1- Control Options in Inventory
Lot Control , Locator control, serial control, revision control, locator & sub inventory restrictions.
2- Transaction type = Transaction source type + transaction action
3- Transaction actions are = Issue from stores, receipt into stores,
4- Reservation = Link between supply source and demand source
5- Trip = Trip is a carrier specific and contains atleast two stop such as stop to pick up goods and deliver goods.
6- What is the difference between 'Accrue On Receipt' and 'Accrue at Period End'?
A: Accrue On Receipt means that when a receipt is saved, accrual transactions are immediately recorded and sent to the general ledger interface. This is also known as "online" accruals. Accrue at Period End means that when a receipt is saved, the accrual transactions are not immediately recorded and sent to the general ledger; instead, the accounting entries are generated and sent at the end of the month by running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End Process.
All items with a destination type of either Inventory and Outside Processing are accrued on receipt. For items with a destination type of Expense, you have the option of accruing on receipt or at period end.
7- Why are expense items typically accrued at period-end, and why are inventory
items always accrued on receipt?
A: One should accrue on receipt if perpetual inventory is adopted to facilitate reconciliation between inventory valuation reports and accounting entries. Expense items typically are not accounted for on a daily basis, and most companies find it easier to account for and reconcile these expenses at month-end rather than at the time each individual expense is incurred.
When both inventory and expense items are accrued on receipt, the following problems may be encountered:
A) Receiving inspection balances will include both inventory assets and expenses, so at the end of the month, they will need to be manually reclassified.
B) The number of entries needed to research and reconcile the perpetual A/P Accrual Account(s) becomes significantly increased. Since the expense receipts could double the number of accrual accounting entries to process, the Accrual Reconciliation Report could take twice as long to run. The amount of time required by your staff to research any discrepancies would also increase.
8- What is the significance of the Document Total and Account Range types on the Approval Groups form?
A: The Document Total type sets the maximum limit for any approval actions taken by the user whom the approval group applies to. If multiple Document Totals are specified, the restriction will be to the Document Total, which is the lowest. The Account Range also allows for a document total which is then tied to a specific range of accounts listed on the same line. It is possible to have different account ranges with different amount Limits. This allows the same user to have a different dollar/account limit. It is mandatory to have an account range specified in each approval group defined. By default, if there is not an account range defined, all accounts will then be excluded from the document approval process, which means that the documents will not have an ability to become approved.
9- How is it possible to approve a blanket release when the blanket purchase agreement is showing that the full amount has already been released?
A: The validation of a release dollar amount is not against the amount agreed on the header of the blanket purchase agreement; instead, it validates against the Amount Limit specified in the Terms and Conditions window of the Purchase Orders form. If this field is left blank, then the release can be for any amount. Therefore, it is imperative that the Amount Limit field be populated with the same dollar amount as the Amount Agreed field in the header region of the Purchase Orders form, depending on the business needs. It should also be noted that Release 11i also has introduced an Amount Limit field that can be defined at the line level of the blanket agreement.
10- I am delegating the approval of a PO to someone who doesn't have access to open this PO. Would he be able to approve it?
A: Since he has been 'delegated' the approval authority from you, his approval actions would be adjudged as if you were taking those actions on this document. However, the document would remain inaccessible to him. This is because by 'Delegating', you are only allowing him to act on approval decisions on your behalf, rather than also delegating him the access authority.
11- Does autocreate add to an existing PO shipment that has been encumbered?
A: Purchasing does not add to an existing purchase order shipment if that shipment has been encumbered even though all the grouping columns necessary to combine shipping information are there.
12- an requisition line with item number and without item number [one time item] be combined to single document line in autocreate?
A: If you want to combine two requisition lines for the same item, one with an item number and one without, you have to manually autocreate the document and use Modify on the Tools menu to add the predefined item to the requisition line for the one�time item.
13- What are the setups required for Encumbrance Accounting?
A: 1) In General Ledger
a) Enable budgetary control in your Set of Books:
Navigation: Setup->Financials->Books
Alternative Region : Budgetary Control Options Flag Enable Budgetary Control.
b) Create budgetary control groups:
Navigation: Budgets->Define->Controls
Create name, description and enter Budgetary control rules. e.g.. Add Purchasing as Source with category Purchases.
This control group has to be attached at the Site level or User level Profile Option (Budgetary Control Group) and this will control the behavior regarding the tolerance of budgetary control.
c) Define Budget:
Navigation->Budget->Define->Budget
In Budget, basically you set period boundary for your budget i.e. time frame.
Remember to open the periods for the budget by pressing the Open next year button.
NOTE: A prerequisite to the above step is that Encumbrance year should be open at Set of Books level.
Navigation: Setup->Open/Close
d) Define Budget Organization:
Navigation: Budget->Define->Organization
In this step you choose the accounts for which you want to have control and link it to your Budget defined in step 'c'. Complete Header of form and Navigate to Ranges and define your ranges for your organization.
e) Encumbrance types:
Navigation: Setup->Journals->Encumbrances.
Encumbrance types are defined so as to bifurcate the reservation of funds done at different levels i.e. Requisition, PO or Invoice level, it helps management people in having better financial control.
2) In Purchasing
a) Enable encumbrance: Encumbrance has to be enabled in Financial Options form in Purchasing modules.
In Purchasing: Setup->Organization->Financial Options (Alternative region Encumbrance)
Select different encumbrance types for different levels i.e. Requisition, PO and Invoice. Here you attach the types that you defined in step 1.e of GL setup.
14- What steps do I take when the approval of the purchase order fails due to insufficient funds?
A: 1. Identify the distribution that is failing, the error message will usually indicate which distribution is in error. Obtain the ccid of this distribution account.
2. . Check the budget organization for which this code combination id is assigned. This is accomplished in General Ledger (Budgets - Define - Organization).
a) First find the budget_entity_id (budget that this account is tied to)
select set_of_books_id , budget_entity_id ,
range_id, AUTOMATIC_ENCUMBRANCE_FLAG ,FUNDS_CHECK_LEVEL_CODE from
GL_BUDGET_ASSIGNMENTS where CODE_COMBINATION_ID = '&#####' ;
b) Using the budget_entity_id query the Budget Organization name.
select name, set_of_books_id , status_code from GL_BUDGET_ENTITIES
where budget_entity_id = '&####';
Specifically verify the Amount Type, the Boundary and the Funding Budget values. The funding budget should be active and ensure that your encumbrance amount has not exceeded the funds available for the funds checking interval (boundary). For example, if the budget total is $100,000.00, the amount budgeted per quarter is $25,000.00, the Amount type is YTD and the boundary is QTD, then check that the purchase order encumbrance would not exceed the boundary amount of $25,000.00.
15- The Encumbrance Detail Report does not pick up expected purchase orders.
A: Review the parameters passed to the report to verify that the selection criteria did not exclude the purchase order. The selection of purchase orders on this report is based on the following information in the database:
- the setting of the encumbered_flag in po_distributions, needs to be set to Y, and the cancel_flag in po_line_locations must be set to N and
- the gl_encumbered_date in po_distributions must be between the dates passed to the report for the encumbered dates and
- the vendor used on the purchase order must be included by the Vendor parameter and
- the po_distributions.prevent_encumbrance_flag must be set to N
16- I am using encumbrance accounting and when I forward a Purchase Order for approval, I am encountering the following error: APP-14166: Please enter a forward to employee or funds are not reserved.
A: You must check the Reserve Funds check box when forwarding and/or approving a Purchase Order if you are using encumbrance. You can check to see if you are using encumbrance in Purchasing by doing the following:
1. Setup/Organizations/Financial Options
2. Change the Alternate Region to Encumbrance and see if the Use PO Encumbrance check box is checked.
3. Refer Note 1064155.6 for more details.
17- What are Reminder notifications?
A: Once an approver doesn?t respond to approval notification for quite sometime, then a reminder notification can be sent out to the approver. You can send up to two reminders to an approver using the Timeout feature. You can also specify that after a certain period of time, the document be forwarded automatically to the next approver in the hierarchy. This feature has to be setup by you by changing the PO and/or Requisition approval workflow in Oracle Workflow Builder.
18- How do you setup the timeout feature?
A: In Oracle Workflow Builder, open the ?PO Approval? workflow (for purchase orders) or the ?PO Requisition Approval? workflow for requisitions. To enable the Timeout feature in the PO Approval workflow, modify the following activities in the Notify Approver sub process by entering a Timeout period in their Properties windows:
Approve PO Notification, PO Approval Reminder 1, and PO Approval Reminder 2.
To enable the Timeout feature in the PO Requisition Approval workflow, modify the following activities in the Notify Approver sub process by entering a Timeout period in their Properties windows: Approve Requisition Notification, Requisition Approval Reminder1, and Requisition Approval Reminder2.
19- How do you generate the notifications for the documents that need to be started up in approval yet?
A: You can run ?Send Notifications For Purchasing Documents? program to search the documents that are incomplete, rejected, or in need of re-approval and send notifications to the appropriate people informing them about the document?s status.
20- Why does the create releases process not create a Release when we have run the CREATE RELEASES program against a Blanket Purchase Order whose EFFECTIVE DATES are in the future with a valid Sourcing Rule?
A: The CREATE RELEASE program must be run within the EFFECTIVE DATES of the Blanket Purchase Order. This is because the program verifies whether the SYSTEM DATE falls within the EFFECTIVE DATES, when looking for the Releases to be created. This is a standard functionality.
21- When we try to run Requisition import after running a Min-Max planning request why is it that requisitions are created from Requisition import but no releases are created against blanket POs.
A: For Releases to get created automatically in the Requisition Import process:
- Check for the profile option PO: Release During Requisition Import which should be set to 'Yes� to create releases during requisition import.
- 'Sourcing Rule' must have current date between 'effective date' and 'to date'.
- Check that the requisition is sourced with the blanket, and the requisitions are approved as part of the Requisition Import process.
- If the Encumbrance is ON, then the requisition will not get approved and will be in pre approved status and hence release will not get created.
- Check the profile option MRP: Purchasing By Revision (If requisitions are coming from MRP) and INV: Purchasing By Revision (If requisitions are coming from INV). This must be set according and should not be null. This profile option must be set to 'Yes' or 'No' according to the customer�s requirement.
- Verify the table PO_REQUISITIONS_INTERFACE, column AUTOSOURCE_FLAG is �Y�.
- Verify if this item has a blanket purchase agreement approved and it is not closed or cancelled.
22- Can we save and approve blanket PO releases without entering promised and need-by date?
A: If the item is either MRP/DRP, MPS/DRP or DRP planned item the promised date or need by date is mandatory and the user has to enter the date. If the item is not planned, then it is not mandatory.
23- What is the significance of "PO: Convert Requisition UOM to Source Document UOM" profile option?
A: Earlier in Autocreate if the requisition UOM is different from the BPA UOM the user would not be allowed to create a release. But in Create releases program this was possible. To make the behavior consistent we have introduced this profile option. If this profile is set to yes we allow the autocreation of the release with the quantity and UOM converted to that of the BPA. If the profile is set to yes we do not allow the creation of the req both in autocreate as well as the create releases program.
24- Firm
When you firm an order, Master Scheduling/MRP uses the firm date to create a time fence within which it will not suggest new planned purchase orders, cancellations, or reschedule�in actions. It continues to suggest reschedule�out actions for orders within the time fence. If several shipments with different promised or need�by dates reference the same item, Master Scheduling/MRP sets the time fence at the latest of all scheduled dates.
You can firm orders at the document header or shipment level. If you firm at the header level, Purchasing applies this control to every shipment on the document.
25- What is the setup needed for using Create Documents workflow?
A: - If you want document creation to be launched online upon requisition approval, then item�Send PO Autocreation to Background� in requisition approval process should be set to�N�. Otherwise if this attribute is set to �Y� (default) then the requisition approval process launches the create document workflow when workflow background process is run. In this case, workflow background process must be run with parameters: item type �PO Requisition Approval� and deferred �Yes�.
- Sourcing should be set up, so that the requisition gets sourced while creating it.
- If you want Create Document workflow to create the documents, then the �Release Method� in ASL attributes should be defined as �Release Using AutoCreate�.
- In workflow definition for workflow �PO Create Documents�, the item attribute �Is Automatic Creation Allowed?� should be set to �Y� (Default). Also if attribute �Should Workflow Create the Release?� is set to �Y� (default), then workflow tries to create the releases.
26- How does the Create Document Workflow decide which buyer to use for the automatically created documents?
A: Workflow tries to retrieve buyer information in following order:
- Buyer specified on the Requisiti