White Paper - Best Practices For Adopting Oracle EBS, Release 12 - June 2008

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12
An Oracle White Paper June 2008
Introduction ....................................................................................................... 5 Implementing versus Upgrading..................................................................... 5 Best Practices ..................................................................................................... 6 Project Best Practices ................................................................................... 6 Tip #1 Allocate Enough Time for Your Project ............................. 6 Tip #2 Determine the Appropriate Project Scope .......................... 6 Tip #3 Determine Your Upgrade Approach.................................... 7 Tip #4 Plan for Required Financials Setup Steps ............................ 7 Tip #5 Look for Opportunities to Simplify Your Project.............. 8 Tip #6 Inventory Your Customizations and Prioritize Them for Upgrade ..................................................................................................... 8 Tip #7 Consider Migrating Your Reports to Business Intelligence Publisher .................................................................................................... 9 Tip #8 Assemble a Project Team that Combines Technical and Functional Skill Sets................................................................................. 9 Tip #9 Involve Your Business Users at Every Project Phase........ 9 Tip #10 Keep Your Project Team in Place through Your First Financial Close........................................................................................ 10 Tip #11 Reexamine User Roles and Responsibilities and Business Processes.................................................................................................. 10 Tip #12 Consider Using Oracles Process Documentation and End User Training Tools ...................................................................... 10 Tip #13 Acquire Release 12 Knowledge......................................... 11 Tip #14 Fully Utilize Available Upgrade Documentation............ 12 Tip #15 Use the Maintenance Wizard............................................. 12 Tip #16 Stay Current with Latest Code .......................................... 13 Tip #17 Stay Current with Latest Information .............................. 13 Pre- and Post-Upgrade Best Practices ..................................................... 15 Tip #18 Clear Your Interfaces and Any Processing Exceptions. 15 Tip #19 Review your Pending Concurrent Requests.................... 15 Tip #20 Run Key Reports Before and After Your Upgrade ....... 15 Tip #21 Review Your Custom Concurrent Program Incompatibilities ..................................................................................... 15
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Tip #22 Review Concurrent Programs to Ensure Proper Multiple Organizations Access Control Settings............................................... 16 Testing Best Practices................................................................................. 16 Tip #23 Develop a Robust Testing Strategy .................................. 16 Tip #24 Test with Upgraded As Well as New Data and at Full Volumes................................................................................................... 17 Tip #25 Do Load and Volume Testing........................................... 17 Product-Specific Considerations and Tips .................................................. 17 Payables ........................................................................................................ 18 Overview ................................................................................................. 18 Pre-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................... 19 Setup Tips................................................................................................ 19 Operational Tips..................................................................................... 19 Payments ...................................................................................................... 21 Overview ................................................................................................. 21 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 21 Post-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................. 21 Internet Expenses ....................................................................................... 22 Overview ................................................................................................. 22 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 22 Pre-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................... 22 Post-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................. 23 Setup Tips................................................................................................ 23 Receivables................................................................................................... 23 Overview ................................................................................................. 23 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 24 Setup Tips................................................................................................ 24 Operational Tips..................................................................................... 24 Advanced Collections................................................................................. 26 Overview ................................................................................................. 26 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 26 Assets............................................................................................................ 26 Overview ................................................................................................. 26 Operational Tips..................................................................................... 27 Advanced Global Intercompany System................................................. 27 Overview ................................................................................................. 27 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 27 Post-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................. 27 General Ledger............................................................................................ 28 Overview ................................................................................................. 28 Setup Tips................................................................................................ 28 Operational Tips..................................................................................... 29 Global Accounting Engine........................................................................ 30 Overview ................................................................................................. 30 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 30 Subledger Accounting ................................................................................ 30
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Overview ................................................................................................. 30 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 30 Operational Tips..................................................................................... 31 E-Business Tax............................................................................................ 32 Overview ................................................................................................. 32 Planning Considerations........................................................................ 33 Post-Upgrade Tips ................................................................................. 33 Setup Tips................................................................................................ 33 Troubleshooting Tips ............................................................................ 34 Change Record ............................................................................................ 36
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INTRODUCTION
This white paper describes best practices that can help your enterprise become successful on Release 12. It offers practical advice from professionals in Oracles Support, Consulting, IT, and Development organizations on how to do a Release 12 implementation or upgrade. Said another way, this paper tells you things you wish you knew before embarking upon your Release 12 project. This white paper is intended to be a living document. As we gather additional Release 12 best practice advice, we will revise and re-publish this paper.
Release 12 provides the foundation for over 300 new features, and includes new Oracle Financials accounting and tax engines as well as multi-organization capability that many customers want to take advantage of.
IMPLEMENTING VERSUS UPGRADING
Lets start by distinguishing what we mean by the terms implementing and upgrading. If you adopt Release 12 by implementing, you install the Release 12 software and implement it to reflect your enterprise structure and operating practices. You then load any historical data from your legacy systems into your freshly-implemented Release 12 system using public interface tables and application programming interfaces (APIs) that Oracle provides. Generally, you use custom scripts to transform your historical data into a format that is compatible with those public interfaces. If the legacy system from which you migrate your historical data is an earlier release of the E-Business Suite, then your fresh implementation may be described as a reimplementation. If you adopt Release 12 by upgrading, you install the Release 12 software and use Oracle-supplied tools and scripts to transform your historical data in place to the new Release 12 data model. The standard upgrade process converts your existing setup to Release 12 reimplementation is not required. Regardless of how you adopt Release 12, it provides the foundation for over 300 new features, and includes new Oracle Financials accounting and tax engines as well as multi-organization capability that many customers want to take advantage of. You can analyze these Release 12 new features and implement them at your own pace at any time after your upgrade.
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BEST PRACTICES
The following sections describe Release 12 best practices for project, pre- and postupgrade, and testing activities.
A Financials upgrade to Release 12 involves significantly more changes than the Financials upgrades between Release 11i point releases, such as 11.5.8 to 11.5.9, or 11.5.9 to 11.5.10.
Project Best Practices
This section describes best practices for planning and managing your Release 12 project.
Tip #1 Allocate Enough Time for Your Project
Release 12 is a major new release with significant changes in data model and functionality, especially in the Financials product area. It introduces centralized functionality to handle accounting, taxation, and access to data across organizations, and offers more flexible implementation options than were available in Release 11i to meet a wider variety of business needs. Set a clear and realistic schedule for your Release 12 adoption project. A Financials upgrade to Release 12 involves significantly more changes than the Financials upgrades between Release 11i point releases, such as 11.5.8 to 11.5.9, or 11.5.9 to 11.5.10.
Tip #2 Determine the Appropriate Project Scope
You may be thinking about combining your Release 12 adoption with related systems projects, such as upgrading your hardware or your operating system or merging multiple instances into a single global instance. Since adopting Release 12 of Financials involves a substantial amount of change, consider whether keeping your project as simple as possible is the best option for your business. The standard upgrade moves you from Release 11i to 12 with the same setups and functionality, plus some additional, default functionality around tax, subledger accounting, ledgers and payments. You then have the option to implement additional new functionality either immediately, as part of the same project, or in a subsequent project. In general, consider whether to scope your Release 12 adoption as a single project that fully encompasses all the changes you are targeting, or to divide your adoption into multiple projects. For example, you could separate an upgrade to your hardware platform from your upgrade to Release 12. You could further simplify your project by performing a minimal upgrade, versus upgrading and fully implementing new features to the target state. The advantage of phasing your Release 12 adoption across multiple projects is that you minimize the risk and changes to your business undertaken in any one of those projects. However, depending on your circumstances, you may want to scope your adoption to include all the features that support your return on investment as a single project.
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Tip #3 Determine Your Upgrade Approach
If you are moving from an existing release of Oracle E-Business Suite to Release 12, you should consider whether to perform a standard upgrade versus a reimplementation. A standard upgrade allows you to take advantage of supported tools, scripts and documentation to move your existing Release 11i setups and historical data to Release 12. A reimplementation, on the other hand, allows you greater flexibility in your setup and in how you migrate your historical data using supported public interfaces. It is a project that you would generally undertake with the support of a professional services provider, such as Oracle Consulting. You would consider doing a reimplementation under circumstances such as:
You wish to change configurations that are not easily changed, such as your chart of accounts definition, costing method, or calendar.
Your enterprise has undergone significant change in the number and structure of its business units and organizations since your original Oracle implementation. For example, you have grown through acquisition and you want to establish a new standard applications setup for all of your business units, which are currently running disparate application systems. You could freshly implement Release 12, and then migrate historical data from your existing businesses, even if some of those businesses were running E-Business Suite.
Some accounting entities (such as taxes, banks and suppliers) that were modeled by several Financials products in Release 11i have moved to a common implementation in Release 12.
Tip #4 Plan for Required Financials Setup Steps
Even a minimal upgrade requires some setup of the new Financials features that come by default, such as Trading Community Architecture (TCA) for supplier data, Payments and E-Business Tax. Some accounting entities (such as taxes, banks and suppliers) that were modeled by several Financials products in Release 11i have moved to a common implementation in Release 12. If you have setup inconsistencies among Release 11i products for setups that are centralized in Release 12, then you should try to resolve them before you upgrade. For example, since supplier data moves from individual product tables in Release 11i to common TCA tables in Release 12, you should review your 11i supplier data and remove any duplicates. Furthermore, the upgrade scripts that move Release 11i Financials setups to Release 12 are based on assumptions, detailed in the Oracle Financials and Oracle Procurement Functional Upgrade Guide, of what is appropriate for most business situations. If those assumptions would lead to an outcome that is inappropriate for your business situation, plan on modifying your Release 12 Financials setups. You can run the Accounting Setup Manager Pre-Update Diagnosis Report to view your Release 11i setup for Multiple Reporting Currencies, General Ledger, Global Accounting Engine, Assets, Payables, and Receivables. This report identifies setups that are potentially problematic. While you can upgrade successfully without running this report and without modifying your setup, you may find it more difficult to take advantage of new Release 12 functionality.
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Tip #5 Look for Opportunities to Simplify Your Project
Many successful projects have taken the approach of simplifying the project to reduce risk. For example, during Oracles adoption of Release 12, we completed as many tasks as we could ahead of the actual upgrade. For example, we reviewed and standardized our setups, and we eliminated obsolete reports, alerts, responsibilities, and other data to reduce our testing and upgrade effort. We replaced custom functionality with standard product while still at the 11i.10 level. For example, we started moving our consulting organization onto the Oracle Time and Labor module a year before we upgraded to Release 12, finishing the moves for the last group of countries at the time of the upgrade. We identified features we could enable prior to Release 12. For example, we moved Receivables users off of the Collections Workbench and onto the newer Advanced Collections module. (In Release 12, users assigned to the seeded Collections menu are automatically redirected to the Advanced Collections forms.) We also applied the latest 11i family pack for HRMS (Family Pack K, RUP2) a few months prior to upgrade. While we needed to take HRMS RUP2 while still on 11i due to mandatory year-end, tax-related changes, a side-benefit of doing so was that we introduced HRMS functionality close to Release 12, making the upgrade delta smaller.
Inventory your customizations and determine which functions could be replaced by standard product in Release 12.
Tip #6 Inventory Your Customizations and Prioritize Them for Upgrade
Inventory your customizations and determine which functions could be replaced by standard product in Release 12. For any customizations that remain, validate with your business users which customizations are most critical to them so that you can prioritize your upgrade effort. It may be possible to defer the implementation of some customizations until after the initial upgrade project. You should review the impact of changes to database objects on your custom code. In particular, note that with Release 12, the backward-compatible views RA_CUSTOMERS and RA_ADDRESSES are no longer available, so you should change any custom code that references them to reference the relevant Trading Community Architecture (TCA) tables instead. Lists of Release 12 database changes are included in the Technical Overview documents that are part of the Release 12 Transfer of Information (TOI) Online Training, accessible from OracleMetaLink Note 403349.1. It might be necessary to engage Oracle Consulting or an Oracle partner to execute a detailed CEMLI (Customization, Extension, Modification, Localization, and Integration) framework review. This should be done to assist in properly planning your upgrade program.
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Tip #7 Consider Migrating Your Reports to Business Intelligence Publisher
Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (Oracle BI Publisher), formerly known as XML Publisher, is an enterprise reporting solution for authoring, managing and delivering all types of highly-formatted documents. End users can easily design report layouts using familiar desktop tools, such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, or Adobe Acrobat. BI Publisher can query or accept data from practically any data source databases, packaged applications, web services, HTTP feeds, or file data sources. BI Publisher was used in Release 11i.10 for high-fidelity formatting of many external documents. With Release 12, many more standard reports use BI Publisher. For BI Publisher-based reports, an XML data extract is provided along with a default layout (template) that you can easily modify. Custom reports based on Pasta or mod_plsql are not supported in Release 12, and should be converted to BI Publisher. Consider converting your custom Oracle Reports reports to BI Publisher, as well. If you move your custom reports to BI Publisher before upgrading to Release 12, you may need to adjust the queries you use to produce the report output, but your formatting will remain valid for Release 12.
Involve business users from the start of your project so that they are prepared for Release 12 changes in look and process flow.
Tip #8 Assemble a Project Team that Combines Technical and Functional Skill Sets
Consider including the following people on your Release 12 project team:

A dedicated project manager An executive steering committee Application business owners in particular, a tax specialist who knows the tax policies in regions where you do business Technical applications specialists technical specialists who work closely with business owners Technical team one or more people who can function as a technical upgrade specialist, an operating system administrator, a database administrator, an applications server (middle tier) specialist, a performance specialist, a change management specialist, and a customization developer Testers both technical and functional. You will also need someone to log and track service requests (SRs), and a DBA to apply patches. A training lead to assist in the rollout to end users
If you decide to retain outside consultants to provide expertise that is lacking from your in-house team, prefer consultants with prior Release 12 experience.
Tip #9 Involve Your Business Users at Every Project Phase
Involve business users from the start of your project so that they are prepared for Release 12 changes in look and process flow. Identify the functional areas where
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users will see the biggest changes and concentrate your training efforts there. For example, in Oracle Payables, the payments process uses a new Payments dashboard, and the Invoice workbench is significantly reworked. Plan to reinforce end user learning even after your production cutover with internal documentation and job aids.
Keep your Release 12 project team in place at least through your first financial close.
Tip #10 Keep Your Project Team in Place through Your First Financial Close
Keep your Release 12 project team in place at least through your first financial close. Your project team can monitor the health of your system, logging service requests as needed and notifying end users through broadcast e-mails of any significant issues. The project team can serve as a backup to the smaller in-house support team that normally handles end user queries.
Tip #11 Reexamine User Roles and Responsibilities and Business Processes
You should reexamine user roles and responsibilities due to business process changes introduced by Release 12. For example, who should be responsible for any issues related to the new tax and subledger engines? Who will read and interpret the related exception reports? As part of Oracles upgrade project, global process owners reviewed Release 12 process changes with business users, and redefined roles and responsibilities accordingly.
Tip #12 Consider Using Oracles Process Documentation and End User Training Tools
Oracle Tutor is a Microsoft Word-based tool for documenting business processes, policies, and procedures. You can start with the model business processes delivered with Oracle Tutor and customize them to reflect your Release 12 implementation. With Tutor, you can also generate end user desk manuals and a variety of job aids. Oracle User Productivity Kit (UPK) is a valuable tool for training end users on how to use the system to accomplish your business processes. UPK allows you to record the flow through application screens, creating UI simulations with which users can interact. Oracle offers pre-recorded UPK content modules for Release 12 products. Using these as a starting point, you can create training on how to use Release 12 to accomplish your business processes. UPK allows you to train current users on Release 12, and it facilitates the training of new users at any point after the initial rollout.
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Figure 1: User Productivity Kit
A good roadmap to Release 12 information is presented in the Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Resources page on OracleMetaLink, Note 461705.1.
Tip #13 Acquire Release 12 Knowledge
A good roadmap to Release 12 information is presented in the Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Resources page on OracleMetaLink, Note 461705.1. From there, you can access the Oracle Applications Documentation Resources: Release 12, Note 394692.1, which indexes the complete Release 12 documentation set. If you are upgrading from a prior E-Business Suite release, you should review Release 12 enhancements module by module, understanding new features and process changes that come by default, along with optional new features that you may want to implement. For an overview of new and changed features since Release 11.5.10, see the Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12: Release Content Documents (RCDs), Note 404152.1. If you are upgrading from a release earlier than 11.5.10, you can get the intervening RCDs as well. Transfer of Information (TOI) online training modules are another source of whats new information, accessible from OracleMetaLink Note 403349.1. Organized by application or major feature, TOIs present either functional changes (setup and use), or technical changes (to database objects, profile options, code objects, and so on.) Project team members new to Oracle E-Business Suite or those needing a refresher should consider enrolling in instructor-led training at an Oracle training facility. These courses allow you to get hands-on with Release 12 before you start your project.
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Figure 2: Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Resources
Tip #14 Fully Utilize Available Upgrade Documentation
The Oracle Applications Upgrade Guide, Release 11i to Release 12.x, documents mandatory, recommended and optional tasks you should perform before, during, and after an upgrade. The appendices in the back of the guide describe data verification procedures as well as upgrade impacts to existing products. For a more detailed discussion of Financials and Procurement upgrade impacts, see the Oracle Financials and Oracle Procurement Functional Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12.
Tip #15 Use the Maintenance Wizard
The Maintenance Wizard is a free tool (available on OracleMetaLink via Note 215527.1) that provides a step-by-step, graphical user interface for performing upgrade tasks. It consolidates instructions from the upgrade guide with other relevant documents to present a complete picture of the upgrade process. The Maintenance Wizard can help you reduce upgrade tasks by filtering out those that do not apply to you. It also indicates critical patches that your system requires. It can automatically execute upgrade tasks for you, and maintains a log with status information for all executed tasks.
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Figure 3: Maintenance Wizard
Stay current with Release Update Packs (RUPs), which consolidate the latest maintenance fixes for the release.
Tip #16 Stay Current with Latest Code
Take advantage of the latest available Release 12 code. For example, stay current with Release Update Packs (RUPs), which consolidate the latest maintenance fixes for the release. It is particularly important for Financials customers to keep current with latest code. To that end, we publish a document called "EBS: R12 Oracle Financials Critical Patches", OracleMetaLink Note 557869.1. Oracle appreciates that customers are sometimes reluctant to apply the latest RUP or critical patch because they are concerned about the time needed to apply and test these recommended fixes. Since the alternative may be to cycle through the timeconsuming process of identifying, reporting, qualifying, fixing, and testing fixes for what ultimately are found to be known issues, customers should consider whether it is more efficient to proactively apply RUPs and critical patches at their earliest maintenance opportunity.
Tip #17 Stay Current with Latest Information
Monitor the E-Business Suite R12 Information Center (on OracleMetaLink, click the Headlines tab, E-Business Suite sub-tab, E-Business Suite R12 Information Center button) for the latest information on certifications, Release Update Packs, diagnostics, documentation resources, and so on.
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Figure 4: E-Business Suite R12 Information Center
For proactive notification of changes to information on OracleMetaLink, you have several options.
For proactive notification of changes to information on OracleMetaLink, you have several options: To monitor new or updated articles for a selected product or platform:
1. 2. 3. 4.
Log into OracleMetaLink. Under Headlines, scroll to the Knowledge Base region. Click the Edit button. From the Product or Platforms choice lists, select the product or platform of interest, causing the related notes to be featured under the Knowledge Base region.
To bookmark an article (or bug or service request) so you can quickly check for any changes to it:
1. 2. 3. 4.
Log into OracleMetaLink. In the Quick Find field, select Knowledge Base, and enter a Note ID. From the search results, select the note of interest. Click the Bookmark link, adding the note to the Bookmarks list that you can display by clicking Bookmarks at the bottom of any OracleMetaLink page.
To automatically email My Headlines to yourself at a specified interval:

1. 2. 3.
Log into OracleMetaLink. Under Headlines, click the Edit Page button. Under Headlines Settings, select the frequency in days at which you will be emailed in the In each My Headlines section, show entries for the last: field; set Automatically email My Headlines to me: to Yes.
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You can also take advantage of less formal Release 12 information channels, such as forums.oracle.com, and blogs.oracle.com.
Pre- and Post-Upgrade Best Practices
This section provides best practices for the activities you undertake immediately before and after your upgrade.
Tip #18 Clear Your Interfaces and Any Processing Exceptions
Before you upgrade, clear your interfaces and any processing exceptions so that after the upgrade, your interfaces are clean, with nothing stuck in them. For example, just prior to upgrade:

Import all invoices from the Payables open interface Confirm or cancel all Unconfirmed Payment batches
Pay particular attention to the 11i interface table between Projects Accounting and General Ledger (PA_GL_INTERFACE) because it becomes obsolete during the upgrade.
Tip #19 Review your Pending Concurrent Requests
Review all of your pending concurrent requests prior to the upgrade and decide which to cancel or put on hold. By preventing concurrent requests from automatically running after the upgrade completes, you allow yourself a window for doing setup and validation without interference from production activities. Cancel any pending concurrent requests that would not be appropriate in Release 12 due to process changes. Place on hold any other valid concurrent requests so that you can run them at a time you choose after the upgrade. For example, you may want to run post-upgrade reconciliation reports before allowing any new transactions to be created.
Tip #20 Run Key Reports Before and After Your Upgrade
Run key reports just before your upgrade and again just after your upgrade to allow for data verification and reconciliation. For example, run the Payables Trial Balance report in Release 11i, and then again in Release 12 for the same period or month.
Tip #21 Review Your Custom Concurrent Program Incompatibilities
Review your custom concurrent program incompatibilities after the upgrade to ensure that they are appropriate. You may need to define new incompatibilities or eliminate existing ones due to new programs and new program interactions in Release 12.
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Tip #22 Review Concurrent Programs to Ensure Proper Multiple Organizations Access Control Settings
With Release 12, Multiple Organizations Access Control (MOAC) allows a single Applications responsibility to access multiple operating units, if desired. During the upgrade, some concurrent programs are automatically enabled for MOAC so that they will run for all organizations. Review your concurrent programs after the upgrade to verify that any meant to run only for specific organizations are set up to reflect this.
We cannot over-emphasize the importance of testing to the success of your Release 12 project.
Testing Best Practices
This section describes best practices for testing Release 12 in your environment. We cannot over-emphasize the importance of testing to the success of your Release 12 project.
Tip #23 Develop a Robust Testing Strategy
As with any new release, you should formulate a testing strategy that details the number of test rounds, types of testing, and who will be involved, with an overall goal of performing end-to-end testing of all business flows and scenarios. In addition to conference room pilot testing to validate setups, ensure that you do full functional testing with business users. Perform multiple rounds of testing, focusing on new and changed functionality. The number of test rounds and your acceptance criteria should be carefully considered at the outset of your project, and then reconsidered before and after each test round. The timeframe for your testing rounds needs to be clearly stated. Issues and slow turnaround on resolutions may affect your testing period; make sure you budget enough time for issue resolution. Agree in advance what types of issues should be considered as show-stoppers to putting Release 12 into production, or even to advancing to the next test round. Your testing should be guided by detailed test scripts that you prepare in advance. You can start with the test scripts used in your original implementation, updating them to reflect the new Release 12 functionality and process changes that you intend to implement. Well before your go-live, begin performing test upgrades to establish that the upgrade will fit into your downtime window, and to allow for tuning of upgrade scripts as needed. Also, track any upgrade impacts on your custom code. You can use Maintenance Wizard to record the outcome of your various test upgrades, annotating individual upgrade steps with hints, lessons learned, or advice that will help you during the actual upgrade. You can even create custom steps at the appropriate spots in the tool so that custom actions won't be forgotten on subsequent upgrade attempts. The Maintenance Wizard also keeps logs for each
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execution of each step, so you have documentation of what happened, when it happened and who did it.
Tip #24 Test with Upgraded As Well as New Data and at Full Volumes
Test all of your business scenarios with documents upgraded from Release 11i, as well as those created in Release 12.
Test all of your business scenarios with documents upgraded from Release 11i as well as those created in Release 12. Test performing operations in Release 12 on documents that were created in Release 11i. For example, test that an invoice created in Release 11i can have a credit memo issued against it in Release 12 with matching tax calculations. Or, create a payment in Release 11i, then void it in Release 12. This would validate that setup differences between Release 11i and 12 do not create inconsistencies in a business document as it completes its flow. In-progress workflow items should, in general, upgrade smoothly. However, validate this with testing, especially where you have customized Release 11i preseeded workflow processes or activities. You could consider reducing the number of in-progress workflow items by turning off applications such as iExpenses and iProcurement for some interval prior to your upgrade, and encouraging your managers to respond to pending workflow notifications. While your initial conference room pilot testing may validate setups based on sample or demonstration data, its critical that you do full, end-to-end testing on the complete data set that you intend to run in production. Release 12 data validation is even tighter in than in prior releases, so you need to find whether there are any data conditions that would fail Release 12 validation. In particular, Oracle recommends that you test your month-end close and reconciliation with full data volumes, and that you resolve any exceptions.
Tip #25 Do Load and Volume Testing
Because new reports and business processes may be sensitive to your data distribution, and to ensure that your system has the expected performance characteristics, make sure you do load and volume testing.
PRODUCT-SPECIFIC CONSIDERATIONS AND TIPS
The following section describes Release 12 Financials product-specific changes and planning considerations. It also provides tips related to pre-upgrade, post-upgrade, setup, operational, and troubleshooting activities. This section is by no means a complete treatment of the Financials products or features; it simply highlights information that you may wish to consider for planning purposes. For a complete discussion of Release 12 upgrade impacts to Financials products, refer to the Oracle Financials and Oracle Procurement Functional Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12. For a complete discussion of product-specific implementation and operation, refer to the standard implementation and user guides. All Release 12
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documentation is available via OracleMetaLink Note 394692.1, Oracle Applications Documentation Resources: Release 12.
Release 12 introduces Oracle Subledger Accounting, Oracle E-Business Tax, Ledgers, Banks, and other common data model components that are used by Oracle Payables.
Payables
Overview
Release 12 introduces Oracle Subledger Accounting, Oracle E-Business Tax, Ledgers, Banks, and other common data model components that are used by Oracle Payables. The following Payables features are new in Release 12:
Suppliers are defined as Parties within the Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA). Invoice Lines are introduced as an entity between the Invoice Header and Invoice Distributions to better match the structure of invoice documents and to improve the flow of information such as manufacturer, model and serial number from Purchasing through to Assets. Banks, bank branches, and internal bank accounts are defined centrally and are managed in Oracle Cash Management. Document sequencing of payments has moved to the Cash Management bank account setup. Payments and all funds disbursement activities are handled by a new module, Oracle Payments. Payment features controlled by Global Descriptive Flexfields (GDF) in prior releases have been consolidated and migrated into the data models of Oracle Payables, Oracle Payments, and Oracle Cash Management. The architecture of this solution moves attributes from the GDFs, which are now obsolete, to regular fields on the appropriate entity, including the invoice, payment format and document, supplier site, and bank account. Having a single code base as opposed to GDFs implemented per country simplifies global implementations and streamlines transaction processing. Oracle Subledger Accounting, a new module in Release 12, handles accounting definitions and all accounting setup associated with a Ledger. (In Release 12, Oracle General Ledger has replaced Sets of Books with Ledgers.) As part of this change, centralized accounting reports are available to all applications. Additionally, Oracle Payables introduces a new Trial Balance report. Oracle E-Business Tax, a new module in Release 12, manages transaction tax setup associated with trading partners and tax authorities, as well as transaction tax processing and reporting across the Oracle E-Business Suite. Part of the architecture of this solution moves tax attributes from Global
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Descriptive Flexfields (GDFs), which are obsolete in Release 12, to regular fields on the appropriate entities.
A Responsibility can be associated with multiple Operating Units using Multiple Organization Access Control (MOAC). Due to this change, all processing and some reporting in Oracle Payables are available across Operating Units from a single applications responsibility. Hence you can isolate your transaction data by operating unit for security and local level compliance while still enabling shared service center processing.
Pre-Upgrade Tips
Just prior to the upgrade:

Import all invoices from the Payables open interface. Confirm or cancel all Unconfirmed Payment batches. Run the Payables Accounting Health Check script (see OracleMetaLink Note 416699.1) to ensure that there are no inconsistencies in your 11i data.
Setup Tips
Once you have set options for Automatic Offsets, do not change them. Doing so would represent a major setup change that does not update past transactions and would lead to accounting issues. A change in Automatic Offsets should be considered as a project that includes full testing before being implemented in your production system. Past transactions must be cleared before such a change. When specifying the Open Balances Definition, include all code combinations that need to be reconciled (accounts that can be attached at the Invoice header level.) If automatic offsets are on, include the overlay accounts that can be generated. When defining new bank accounts, ensure that cash clearing and cash accounts have been provided at the bank accounts control level.
Run the Invoice Validation program on a regular basis (at least daily) to determine if there are invoices that are not getting validated. The best practice is to schedule a concurrent request so that it runs daily at a time when load is not high.
Operational Tips Regular Activities
Run the Invoice Validation program on a regular basis (at least daily) to determine if there are invoices that are not getting validated. The best practice is to schedule a concurrent request so that it runs daily at a time when load is not high. Run the Create Accounting program on a regular basis (at least daily) to identify invoices that are not getting accounted. When you make manual entries to the General Ledger, ensure that proper descriptions are provided so that they can be tracked back as required
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For U.S. implementations: Once you begin creating 1099 payment information for 1099 suppliers, periodically review the information to verify its accuracy and completeness. Payables provides three standard reports to help you identify 1099 reporting exceptions:
1099 Supplier Exceptions Report - Review this report to identify 1099 supplier exceptions, for example: null, non-standard or duplicate TIN. Correct any exceptions in the Suppliers form. 1099 Invoice Exceptions Report - Review this report to identify and correct invoices without income tax types for 1099 suppliers, 1099 invoices for a non-1099 supplier, and 1099 invoices with null or invalid income tax regions. Tax Information Verification Letter - Submit the Tax Information Verification Letter report for each supplier, requesting name, address, TIN, and type of organization.
Period Closing-related Activities
Consider doing a mock closing at least 5 days before your actual close. Check the exceptions report for any unusual activity, for example: Invoices or Payments that should have been accounted but are still appearing in the report, or Invoices that should have been validated but are still appearing in the report.
Reconciliation-related Activities
Ensure that accounts used as liability accounts, and that need reconciliation, are not used for any other purpose. For example, such accounts should not be used in any other subledger and no manual entries should be made against them. To ensure this, make these accounts control accounts using a new feature of Release 12. Ensure that accounts used as liability accounts, and that need reconciliation, are not used as accounts at the distribution level. Otherwise, reconciliation will become difficult. After closing the periods in Payables and General Ledger, please run the needed reports to balance within Payables. This would typically include the Trial Balance, Posted Invoice Register, and Posted Payment Register reports. Youll also need to run the Account Analysis in General Ledger and reconcile that to Payables. Ensure that a monthly reconciliation is performed. Track any unexpected data.
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Payments
In Release 12, the Oracle E-Business Suite introduces Oracle Payments, a configurable, robust and centralized engine for disbursing and receiving payments.
Overview
In Release 12, the Oracle E-Business Suite introduces Oracle Payments, a configurable, robust and centralized engine for disbursing and receiving payments. In addition to new features, Oracle Payments offers functionality previously released as Oracle iPayment, which becomes obsolete with Release 12. Oracle Payments provides a new formatting solution based on standard XML technology. In previous releases, payment formats were created using proprietary Oracle reports technology. In Release 12, payment formats are created as templates in Oracle BI Publisher, and are applied to XML data extracts produced by Oracle Payments.
Planning Considerations
The Release 11i iPayments setup is migrated to the Release 12 Payments module. All Release 12 payment formats are BI Publisher-based; the 11i payment formats are obsolete. Oracle seeds payment formats in Release 12 corresponding to those that were seeded in 11i. You may need to configure the seeded payment formats using BI Publisher to satisfy the requirements of your banking partners. This configuration involves modifying the format files, and then sending them to your banking partners for validation. You may need to repeat this process a few times before your format files are validated, so ensure that you allocate enough time. For more information on upgrading your Release 11i payment formats, see OracleMetaLink Note 549024.1.
Post-Upgrade Tips
Dummy Funds Capture setup in Payments is required to perform Automatic Receipts transactions in Receivables.
In Release 11i, bank accounts were not centralized and customer bank accounts were stored in Receivables tables. Oracle iPayment was leveraged only for credit card transactions. Receipt remittance was done by a format program within Receivables. In Release 12, Oracle Payments is required for remitting receipts since bank accounts are centralized in Payments. Therefore, the minimal Payments setup (for Payee, Payment System, Funds Capture Process Profile, and so on) is required in Release 12 for the remittance of receipts. A user can create dummy Payments setup per the following OracleMetaLink notes: o o 471418.1 Oracle Payments Setup for Funds Capture Processing 553614.1 Funds Capture Setup for Credit Card Processing
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Internet Expenses
Overview
Release 12 changes to Oracle Internet Expenses include:
Itemization Internet Expenses can represent the parent-child relationship of an itemized expense line by creating a new parent line with a unique identifier. Integration with Payments Integration with Oracle Payments takes advantage of encryption capabilities. Credit card transaction data has been centralized in Payments secure payment data repository. Per Diem and Mileage Per diem and mileage transaction data are not migrated. However, per diem and mileage setup data is automatically upgraded. Expense Reports Expense Reports that were created prior to the upgrade display information in a pre-Oracle Internet Expenses minipack (11i.OIE.K) format. Newly-created expense reports use the new user interface. Integration with Oracle E-Business Tax The integration with Oracle EBusiness Tax has no direct tax upgrade impact. Tax lines run through Oracle Payables.
Prior to the upgrade, its important to review your catalog data. A recommended pre-upgrade procedure for identifying and fixing exceptions in your catalog data is documented in the Reducing Downtime appendix of the Oracle Applications Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12.0.x. You should also remove duplicate suppliers and sites from your supplier data prior to the upgrade to reduce the number of parties created in Trading Community Architecture (TCA). Consider implementing Multiple Organization Access Control (MOAC) for those responsibilities that are new with Release 12 and designed to be MOAC, for example, the supplier profile administrator for creating and managing suppliers. Although the Release 11i per diem and mileage schedules are migrated to Release 12, detailed testing is recommended. With Release 12, entering and viewing project information in Internet Expenses changes. Be sure to address these changes in your user training.
Pre-Upgrade Tips
Since the Expense Report Import program is obsolete in Release 12, submit it just prior to the upgrade to ensure that all intercompany data in Internet Expenses interface records is imported into Oracle Payables. Fix any rejections and resubmit until all records are imported.
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In Release 12, the address for the Employee Supplier cannot be changed; it is the address in HRMS that is used for making payments to employees. Before you upgrade, make sure that the address for the Employee Supplier is the same both at the Supplier Site and in the HRMS application.
Post-Upgrade Tips
In Release 12, tax is always marked as inclusive for the expense report lines containing a Tax Code. When entering an expense report, a user should enter an amount that is inclusive of the tax amount for the expense line.
Setup Tips
The Cost Center segment should be defined as an independent segment to render the proper value for cost center on an Expense Report. To apply advances to an Expense Report, use one of the following processes:
If you would like the User / Auditor / Both to apply advances, then set the profile option OIE:Enable Advances to End User / Payables / Both. If you would like advances to be automatically applied while exporting expense reports to Payables, then check the Apply Advances checkbox at the Payables Options > Expense Report tab.
Receivables
Overview
Release 12 changes to Oracle Receivables include:
Integration with E-Business Tax Release 12 introduces Oracle E-Business Tax to manage tax across the E-Business Suite. During the upgrade, system and customer options used to control tax calculation and tax code defaulting are migrated from Oracle Receivables into Oracle E-Business Tax entities. Integration with Subledger Accounting Release 12 introduces Subledger Accounting for managing accounting across subledger transactions. Receivables no longer creates any accounting entries. Existing Receivables accounting options and setups remain, and they affect the generation of accounting distributions in the Receivables data model. Centralized Banks and Bank Accounts Definitions In Release 12, all internal banks and bank accounts you previously defined for your operations are migrated to central Cash Management entities. Remittance bank accounts are owned by a legal entity rather than by an operating unit. However, bank accounts you defined for your customers are migrated from the Payables entities to the centralized Payments entities. Oracle Payments centralizes and secures all payment instrument data, including external bank accounts, credit cards, and debit cards.
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Integration with Payments for Funds Capture Release 12 introduces Oracle Payments, which is used by Oracle Receivables for processing funds capture.
In Release 12, suppliers are modeled in the Trading Community Architecture (TCA), and there is a new user interface for maintaining suppliers. Backwardcompatible Receivables views to customer and supplier tables no longer exist, so if you have custom reports running against those views, plan to modify them to run against the TCA tables.
Setup Tips
Model your customer accounts and sites according to the best practices recommended in the white paper, Oracle Trading Community Architecture: Modeling Customer and Prospect Data TCA Best Practices, OracleMetaLink Note 164519.1. Submit the Create Accounting program in draft mode and review the accounting before submitting in final mode and posting to the General Ledger. Run the Create Accounting program on a regular basis (at least daily) to identify invoices that are not getting accounted.
Operational Tips Performance-related:
To process large volumes, run multiple instances of the Automatic Receipts Creation Program (API) program concurrently for all of the Receipt Class/Payment Methods that have been set up. Leverage the Remittance Parallelization feature of Receivables to improve the performance of the remittance program. You can schedule multiple instances of the Automatic Remittances Creation Program (API) program to run concurrently for as many remittance bank accounts as you have. To process large volumes, run multiple instances of the Revenue Recognition Master program, scheduling each instance by operating unit and specifying the maximum number of workers per run. This will result in launching multiple workers per scheduled instance. You can run multiple instances of the Late Charges program for specific operating units. The number of parallel workers can be used to distribute the processing load for the Late Charges program instance across multiple jobs or workers, resulting in faster generation of your finance charges.
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You can run multiple instances of the Submit Accounting program by Ledger and End Date combinations for which a unique set of accounting events associated with Receivables distributions are selected.
Reconciliation-related:
Perform the following pre-requisite steps before starting the Receivables to General Ledger reconciliation:
Ensure that the Create Accounting program in Receivables has successfully completed. Review the Un-posted Items reports to confirm that all items are posted to the General Ledger. Review the Posting Execution Report to check that journal entries transferred from Receivables are successfully posted to the General Ledger. Receivables automatically prints the Posting Execution Report that displays a summary line for each currency within every category of transaction that you transfer.
The following steps are recommended for reconciliation of Receivables with General Ledger:
Run the Receivables Reconciliation Report as the first step in the reconciliation process. It displays summary information consistent with detailed registers and journal reports. It also displays transactional data in an Activity column, and accounting data in a Journal column. If any discrepancies exist, run the following reports for more details: o o o o o Transaction Register versus Sales Journal Adjustment Register versus Adjustment Journal Applied Receipts Register versus Journal Unapplied and Unresolved Receipts Register versus Journal Invoice Exception Report
Run the Potential Reconciling Items Report to view items that might have accounting setup errors. This report suggests journal items that might potentially post to General Ledger accounts with unexpected account types, thus creating reconciliation issues in General Ledger. When a potential reconciling item is an error, correct the individual transaction as well as the incorrect setup to prevent future occurrences of the error. Run the Ageing - 7 Buckets - By Account OR the Ageing - 4 Buckets report to view beginning and ending customer balances, and to compare with AR Reconciliation Report balances. Run the Journal Entries Report after completing Create Accounting (Final Accounting) to show the accounting data transferred to Subledger
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Accounting. This should be matched with the AR Reconciliation Report to ensure that Receivables versus Subledger Accounting reconciliation is done.
Run the AR to GL Reconciliation Report to ensure that there are no differences. o Run this report after transactions in Receivables are posted to General Ledger and there are no unposted transactions per the Unposted Items report. This report compares the account balances in Receivables to those in General Ledger and highlights the journal sources where discrepancies might exist.
The Collections Workbench module in Oracle Receivables is obsolete and is replaced with comparable functionality in Oracle Advanced Collections.
Advanced Collections
Overview
The Collections Workbench module in Oracle Receivables is obsolete and is replaced with comparable functionality in Oracle Advanced Collections. This includes functionality relating to customer interactions and correspondence, transaction processing, and dunning activities. With Release 12, additional features such as scoring, collections strategies, enhanced payment and promise processing, automated promise tracking, and automated collector work assignment are also available.
Receivables users who have not purchased a license for Advanced Collections are not authorized to use the full feature set of this product. The Receivables Collections Workbench has been replaced with a limited version of Oracle Advanced Collections for Oracle Receivables. Details on the collections features available in Receivables and the features available in Oracle Advanced Collections are provided in OracleMetaLink Note 389443.1.
Assets
Overview
In Release 12, Oracle Assets adds Subledger Accounting (SLA) functionality. By default, transactions in the current fiscal year in Assets books will have their accounting lines migrated to the Subledger Accounting model. Accounting for current period depreciation will be upgraded only if depreciation has already run for the period, and the period remains open. After the upgrade, you can run the SLA post-upgrade process to update accounting for past transaction data as needed.
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Operational Tips
Important reports such as the transaction diagnostics report and reconciliation reports should be run before closing the period to ensure that the accounting entries are reviewed and verified. Whenever a Retirement or Reinstatement transaction occurs, the Calculate Gain and Loss program should be run before the Create Accounting program is run. If you are using multiple asset books that link to the same ledger, ensure that the natural account segment value of the asset clearing account is unique for each asset book. Once Group Asset Advanced Rules options are defined, you cannot change them. Review group asset options carefully to determine which ones satisfy your requirements for accounting and tracking of group and member assets.
Advanced Global Intercompany System

Overview
The Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System (AGIS) is a new module in Release 12 that allows companies to streamline intercompany processing and facilitates the reconciliation of intercompany transactions. It replaces the Global Intercompany System (GIS) feature provided by General Ledger in Release 11i.
All GIS setup and transaction data are moved to the AGIS data model. Its a good idea to review existing 11i intercompany rules and update them as necessary before the upgrade.
Post-Upgrade Tips
The Intercompany accounts in GIS are upgraded to AGIS Intra-company Balancing rules. Auto-Accounting rules in GIS are not upgraded, and need to be set up as Account Derivation Rules and compiled with the Transaction Account Builder in Subledger Accounting. Creating intercompany organizations in the AGIS module in Release 12 is a mandatory setup for entering intercompany transactions. Release 11i subsidiaries are replaced by Release 12 intercompany organizations. For more information, see OracleMetaLink Note 418649.1.
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General Ledger
In Release 12, Oracle General Ledger is significantly enhanced to support multinational companies and shared services centers. These changes allow you to maximize processing efficiencies while maintaining a high level of information and setup security.
Overview
In Release 12, Oracle General Ledger is significantly enhanced to support multinational companies and shared services centers. These changes allow you to maximize processing efficiencies while maintaining a high level of information and setup security. You can perform simultaneous accounting for multiple reporting requirements. You can also gain processing efficiencies by setting up, accessing, and processing data across multiple ledgers and legal entities from a single responsibility. In addition, General Ledger definitions - such as Mass Allocations and Financial Statement Generator (FSG) reports - can be more easily shared and secured across your organization by allowing you to restrict certain users from viewing or updating these definitions or from using them in processes. Many global features that were previously available only in localized versions are included in Release 12 of General Ledger.
Terminology Changes:
Sets of books is replaced by ledgers. All sets of books options are now called ledger options. The upgrade retains all Release 11i settings. Multiple Reporting Currencies (MRC) is replaced by Reporting Currencies. Reporting sets of books are replaced by reporting currencies. Reporting sets of books assigned to primary sets of books automatically upgrade to reporting currencies that are assigned to a primary ledger. All conversion options for Multiple Reporting Currencies are retained as part of the reporting currency definition.
Setup Tips
The currency in which you do your local statutory reporting (transaction based, such as VAT or withholding tax, or accounting) must be the currency of your primary ledger. Oracle supports local compliance by having local currency as the Primary Ledger currency. Ensure that the date range for your calendar includes the 29th day of February in leap years. Check the calendar validation report before using the calendar for setting up ledgers. You can change any of a period's specifications, except for the period type, so long as the period has not been used for transaction processing in General Ledger or in the subledgers. You cannot change a calendar period that is open, closed, future enterable, permanently closed, or is included in an open budget or encumbrance year. To create a document using Web ADI, the functions BNE_ADI_CREATE_DOCUMENT, BNE_CREATE_DOCUMENT must be added to the menu.
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Do not freeze the journal source if you intend to correct journals from the source during import into General Ledger. Do not freeze the journal source if you enabled it for auto-reversal. Ensure that you are assigning correct balancing segment values to ledgers in the Accounting Setup Manager. Once you assign them, you can end-date the assignment, but you cannot un-assign them. Ensure that you have defined a Tax Recoverable/Liability account for tax rates that you plan to use in General Ledger. The system will generate a tax line only if a Tax Recoverable/Liability account is defined for your ledger for the tax rate in E-Business Tax. Refer to OracleMetaLink Note 367429.1 to resolve FSG performance and formatting issues. Ensure that you disable the legal entity balancing segment value assignment whenever you disable the legal entity. Ensure that the start date of an organization type is set to a valid date before creating the operating unit in the Accounting Setup Manager. Ensure that you run the General Ledger Setup diagnostics test to validate your overall setup of General Ledger.
Operational Tips
Run the Segment Value Inheritance Program when changes are made to the segment qualifiers for segment values of the chart of accounts. Before you consolidate your subsidiary ledger to a parent ledger for the first time, and before you try to run translation from the consolidation workbench, ensure that you have run translation on the subsidiary ledger at least once. Set the status of the first accounting period in the new fiscal year to Future Entry. Do not open the first period of the new fiscal year until all of the year-end processing for the last period of the current year has completed. Close the period in your subledgers before closing the period in General Ledger. This will prevent subledgers from posting entries to a closed period. If you are using a calendar with an adjusting period that represents the last day of the fiscal year, close the current period and open the adjusting period. Create and post adjusting entries and accruals in the adjusting period. If Mass Allocation is not creating any journal entries, check for any invalid or end-dated account combinations used in the Mass Allocation formula. If yes, either enable the account combinations, or modify the Mass Allocation formula to exclude them.
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Run the General Ledger Period Closing diagnostics test to verify that a ledger period is ready to close.
Global Accounting Engine

Overview
In Release 12, Global Accounting Engine functionality is replaced by Oracle Subledger Accounting, now standard for all feeders (Receivables, Payables, Assets, Project Accounting.) Related to this change, all secondary and non-MRC posting Sets of Books in Release 11i are upgraded to secondary ledgers in Release 12, with automatic posting between the primary ledger and the secondary ledger.
Its important that all statutory postings are up to date before you upgrade. It is also important that dual posting from Payables and Receivables be tested thoroughly.
Oracle Subledger Accounting (SLA) provides a common accounting engine that replaces the existing accounting processes in the different subledger applications.
Subledger Accounting
Overview
Oracle Subledger Accounting (SLA) provides a common accounting engine that replaces the existing accounting processes in the different subledger applications. The SLA upgrade involves migrating existing accounting data between 11i and Release 12 to ensure a continuous business operation. Depending upon your business requirements, existing accounting data may have different implications. For the purposes of this discussion, accounting data is defined as: All data that has accounting relevance for the customer, including journal entries, balances, base transactions that have generated journal entries, and related information, such as accounting events and setup information. While the default accounting continues to be stored in the subledger applications, the new SLA module is where the true accounting is held. SLA is a behind the scenes module, largely transparent to end users except when they run the Create Accounting program to create subledger accounting entries and to transfer journal entries.
The upgrade team should fully understand SLA functionality and closing processes, which vary slightly by application. Receivables and Project Accountings auto-accounting rules are migrated to Release 12, where they are represented as default SLA rules. Run transactions through to confirm that your auto-accounting rules are correctly reflected in the SLA tables. Map custom reports, such as custom reconciliation reports, to the new SLA tables.
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Upgrading Subledger Accounting Data
During the upgrade, existing accounting data from the subledgers is upgraded into the new SLA data model. By default, the upgrade updates the data for the current fiscal year, as well as the necessary periods of the previous fiscal year, to ensure that at least six periods are included in the upgrade. You can change the amount of historical accounting data to be upgraded to SLA as a pre-upgrade step. For example, you can specify that a larger range of periods be upgraded. This is an important decision because some SLA functionality relies on the existence of previous accounting data. For example, if you need to cancel invoices from two years ago, then you need to upgrade at least two years of accounting data to SLA. However, you have the flexibility to limit the amount of subledger data you update during the upgrade to reduce downtime and save on disk space. If you do not update all of your accounting data during the upgrade downtime, you can perform additional updating at a later point, either during daily business operations, or during a subsequent downtime.
Operational Tips Review the Period Close Subledger Exception Report
The General Ledger period can be closed even if there are exceptions in the transfer of journals from Subledger Accounting. Review the Period Close Subledger Exception report, which is started automatically when General Ledgers Close Period process is run, to get a clear view of any exceptions.
Run Create Accounting Daily for All Subledger Applications
The Create Accounting program processes eligible accounting events to create subledger journal entries based on application accounting definitions that are created in the Accounting Methods Builder (AMB). Create Accounting should be run for each subledger application every day to avoid dealing with large volumes and possible data exceptions at months end. If you deal with large volumes on a daily basis, you can run the Create Accounting program more frequently, or you can run it by category: for example, by receipts or invoices, and by date. Also on a daily basis, review the Subledger exceptions report, and address any exceptions, for example, invalid GL account code combinations (CCIDs.) Users may want to develop a protocol for finding and handling such exceptions. For example, all of the Subledger teams could meet with the General Ledger team to determine roles and responsibilities for addressing any issues.
Make Account Code Changes with Care
On certain occasions, you may need to make segment changes that invalidate account codes (CCIDs) that you have previously used. For example, when a cost
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center moves from one line of business to another, you need to reflect the change in your account code validation rules. In this circumstance, you run the segment inheritance program to invalidate the CCID so that no new transactions can reference it. Different business models will dictate the extent to which account code changes are made during a month. In general, however, it is a good practice to designate a fixed day in each month when any necessary chart of accounts changes are made and communicated. This should reduce the need to make ad hoc changes throughout the month, and will result in a cleaner close cycle.
Maintain Account Code Consistency across Subledger Accounting and General Ledger
We recommend that you adopt practices to maintain account code consistency across all of your subledger applications, as well as Subledger Accounting and General Ledger. This is especially important if your business is subject to frequent account code changes. One way to maintain consistency is, for each of the subledgers, to run Create Accounting on a regular basis (at least daily), and then immediately to run Transfer to General Ledger so that there is no disabling of account codes before journal import occurs. If Create Accounting and the Transfer to General Ledger always run back to back, then the account codes used by SLA and General Ledger should be in synch. To address an account code disconnect between SLA and General Ledger, Release 12 provides a new feature in the GL Accounts form that allows you to replace an invalid account code in Subledger Accounting data, which in turn allows General Ledger to find a valid account code and for import to proceed without error. Account replacement is also performed for non-Oracle journal sources during the import process. However, since a retrospective fix to an account code can cause subledger application data to get of synch with Subledger Accounting and General Ledger data, it is best to avoid the situation altogether by adopting practices for maintaining account code consistency.
Oracle E-Business Tax provides the infrastructure for transaction tax knowledge management and delivery using a global system architecture that is configurable and scalable for adding country-specific tax content.
E-Business Tax
Overview
Oracle E-Business Tax provides the infrastructure for transaction tax knowledge management and delivery using a global system architecture that is configurable and scalable for adding country-specific tax content. As the single point solution for managing transaction-based tax, Oracle E-Business Tax uniformly delivers tax services to all E-Business Suite business flows through one application interface. Oracle E-Business Tax consists of a tax knowledge base, a variety of tax services that respond to specific tax events, a set of repositories (for tax content and tax recording) that allows customers to manage their local tax compliance needs in a proactive manner, as well as the ability to integrate with external tax providers
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through a single integration point. In short, Oracle E-Business Tax is the global and consistent compliance repository that encapsulates fiscal and tax rules in a single point solution for tax events that is easy to integrate, extend and implement. E-Business Tax replaces the following tax solutions available in 11i:

Order to Cash Global Tax Engine Procure to Pay Automatic Tax Calculation General Ledger General Ledger Automatic Tax Calculation
In Release 11i, tax setups were defined separately in various products. In Release 12, tax setup and calculation have been centralized. Your tax manager, who knows your organizations current and future tax needs, should be responsible for configuring the tax setup. During the upgrade, Release 11i tax setups are migrated to Release 12. While you may not choose to utilize the new/advanced features of E-Business Tax immediately after your upgrade, Oracle recommends that you familiarize your tax users with the key E-Business Tax features and start taking advantage of them. Test tax scenarios for all of your countries after the upgrade. In Payables, ensure that you test your invoice sources (XML, iSupplier, flat file, and manual) to confirm that each can automatically derive the correct tax regime-to-rate information. Also, standardize your Release 11i customer and supplier tax setup before your upgrade, as this will help to ensure that tax is derived correctly in Release 12.
Post-Upgrade Tips
After the upgrade, you can still provide the tax codes in transactions and also use defaulting hierarchies and tax groups in the same manner as you did in Release 11i without changing your setup. Over time, you can incrementally update your migrated tax data to gradually move from your Release 11i tax code model to the E-Business Tax regime-to-rate and tax rules model. Group constraints in Receivables are migrated as-is to E-Business Tax. However, they are migrated as read only and cannot be modified. If you want to add new conditions, you must use the new E-Business Tax rules functionality to create rules (expert or guided) with all conditions. E-Business Tax provides users the flexibility to share a tax setup across multiple Operating Units/Legal Entities, or to restrict it to a particular Operating Unit/Legal Entity. You must decide which setup is appropriate for your enterprise.
Setup Tips
On a migrated instance, any new operating unit should be subscribed to the relevant tax regimes if the subscription of the Legal Entity is not being used.
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Depending on your business requirements, if you want tax to be calculated based on tax codes (as in 11i), then you need to set up Configuration Owner Tax Options for the newly-created operating unit and specify the Regime Determination set as STCC. If the Configuration Owner tax option is not created or is not active for a specific combination of application, event class, and first party Legal Entity/Operating Unit, then the defaults are taken from seeded Event Class settings. Whenever you add a geography, run the Geography Name Referencing program in TCA. You can run a transaction in the Tax Simulator to check your tax setup. The Tax Simulator should be used after any change to your tax setup to test multiple what-if scenarios without affecting the transaction database.
Troubleshooting Tips
Users may report E-Business Tax problems in the following categories:

Taxes are not being calculated. Tax calculation is erroring out. Incorrect tax amounts are being calculated.
Avoid these E-Business Tax problems by following the general, offset tax, and irreversible options setup tips below:
General:
Check whether all the required setups are effective on the transaction date. Check whether Tax Applicability is checked on the Configuration Owner Tax Options for all Event Classes. In the Configuration Owner Tax Options, confirm that the Regime Determination is:

STCC Determine Applicable Regimes
If Party Tax Profile is changed, ensure that the Tax Applicability flag is checked. Ensure that by default or as a rule result, Tax is Applicable. Check whether the Make Tax available for transactions is enabled at the Tax level. If the user has subscribed the Regime to a Legal Entity, then in the Party Tax profile for the Operating Unit, the Allow subscription of Legal Entity
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flag should be checked. This should be carefully done, as it is an irreversible setting.
Run the transaction in the Tax Simulator to obtain details of the rules/defaults that are evaluated. Define all the required Tax Accounts based on your tax setup in the Tax Rate to avoid errors during transactions. For any Recovery Rule to be evaluated, check whether users have associated at least one Recovery Rate Rule in the Rule Code of Recovery Rate field at the Tax Rate Level. Check that the Configuration Owner Tax Options for the Event Class allows for tax exemptions to be considered. Check that you have completed the setup for all the required set up tasks listed in the E-Business Tax Home Page. Use the available Diagnostic scripts to identify any tax setup issues.
Offset Tax and Self-Assessed Tax:
Self-Assessed tax is the Release 12 equivalent of Offset Tax in Release 11i. However, for backward compatibility, Offset taxes can still be configured in Release 12. Depending upon your business requirements, you can decide which options to choose:
Check that Allow Offset Taxes is enabled in the Party Tax Profile for the Offset Taxes. Check that Allow Offset Tax Calculation is enabled at the Configuration Owner Tax Options for the Event Class for the Offset Taxes. Check Offset Tax Basis also.
Irreversible Options:
Note that the following setup changes are irreversible:
Inactivating the defaulting order in Application Tax Options Once the combination of operating unit and application defaulting order is inactivated, you cannot reactivate the same. Carefully select the appropriate tax determination method from Oracle E-Business Tax or Latin Tax Engine. The Use Subscription of the Legal Entity box in the operating unit party tax profile - This flag should be checked if the Regime is subscribed to the Legal Entity. The Make Tax available for transactions option in the Tax, if enabled, cannot be updated.
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Change Record
Date 09-Jun-2008 11-Jun-2008 Author Anne Carlson Anne Carlson Version 1.0 1.1 Change Reference First published version Made Globalization edits under General Ledger and Global Accounting Engine sections
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Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12 June 2008 Author: Anne Carlson Contributing Authors: Krithika Bhat, Bill Bounds, George Buzsaki, Robert Farrington, Cliff Godwin, Kevin Hudson, Mazen Khanfar, Adam Lief, Cheryl Ludwig, Amrita Mehrok, Nirajita Mitra, Anand Naik, Ognjen Pavlovic, Victoria Pickard, Mike Quick, Vasu Rao, Nick Reichenbach, Kirsten Shaw, Nayyar Siddiqui, Murali Subramanian, Terrance Wampler, Mildred Wang Oracle Corporation World Headquarters 500 Oracle Parkway Redwood Shores, CA 94065 U.S.A. Worldwide Inquiries: Phone: +1.650.506.7000 Fax: +1.650.506.7200 oracle.com Copyright 2008, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is provided for information purposes only and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not warranted to be error-free, nor subject to any other warranties or conditions, whether expressed orally or implied in law, including implied warranties and conditions of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. We specifically disclaim any liability with respect to this document and no contractual obligations are formed either directly or indirectly by this document. This document may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, for any purpose, without our prior written permission. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

An Oracle White Paper June 2008

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

IMPLEMENTING VERSUS UPGRADING

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Project Best Practices

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Tip #3 Determine Your Upgrade Approach

Tip #4 Plan for Required Financials Setup Steps

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Tip #5 Look for Opportunities to Simplify Your Project

Tip #6 Inventory Your Customizations and Prioritize Them for Upgrade

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Tip #7 Consider Migrating Your Reports to Business Intelligence Publisher

Consider including the following people on your Release 12 project team:

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Figure 1: User Productivity Kit

Tip #13 Acquire Release 12 Knowledge

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Figure 2: Oracle E-Business Suite Upgrade Resources

Tip #14 Fully Utilize Available Upgrade Documentation

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Figure 3: Maintenance Wizard

Tip #16 Stay Current with Latest Code

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Figure 4: E-Business Suite R12 Information Center

To automatically email My Headlines to yourself at a specified interval:

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Testing Best Practices

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Just prior to the upgrade:

Operational Tips Regular Activities

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Period Closing-related Activities

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Release 12 changes to Oracle Internet Expenses include:

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Release 12 changes to Oracle Receivables include:

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Operational Tips Performance-related:

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Advanced Global Intercompany System

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Global Accounting Engine

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Upgrading Subledger Accounting Data

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12

Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12