The Feature

Go-Live Checklist for Oracle Financials

April 4, 2006 on 9:30 pm | by Marian Crkon | In How To Guides | 2 Comments |  Print |  Email

Following is a sample Oracle Financials Go-Live Checklist. It should give you an idea for a sequence of events that occur during the migration to Oracle Applications. The list does not include all application configuration steps, only the “eleventh hour” steps to take the system live. The example covers the applications we needed to set up, including Oracle General Ledger, Oracle Payables, Oracle Receivables, Oracle Projects, Oracle Assets, Oracle Time and Labor, Oracle Internet Expenses and Oracle System Administration. This list is by no means a “fit for all” solution. You can use it as reference to create your own checklist.

Complete HR configurations

1.1 HR Complete HR configuration setups

1.2 HR Complete HR configurations and conversions

• Define New Locations and Organizations
• Define the Organizational Hierarchy
• Define Job Titles and Positions
• Create Employees and Employee Assignments

1.3 AR: Get Customers extract from the Legacy System

1.4 AP: Get Suppliers from the Legacy System

Complete Configuration Changes for all Financial Modules: GL, AP, AR, PA, FA, OTL, IE, SA)

2.1 GL: Define Oracle Chart of Accounts with new values

2.2 GL: Define GL cross-validation rules to allow new values

2.3 AR: Define conversion Transaction Types

2.4 AR: Define AR Receipt Source

2.5 AR: Define lockbox

2.6 AP: Add new Supplier Types

2.7 AP: Add new Pay Groups

2.8 AP: Add a Employee Reimbursement Bank Account

2.9 IE: Enable Expenditure Types in Projects for Expense Report entry.

2.10 IE: Create Expense Report Template

2.11 IE: Define Financial Options (in Payables)

2.12 IE: Define Payables Options

2.13 IE: Assign Manager Signing Limits

2.14 IE: Set OIE Profile Options

2.15 IE: Enable the display of projects and task using AK Developer responsibility

2.16 IE: Set up an Offline Expense Spreadsheet

2.17 IE: Save an offline spreadsheet to the Production database

2.18 IE: Build the Project Expense Report Account Generator.

2.19 IE: Save the Project Expense Report Account Generator to Production database.

2.20 GL: Assign a custom workflow to the Project Expense Report Account Generator process

2.21 FA: Define new Asset Categories

2.22 FA : Define new Asset Locations

2.23 PA: Define Projects Implementation Options

2.24 PA: Add new Expenditure Categories

2.25 PA: Add new Revenue Categories

2.26 PA: Add new Expenditure Types

2.27 PA: Define Transaction Source

2.28 PA: Define Project Bill Rate Schedules

2.29 PA: Define Product Code

2.30 PA: Define Labor Costing Rules

2.31 PA: Define Burden Costing Rules

2.32 PA: Define Cross-Charge Rules

2.33 PA: Define new Event Types

2.34 PA: Enable Percent Complete Billing Extensions

2.35 PA: Define Invoice Formats

2.36 PA: Define Resource Lists with new values

2.37 PA: Define Project Classifications

2.38 PA: Define Project Types

2.39 PA: Define Project Templates

2.40 PA: Define Auto Accounting Lookup Sets

2.41 PA: Define Auto Accounting Rules for new transactions

2.42 PA: Define Auto Accounting Assignments

2.43 PA: Create Admin Projects

Perform Data Conversions of Master Data

3.1 AR: Review and clean up customers

3.2 AP: Review and clean up suppliers and contractors

3.3 AR: Upload customers to Oracle Receivables

3.4 AP: Upload suppliers to Oracle Payables

3.5 AR: Review and validate customers and contacts in Oracle Receivables

3.6 AP: Review and validate suppliers in Oracle Payables

3.7 HR: Upload contingent workers to Oracle HR. Associate contingent workers with AP suppliers

3.8 SA: Create users and assign to responsibilities

3.9 AR: Create customer billing contacts

3.10 FA : Run depreciation for Last Period in the Legacy System

3.11 FA : Get Assets file from the Legacy System

3.12 PA: Extract projects from the Legacy System

3.13 PA: Get project funding amounts

3.14 PA: Ger billing rates for T&M projects

3.15 PA: Upload projects to Oracle Projects

3.16 OTL and iExpenses Go-Live

Execute Conversion of Opening Balances

4.1 AR: Get unapplied AR receipts from the Legacy System

4.2 AR: Get pending AP invoices from the Legacy System

4.3 FA: Close Last Period in Oracle Assets

4.4 FA: Upload legacy assets to Oracle Assets

4.5 PA: Complete Last Period Billing in the Legacy System

4.6 PA: Complete Last Period Billing in Oracle

4.7 GL: Close Last Period in the Legacy System GL

4.8 GL: Close Last Period in Oracle General Ledger

4.9 AR: Get open AR transactions from the Legacy System

4.10 AR: Upload open AR transactions to Oracle Receivables. (Make sure you use Transaction Type with ‘Post to GL’ flag set to ‘No’)

4.11 AR: Upload unapplied AR receipts to Oracle Receivables

4.12 AR: Interface open AR cash balances in GL

4.13 AR: Reverse opening AR cash balances in GL

4.14 PA: Get “Billed” project balances from the Legacy System

4.15 PA: Upload project funding amounts to Oracle Projects. Baseline funding and create revenue budgets.

4.16 PA: Upload bill rate schedules to Oracle Projects

4.17 PA: Get “Unbilled” project items from the Legacy System

4.18 PA: Get opening project expenditure balances from the Legacy System

4.19 PA: Get opening project revenue balances from the Legacy System

4.20 PA: Disable the Interface Usage Costs to GL flag in Projects Implementation Options

4.21 PA: Upload opening project expenditure balances as Miscellaneous Expenditures to Oracle Projects

4.22 PA: Distribute Miscellaneous Costs in Oracle Projects. Run the interface usage and miscellaneous costs to GL process. No JE should be created.

4.23 PA: Disable the Interface Revenue to GL flag in Projects Implementation Options

4.24 PA: Disable the ‘Open Receivable’ and ‘Post to GL’ flags for ‘Projects Invoice’ transaction type in Oracle Receivables

4.25 PA: Upload opening project revenue balances as Revenue Events to Oracle Projects (Revenue Amount is populated)

4.26 PA: Generate project revenue in Oracle Projects. Run the GL interface processes. No JE should be created.

4.27 PA: Upload Billed Project Balances as Billing Events to Oracle Projects (Bill Amount is populated)

4.28 PA: Generate draft project invoices. Interface draft invoices to receivables them to Oracle Receivables. No AR transactions should be generated.

4.29 FA Upload assets to Oracle Assets

4.30 AP: Upload pending AP invoices to Oracle Payables

4.31 AP: Interface AP invoices to General Ledger, reverse the JE.

4.32 OA Set the Revenue to General Ledger flag in Projects Implementation Options back to ‘Yes’

4.33 AR: Set the ‘Open Receivable’ and ‘Post to GL’ flags for ‘Projects Invoice’ transaction type in Oracle Receivables to ‘Yes’.

4.34 PA: Upload legacy unbilled timecards as timecards to Oracle Projects

4.35 PA: Distribute legacy labor costs in Oracle Projects

4.36 PA: Upload unbilled expense reports and other costs as Miscellaneous Transactions to Oracle Projects

4.37 PA: Distribute legacy miscellaneous costs transactions in Oracle Projects

4.38 PA: Generate revenue for unbilled legacy transactions

Start Regular Processing in Oracle Production

5.1 PA: Import new timecards from OTL to Projects

5.2 AP: Validate and import from iExpenses to Payables

5.3 PA: Start running the project processes

5.4 AR: Star applying cash in Oracle Receivables

5.5 GL: After First Period is closed in Assets, create a reversing JE in Oracle GL to reverse asset cost and depreciation through Last Period

Welcome Aboard, Contingent Workers!

February 26, 2006 on 9:00 am | by Marian Crkon | In Reviews | 1 Comment |  Print |  Email

Open the gates! Roll out the red carpet! Start the music! Contingent workers have arrived in Oracle Applications (Release 10.5.10)! Who are those contingent workers anyway? I define them as individuals working for your business, but not on your payroll.

You are probably thinking what the big deal is, right? Well, it’s big because contractors can now enter time and expenses in Oracle, and we are done with all the ugly workarounds and customizations we had to do in the past! Somehow, it took Oracle several years to provide this functionality, but it’s better late than never. Contingent workers are here, and they look fabulous!

How It Works…

• In Human Resources (must be a fully installed HR), you can define contingent workers as persons with a separate person type ‘Contingent Worker’. You can define their assignments, assignment rates, and attach them to their suppliers – either their agencies or their respective 1099 suppliers.
• In Oracle Time and Labor (OTL), contingent workers can now enter time the same way employees do.
• In Oracle Internet Expenses (iExpenses), contingent workers can now enter expense reports the same way employees can. When expense reports are imported into Payables, they become invoices under suppliers that are assigned to contingent workers in HR.
• Contingent worker time and expenses can now be imported into Projects to be costed and/or billed according to your company’s needs.
• Contingent worker labor costs can be calculated either based on their Purchase Order, or Hourly Rates defined in Projects. Using the Labor Costing Extension, you can calculate their costs based on their assignment rate maintained in HR.
• You can define separate accounting rules for contingent worker costs and revenue, thanks to Person Type being a separate parameter in the AutoAccounting rules.
• You have an option to send, or not to send, contingent worker labor costs to General Ledger.

People keep asking me about the gotchas, hidden bugs and surprises. I can’t believe your expectations are so low! There are none. We found everything described above working as designed. Well, for most part…

.. What Could Work Better

• WebADI Transaction Import does not distinguish between person types, and hence does not recognize contingent workers. If you are planning on uploading a larger volume of contingent worker expenses into Projects (e.g. data conversions) using the Web ADI upload, it won’t work.
• The Streamline Interface Process (XL option), which interfaces labor costs from Projects to General Ledger, does not work for contingent worker costs, if they are being interfaced alone. It workrs fine if you interface them with employee costs. I understand this is an existing bug fixed in the next release.
• Contingent Worker and Supplier Start Dates Be careful about the start dates! If contingent worker record in HR has an earlier start date than his supplier record in Payables, and if contingent worker incurred expenses during that timeframe, his expense reports will fail, because “Supplier is Not Active”. In addition, there is no supplier start date, so fixing it is a lot of fun. See Contingent Worker and His Supplier Start Dates feature of the week.
• Contingent Worker Assignment Rate Start Date. Here is a little gotcha for you. Make sure you set this date far enough in the past so that you can cost any legacy timecards. Once you define the first assignment rate, you cannot define another before it.

Share your experience with contingent workers with others. Let the rest of us know what worked and what didn’t.

Contingent Worker and Her Supplier Start Date

January 31, 2006 on 3:50 pm | by Marian Crkon | In Feature of the Week | Enter Comments |  Print |  Email

You can encounter this feature if you are using Oracle iExpenses and Oracle Payables with contingent workers.

The Feature

A contingent worker starts working on a specific date. Her AP supplier record is not created until few days later. So the effective date of her HR assignment starts before her supplier record was created. When a contingent worker then tries to enter her expenses for the dates prior to the existence her AP supplier record, Oracle rejects the expense report.

The Workaround

Ugly, but there is one … The user has to create and submit an expense report with an item date AFTER the date her supplier record was created. Once she created and submitted the expense report (it can be withdrawn and deleted if needed), she will then be able to submit her expenses for the dates prior to the creation date the supplier record, but after her start date as a contingent worker. There isn’t a way to change supplier start date.