. They enable you to validate, for example, the following conditions:

• Length of a value. Example: Payment Detail must be fewer than 60 characters for your bank-specific payment file format.

• Whether a field is populated. Example: Remit to bank account is required when payment method is Electronic.

• Whether content of a field is allowed. Example: Currency must be USD when using your domestic payment file format.

Selecting From a Predefined Library of Validations

Payments provides a library of predefined validations. You can associate these predefined validations with any payment method or payment file format you create. Many of the payment formats provided by Oracle have predefined validations associated with them by default.

Predefined validations are groups of individual validations that are together for a specific purpose. Many of the predefined validations that you can associate with payment formats are country-specific. Predefined validations cannot be modified, although some have parameters you can set to define specific values.