Author: Michael Bowpitt, ERP Practice Lead, Namos Solutions
As we all get used to another year – 2021 is not feeling much different to 2020 except for the potential light of normalcy beckoning from the roll-out of the vaccine in the UK. But a pandemic and lockdown has not stopped Oracle developing its ERP product range and rolling out its quarterly enhancements. It does feel though looking through some of these enhancements that the bigger enhancements will be coming later in the year as a lot of the changes we see this time are ‘nice to haves’.
The latest 21A update, which will be rolled out this month (February 2021), will feature some of the following enhancements to Oracle Financials – but they will benefit both users and implementors.
Key Enhancements for your Oracle Financials Cloud 21A:
Prevent general ledger period closure when open subledger periods exist – You are now prevented from closing the General Ledger accounting period if the accounting period for any of the corresponding subledgers is still open, or if incomplete accounting entries or transactions exist for the period. This ensures an effective period close process by validating that all transactions are complete and that incomplete transactions aren’t held up during the close. Assets is now included in the list of subledgers. This is a good addition as it is accounting and audit good practice – it also means more accurate and meaningful reporting, (all exceptions are resolved and accounted for).
Supplier invoice import with remittance bank account details – this one is a bit of a time saver for those companies that have more than one Bank account. If a supplier has multiple remittance bank accounts, you can use these attributes to assign a specific bank account to each supplier invoice, instead of populating every invoice with the default bank account configured in the supplier setup. So the system spreadsheet has banks accounts included when downloaded – saving time when uploading back into the system.
Additional tax drivers in supplier Portal for accurate tax calculation – A small change in that additional tax drivers are now available on invoice lines to calculate tax accurately when submitting invoices through the Supplier Portal. The nine additional tax drivers provide additional flexibility in configuring comprehensive tax rules. This will help to avoid disputes with the AP department when the invoice has been submitted for review and approval.
Balance forward billing in advance of the billing cycle end date – Generate balance forward bills earlier than regularly scheduled billing cycle dates. Use this flexibility in managing your balance forward billing activity impacted by holidays and unscheduled interruptions. Select the ‘Print draft future balance forward bills’ option from the Generate Bill parameter of the Create Balance Forward Bills process.
Open receivables search enhancements for manual receipt application – You can now use improved search and select attributes in the Add Open Receivables window in the Edit Receipt page to select customer transactions for manual receipt application. The receipt customer is now populated by default when you open the window. Users have additional tools for searching and selecting transactions for manual receipt application. Populating the receipt customer saves time, and the additional search attributes improve the precision of transaction searches. Not a wow update but useful I guess.
Automatic reconciliation of bank accounts for a bank, bank branch or legal entity – Automatic reconciliation is done via a reference (upload bank statement- all transactions check against records systems). The only option in the past was via bank account – you now have new parameters (Bank, Legal entity and Bank Branch). Useful for those companies with multiple legal entities with multiple banks and bank accounts.
Notional and Physical cash pools – Review the consolidated cash balance and cash positioning for the cash pool. Use the cash levelling proposals in the cash positioning to Initiate bank transfers from the subsidiary account to the concentration account for zero balancing. You can also initiate the bank transfers from concentration account to subsidiary accounts for maintaining the target balances.
Reconciliation of third-party rollup payments – you can now reconcile consolidated third-party rollup payments transferred from Payroll and reported in bank statements. Third-party payments can be rolled-up using the Run Third-Party Payment Rollup process. Multiple payments from different employees are grouped together and paid to the third-party with single payment transaction. These payment transactions are transferred to Cash Management using the Transfer Payments Information to Cash Management process. Cash managers can review and reconcile third-party rollup payment transactions both automatically or manually.
Changes to the mobile expenses application – I’ll group these together as they all apply to the mobile application for Expenses – they have been available in the main application for a while – but they have now been rolled out to the mobile app.
- Location was previously a free text field in the app – which led to audit and reporting issue – now this is a predefined list making everything more consistent.
- Flight class policy enforcement – allowing you to pre-define the rules given to staff around their booking of flights
- Mandatory fields in the app are now highlighted making them easier to see – say goodbye to the tiny blue Asterix
The final change we will add here is the Keyword audit for expense reports – Administrators can create the list of keywords that meet their company’s auditing needs. When enabled, all expense reports containing the keywords in selected fields are selected for audit.
About Namos Solutions
Namos Solutions are an award-winning Oracle Partner, specialising in the implementation and support of ERP, EPM and HCM business solutions, both in the Cloud and on-premise.
With global experience together with an impeccable track record, our business is built on our passion for delivering successful business transformation. Passion underpins everything we do at Namos – passionate about delivering beyond expectations, earning trust and building long-lasting relationships with our clients.
Although based in central London, we work wherever our clients need us to be. Many leading organisations located all over the world trust and rely on our expertise to deliver industry-leading business solutions. Namos customers can currently be found in the UK, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, North America and Africa.
For more information, please visit www.namossolutions.com or email info@namossolutions.com.
