How You Create Expense Report Header Descriptive Flexfields

You can configure Oracle Expenses to capture company-specific information for each expense report by enabling descriptive flexfields at the expense report level. A descriptive flexfield is a configurable field that captures additional information.

For each expense report, you can capture up to 27 additional fields of information.

The types of descriptive flexfields that you can create include:

Global
Business unit-specific
User-defined, context-sensitive

For each type of descriptive flexfield you create, you determine how you want the fields to render. To begin, in Setup and Maintenance on the Manage Descriptive Flexfields for Expense Reports page, select the predefined descriptive flexfield named Expense Report Header and click the Edit icon. This predefined descriptive flexfield enables you to create and place descriptive flexfields of your choice in the header section of expense reports.

Creating Global Descriptive Flexfields

Global descriptive flexfields identify the common information that you want to capture across all expense reports. On the Edit Descriptive Flexfield: Expenses Report Header page in the Global Segments section, you can create global descriptive flexfields according to your business requirements.

Creating Business Unit-Specific Descriptive Flexfields

Business unit-specific descriptive flexfields identify the common information that you want to capture across a specific business unit. On the Edit Descriptive Flexfield: Expenses Report Header page in the Context Segment section, do the following:

In the Prompt field, enter Business Unit.
From the Value Set choice list, select the predefined value set named ORA_EXM_BUSINESS_UNIT.

This value set contains the names of all business units in your organization.

Then, create a context for each business unit that requires specific descriptive flexfields by clicking Manage Contexts. For example, if you are creating descriptive flexfields for the business unit, Vision Operations, then you must also create a context named Vision Operations.

Note: The business unit name you enter as the context display name must match the business unit name that you select from the Value Set choice list. Otherwise, the business unit-specific descriptive flexfield that you create won't work.

Creating User-Defined Descriptive Flexfields

User-defined descriptive flexfields identify context sensitive information you want to capture for each expense report. For example, suppose a user-defined context is Expense Purpose, which captures additional descriptive information related to Sales, Training, Relocation, or Miscellaneous. On the Edit Descriptive Flexfield: Expenses page in the Context Segment section, do the following:

In the Prompt field, enter the user-defined context, Expense Purpose.
From the Value Set choice list, select a value set that contains the values for which you intend to create descriptive flexfields.

Note: You many need to create a value set if one doesn't already exist.

The value set contains the names of various contexts of interest.

Then, create a context for each business unit that requires specific descriptive flexfields by clicking Manage Contexts. The user-defined name you enter as the context display name must match the name that you select from the Value Set choice list. Otherwise, the user-defined descriptive flexfield that you create won't work.

Note: In the expense report header, you can create either business unit-specific descriptive flexfields or user-defined descriptive flexfields. You cannot have both in the expense report header at the same time. Global descriptive flexfields can always appear with either business unit-specific descriptive flexfields or user-defined descriptive flexfields.

Note: Display of expense report level descriptive flexfields isn't dependent on the Enable Descriptive Flexfield option on the Manage Expenses System Options page.