Author: Michael Bowpitt, ERP Practice Lead, Namos Solutions
First came Christmas and Oracle offered us sneak peek into what 21a would offer us in the Cloud for Q1 and they didn’t disappoint with new features that were ‘nice to have’ and could both complement and enhance business processes.
Three months have flown by and before we knew it Easter had arrived and Oracle gave us another peek into the offerings of 21b for Financials. Building on the feature list of 21a, Oracle, have provided us with a wealth of useful features that existing users can really benefit from and new customers will be sure to take note.
Our expert Oracle Cloud consultants here at Namos Solutions have taken a few moments to offer their insights on a few of their favourites from the release readiness documents.
Accounts Collections
Enhanced Message Content for Dunning Letters Delivered Using Email – This is one of the most awaited new features required in Advanced Collection Module. Now email bodies can be configured for each of the Dunning Letter Templates, which are already available in the product. Using this feature we can now send dunning letters using email with enhanced rich text content in the body of the message. Users can choose different fonts, modify font size and style, and insert logos and hyperlinks. The enhanced content improves the user experience for customers who receive dunning letters as an email attachment.
Accounts Payables
Creation Of All Payment Files In One Payment Batch Without User Intervention – Great new feature, before 21b payment batch submission only created the first payment file automatically. Going forward, all payment files will be generated automatically, without any user intervention making the payment process more efficient.
Accounts Receivables
Enhancements To The Receipts Created Using Spreadsheets Or Create Receipt Page And Application Processed Using Apply Receipts Using Automatch Process – Users are able to record a customer reason and customer reference for each remit reference when entered in the create/view receipt pages UI or when created via receipt batches ADFDI spreadsheet. This new feature enhances the existing control users had when applying receipts using the AutoMatch process that created claims. This will assist with revenue management by allowing the receipt automatch process to create a revenue claim for underpayments or create a Claim Investigation for overpayments.
Approvals Workflow
Navigation Of Approval Rules In Transaction Console – This functionality can be used to view or edit approval rules directly from the Transaction Console. You can now edit the rules for Invoice, Journal, Expense, and Holds Resolution workflows, and you can enable the ‘Alert Initiator on Error’ option to send notifications to the workflow initiator for failed workflow notifications. As Workflow administrator you can review the issue description and provide resolution for the failed transactions. If a transaction failed due to incorrect rule configuration, then the workflow administrator can correct the rules and recover the transaction from the point of failure.
Configurable Payables Workflow Notifications – For Payables workflow notifications you can now define further configuration definitions to include Invoice Header, Invoice line and Invoice Distribution DFFs attributes.
Configure Approval Rules Based on the Purchase Order Line and Schedule Status – With this new feature you are able to now configure Approval Rules based on the status of a Purchase Order Header or Line, offering specialisation in the routing of your approvals to meet business requirements. As an example of how this may work is two lines on a Purchase Order are for two different cost centres to be routed independently dependent upon their Status, where one line is Cancelled and one is Open. The approver for the Cancelled line will not be notified but the approver for the Open line will be notified.
Cash Management
Wildcard Support for Bank Statement Processing Using UCM Protocol – Wildcard is now supported for Importing & Processing Bank Statement using UCM Protocol. The capability to retrieve files using a wildcard reduces the manual effort of downloading files individually. You can retrieve multiple bank statements (that match the wildcard pattern) at once, instead of individually retrieving each file. Support for Universal Content Management Reader (UCM) protocol improves your integration capability with banks using this protocol.
Expenses
Detection of Duplicate Expenses – Employees will now be alerted about a potential duplicate expenses being entered based on the predefined scoring model. Enabling employees to review the duplicate expenses and take action themselves. This feature will offer potential benefits for the organisation eliminating the risk of duplicate entries and payments.
Fixed Assets
Derivation of Asset Location from Payables Invoice Ship-To Location – You can now use the Payables ‘ship to location’ to assign an asset location in the assets module by creating a one-time mapping between the asset location and the Payables ‘Ship-to location’. This eliminates the manual process of a user entering the location into each assets after running the mass additions scheduled process is completed. Optionally, You can use the fixed assets configuration spreadsheet template to implement this by adding the HR location code on the locations tab.
General Ledger
Journal Categories Excluded During Manual Journal Entry – A great new feature, which has been a long time coming, often during implementations we hear clients say “is it possible to hide some of the (many) categories which come as standard with Oracle Cloud?” Unfortunately, until now it hasn’t been possible. In 21b it’s now possible to exclude Journal Categories from manual posting. This feature still allows for the categories to be used by Oracle Subledgers or from third party systems. The additional control this new feature allows, can prevent users from using categories which are only to be used by Oracle Subledgers, ensuring best practice is followed
Search Section On Manage Journals Page Remains Expanded After Search – Currently in 21a, after a search is initiated, the parameters fields are collapsed and hidden from a user. The user would have to re-expand the UI manually for another search to be entered. With this new feature, users are no required to re-expand as they remain always expanded even after a search is executed.
Procurement
Communicate Purchase Orders to secondary recipients using CC & BCC – Using the UI on a purchase order or change order there is now the option to enter multiple email addresses under CC and BCC. They can also be added when creating or cancelling PO’s using an FBDI. This functionality is particularly useful when you have numerous people at a supplier who want visibility over orders and has caused issues for clients previously where only one email address could be used and then that individual would have to share it.
Disable Automatic Communication of Purchase Order Changes – The ability to disable automatic communication of PO changes – preventing the communication of change orders to suppliers (To be honest, I reached out to an old colleague on this one as I hadn’t a clue what scenario you wouldn’t want to inform a supplier of the change once it is approved, or why it should be manual – they were also unsure. So, my best guess is that the order has already been shipped and you don’t want to annoy a supplier with them trying to logistically stop a delivery, rather than the client completing a return, but I’m not sure that even makes sense).
Configure the Sender Email Address for Purchasing Document Communication – You have the option to specify the sender email address for Purchase Order documents, instead of an application domain email address, a predefined email address that can be set up and used exclusively for purchasing document communications. This is useful as it allows Suppliers to add this email address to their approved senders list and ensures replies from suppliers are stored in a centrally monitored inbox.
Configure One-Time Address In Requisition Preferences – 21b also brings the ability to configure a one-time address as part of requisition preferences, helping you use the default for all requisition lines without updating the delivery information when submitting a requisition. This feature simplifies the requisition process for you if you work remotely (useful given the current climate) or have work assignments at non-internal locations. You don’t need to manually enter a one-time delivery address for multiple requisition lines.
Provide Rejection Reason In Supplier Registration – Internal and external supplier registration flows now support a customer-defined reason along with comments, when rejecting a supplier registration. The rejection reason and comments are communicated to the requester or supplier and captured in the registration request.
Projects Portfolio Management
Grouping Of Invoices By Bill-To Site And Bill-To Contact – This feature helps Project billing specialist to automatically distribute invoices via email to the email addresses of each customer’s bill-to contacts without further intervention and less workload for receivables clerks to fix invoices with improper email addresses.
Dynamic Resource Addition On Incurring Actuals – As actual amounts are incurred for a project, resources are added automatically to the planning resource breakdown structure when it allows changes at the project level. This avoids assigning unplanned costs to generic resources and makes it easier to review unplanned costs. Also, the time taken to update the financial project plan is reduced.
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.
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