This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:
Date | Module | Feature | Notes |
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01 SEP 2023 | Created initial document. |
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Optional Uptake of New Features (Opt In)
Oracle Cloud Applications delivers new updates every quarter. This means every three months you'll receive new functionality to help you efficiently and effectively manage your business. Some features are delivered Enabled meaning they are immediately available to end users. Other features are delivered Disabled meaning you have to take action to make available. Features delivered Disabled can be activated for end users by stepping through the following instructions using the following privileges:
- Review Applications Offering (ASM_REVIEW_APPLICATIONS_OFFERINGS_PRIV)
- Configure Oracle Fusion Applications Offering (ASM_CONFIGURE_OFFERING_PRIV)
Here’s how you opt in to new features:
- Click Navigator > My Enterprise > New Features.
- On the Features Overview page, select your offering to review new features specific to it. Or, you can leave the default selection All Enabled Offerings to review new features for all offerings.
- On the New Features tab, review the new features and check the opt-in status of the feature in the Enabled column. If a feature has already been enabled, you will see a check mark. Otherwise, you will see an icon to enable the feature.
- Click the icon in the Enabled column and complete the steps to enable the feature.
For more information and detailed instructions on opting in to new features for your offering, see Configure Offerings.
Opt In Expiration
Occasionally, features delivered Disabled via Opt In may be enabled automatically in a future update. This is known as an Opt In Expiration. If your cloud service has any Opt In Expirations in this update, you will see a related tab in this document. Click on that tab to see when the feature was originally delivered Disabled, and when the Opt In will expire, potentially automatically enabling the feature. You can also click here to see features with current Opt In Expirations across all Oracle Cloud Applications. Beyond the current update, the Financials forums on Cloud Customer Connect have details of Opt In Expirations upcoming in future updates.
Column Definitions:
Report = New or modified, Oracle-delivered, ready to run reports.
UI or Process-Based: Small Scale = These UI or process-based features are typically comprised of minor field, validation, or program changes. Therefore, the potential impact to users is minimal.
UI or Process-Based: Larger Scale* = These UI or process-based features have more complex designs. Therefore, the potential impact to users is higher.
Features Delivered Disabled = Action is needed BEFORE these features can be used by END USERS. These features are delivered disabled and you choose if and when to enable them. For example, a) new or expanded BI subject areas need to first be incorporated into reports, b) Integration is required to utilize new web services, or c) features must be assigned to user roles before they can be accessed.
Ready for Use by End Users Reports plus Small Scale UI or Process-Based new features will have minimal user impact after an update. Therefore, customer acceptance testing should focus on the Larger Scale UI or Process-Based* new features. |
Customer Must Take Action before Use by End Users Not disruptive as action is required to make these features ready to use. As you selectively choose to leverage, you set your test and roll out timing. |
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Feature |
Report |
UI or |
UI or |
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Automatic Invoice Validation for Partner Tax Calculation Process |
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Resubmission of Expense Reports using the Expenses Mobile Application |
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Service Excellence Continuing Investments
Our ongoing investment in service excellence has a focus on overall usability, resiliency, performance, and security. This work is based on monitoring performance trends, reviewing common use patterns, analyzing service requests, and participating in many discussions with customers.
In this update, our ongoing investment in service excellence includes improvements in the following areas.
Performance:
- Improved performance of accounting sequence processing for large journal batches, along with improved posting performance.
- Improved performance of AP and AR Reconciliation Infolets which reduces the rendering time for high data volumes.
- Improved performance of the Recent Infotile on the Invoice landing page, with more rapid availability of information, such as the number of invoices created over a certain period of time.
Steps to Enable
You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.
Automatic Invoice Validation for Partner Tax Calculation Process
Automatically validate Payables invoices selected for partner tax calculation after the response is received from the tax partner.
You must currently submit the Validate Payables Invoices process twice, once to flag the invoices for inclusion in the Partner Tax Data Extract and for a second time after the Record Partner Tax Lines process is run.
Once enabled, this feature streamlines the tax partner calculation process by eliminating the submission of the Validate Payables Invoices process for the second time after the Record Partner Tax Lines process is run.
The difference in behavior once the feature is enabled is shown below.
Steps to Enable
- Click Navigator > My Enterprise > Setup and Maintenance > Search > Manage Standard Lookups.
- Search for the ORA_ERP_CONTROLLED_CONFIG lookup type.
- Define the lookup code ZX_35388055 if not already created.
Field | Value |
---|---|
Lookup Code | ZX_35388055 |
Display Sequence | Any sequence number value like 1. |
Enabled | checked |
Start Date | Any valid date from which the optin is active like 01-Jan-2023 |
End Date | Do not provide any value |
Meaning | Optin to automatically validate the AP Invoices that use Tax Partner |
Description | Can be left blank |
Tips And Considerations
The Validate Payables Invoices process only considers for validation invoices that have successfully completed tax partner calculation after a run of the Record Partner Tax Lines process.
You no longer need to schedule or submit the Validate Payables Invoices process post the response from the tax partner if you enable this feature. You can review the existing schedules defined to submit the second Validate Payables Invoices process and cancel them because they become redundant once the invoices are automatically validated.
Invoices with other holds will remain in the same state and you will have to resolve them through the usual process.
Access Requirements
The user defined at the time of Tax Partner onboarding must be assigned configured job roles that have the following privileges:
- AP_VALIDATE_PAYABLES_INVOICE_PRIV
- AP_SUBMIT_PAYABLES_INVOICE_VALIDATION_REPORT_PRIV
If you enabled the “Enable invoice account coding workflow” option in the Manage Invoices Options page, provide the user with the privilege to access the Initiate Invoice Account Coding Workflow process that is launched from the Validate Payables Invoices process.
If segment security is enabled provide the user with access to the flexfield segments.
Tax Calculation on Rounded Amounts on Payables Invoices
Calculate taxes on rounded amounts in the entered currency on Payables invoices before conversion to the ledger currency. This can help reduce rounding differences on Payables invoices with an entered currency different from the ledger currency.
The current Oracle Tax logic is based on unrounded amounts of the entered currency to convert taxes to the ledger currency. In some configurations and use cases, this may generate a rounding difference in the tax amount in the ledger currency that is offset on the Payables transaction line amount.
Use the Rounding Conversion Option field in the Controls and Defaults section of the Create or Edit Tax Regime page to select the default rounding conversion option to use for taxes in the tax regime:
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Blank: Use the default unrounded amounts in the entered currency for tax conversion calculation to the ledger currency.
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Functional Currency: Use rounded amounts in the entered currency for tax conversion calculation to the ledger currency.
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Transaction Tax: Use the internal transaction amount field (TAX_AMT_TAX_CURR) to store the tax amount in the ledger currency. This value is for reporting purposes only. It is not visible on any page nor has any financial impact.
-
Both: Enable both the Functional Currency and the Transaction Tax options.
Tax Regime page
Example of using Functional Currency as Rounding Conversion Option
Business benefit:
- Reduce the impact of rounding differences between transaction line amounts and tax conversion calculations in the ledger currency.
Steps to Enable
- Use the Opt In page to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.
- Offering: Financials
- Use the opt-in for Tax Calculation on Rounded Amounts on Payables Invoices to enable this feature.
- Navigate to Setup and Maintenance -> Financials -> Transaction Taxes -> Manage Configuration Owner Tax Options and add a configuration for Payables.
- Enable the Use Rounded Tax Amount for Conversion check box.
NOTE: If you want to disable this feature, you must select the end date for the existing Configuration Owner Tax Options where the Use Rounded Tax Amount for Conversion option is enabled and create a new entry without this option.
MasterCard Centrally Billed Account for Travel Expenses
Upload MasterCard travel charges from an organization’s centrally billed account for employees' expenses. This allows employees to pay for travel expenses using a single MasterCard account, rather than using individual corporate cards. From the Expenses work area, employees can include these travel charges in their expense reports to provide approvers with full visibility into the total cost of a trip.
With this feature, Oracle Expenses supports MasterCard centrally-billed cards. Travel cards, also known as centrally-billed travel cards, business travel accounts, or ghost cards, are used by companies to centrally charge high value travel expenses, such as airfare, accommodations, and car rental.
This feature benefits companies that use a centrally-billed MasterCard to book employees' travel or to prepay employees' travel expenses. The application automatically creates expenses from card transactions and displays them in the employee's Expenses work area. This helps speed up the expense submission and promote faster reimbursements.
Your company can realize the following benefits from using a travel card account:
- Greater visibility into the total trip cost
- Accurate travel expense allocation
- Punctual payments to card issuers
Steps to Enable
This feature doesn't require opt-in.
To create a new centrally-billed MasterCard, you must log in as a corporate card admin.
To create the card manually:
- Create a new card and categorize the card as "Centrally-billed card" in Account Type.
- Make sure the Corporate Card Number matches the "AccountNumber" field in the CDF3 data file.
To create the card from a corporate card data file:
- Schedule the Upload Corporate Card Transactions process, where the card data file contains transactions from the new corporate card.
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Go to Review Corporate Card Transactions. The new card will show as unassigned. Edit the corporate card and categorize as "Centrally-billed card" in Account Type.
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Run the Upload and Validate Corporate Card Transaction File with Validation only, and without Company account parameter to revalidate the transactions.
Categorize a Card as a Centrally-Billed Card in Manage Corporate Cards Page
Tips And Considerations
- Centrally-billed MasterCard is supported only for tokenized card program. You must set up the Corporate card program with Token in Card Number Format field.
- Due to the nature of the centrally-billed card, only Company Pay and Both Pay are supported.
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Employee Matching rule only supports Employee Number in compliance with MasterCard specifications. Every transaction on a centrally-billed MasterCard must have a valid in each transaction for proper matching.
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The <EmployeeID> that a centrally-billed MasterCard transaction is tagged with must belong to the business unit that the company account for the card belongs to. Otherwise, the transaction returns an "Invalid employee number" error. The corporate card administrator has to manually assign the transaction to an employee in the same business unit on the Review Corporate Card Transactions page.
Key Resources
- This feature originated from the Idea Labs on Oracle Customer Connect: Idea 599762
- Related topics: https://docs.oracle.com/en/cloud/saas/financials/23b/faiex/travel-card-processing.html#s20052277
Access Requirements
To enable the new setting, you must have one of these roles:
- Corporate Card Administrator
- Application Implementation Consultant
Payment Method Selection in Cash Advances Using a REST API
Select the payment method for cash advances using the Expense Cash Advances REST API. This allows employees to specify their preferred payment method when requesting a cash advance.
If the Enable Payment Method option is set to “Yes” for a business unit in the Manage Cash Advance and Authorization Policies task, then the payment method associated with the provided code in the PaymentMethodCode attribute will be used for cash advance. If the Enable Payment Method option is set to No, then the cash advance is created with the default payment method.
The ability to specify a payment method for manually created cash advances was introduced in update 23B. In update 23D, the same ability is extended to the REST API. This helps users specify the payment method when creating cash advances in bulk, thus saving time and resources.
Steps to Enable
You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.
Key Resources
- Review the REST service definition in the REST API guides, available from the Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > REST API. If you're new to Oracle's REST services you may want to begin with the Quick Start section.
- Payment Method Selection for Cash Advances was introduced in 23B. Additional information about the feature is available here.
Resubmission of Expense Reports using the Expenses Mobile Application
Employees can now withdraw a submitted expense report and resubmit it again. They can also resubmit an expense report rejected by approver(s) or returned by auditor and resubmit it again.
Withdraw action for submitted expense reports
Resubmit action for rejected/returned/withdrawn expense reports
- With this update, employees can now withdraw submitted expenses reports using the Expenses mobile application. This brings parity with the Expenses web application and helps employees manage their expenses on the go.
- Additionally, employees can now use the Expenses Mobile application to edit and resubmit expense reports that are withdrawn, rejected by an approver or returned by an auditor. Prior to this, employees could resubmit expense reports only in the expenses web application.
The ability to withdraw and resubmit expense reports using the mobile application provides employees with greater flexibility and convenience to manage their expenses on the go.
Steps to Enable
You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.
Key Resources
- This feature originated from the Idea Labs on Oracle Customer Connect:
Access Requirements
This feature is available by default for all the Expenses Mobile Application users.
Touchless Expenses with J.P. Morgan Corporate Cards
The new generation mobile experience with J.P. Morgan corporate cards delivers touchless expense submission and faster reimbursement. Receive instant alerts when charges are incurred on J.P. Morgan corporate cards. Use guided correction, intelligent recommendations, and accurate receipt extraction to facilitate automatic expense submission and approval. Available to customers with J.P. Morgan corporate cards.
The Touchless Expenses application is ideally suited for large companies looking to simplify their expense workflow processes and reimbursement policies.
Key functionality of Touchless Expenses include:
- Real-time expense creation with J.P. Morgan corporate cards.
- Guided assistance for expenses that require additional information.
- Automatic itemization of emailed hotel receipts.
- Automatic submission of completed expenses.
- Intuitive user interface and application experience.
Real-time Expense Creation with J.P. Morgan Corporate Cards
Touchless Expenses users benefit from real-time expense creation when they incur charges on a J.P. Morgan corporate card.
When users incur charges on their J.P. Morgan corporate card, Touchless Expenses instantaneously creates the expenses and notifies the user on their mobile device, clearly identifying the expenses requiring more information. Users can click on the notification to provide the missing information.
These corporate card expenses remain in the application with a ‘Pending final charge’ status until the settled charge arrives. The status is removed and the expense is now ready for submission if no other information is required. Users see a message: "Final charge posted" at the top of the expense indicating the settled charge has arrived.
Guided Assistance for Expenses that Require Additional Information
Expense users follow guided prompts to quickly provide information for incomplete expenses. For example, in some instances, expenses may require additional user input to comply with company policies. There are two ways to access the guided assistance: from the notification on the user’s mobile device or from within the Touchless Expenses application. When an expense user receives a notification on their mobile device after a corporate card charge is incurred, they select the notification which directs them to a guided experience to complete the expense. From within the application, the user selects the message on the top of the landing page indicating action is required on one or more expenses. The guided assistance provides clear instructions on how to fill in the required information. This allows users to complete their expenses easily and as soon as they are incurred.
The guided assistance supports the following common scenarios:
- Expenses missing simple fields such as expense type, amount, and currency.
- Expenses that require receipt or missing receipt justification.
- Expenses missing more information such as number of attendees and attendee names.
- Expenses violating corporate policies such as amount limits and card usage.
- Potential duplicate expenses.
Automatic Itemization of Emailed Hotel Receipts
The Touchless Expenses application automatically itemizes the hotel receipts emailed by expense users. This functionality saves the user a significant amount of time and effort that’s typically required to manually itemize hotel receipts into individual expense lines. To leverage this functionality, the user needs to email the hotel receipt to the email address that the company administrator provides. The Touchless Expenses application reads the email receipt and creates an expense with the individual line items that make up the total reimbursable expense. Once the itemized lines are extracted from the email receipt, a notification is sent to the expense user’s mobile device showing a summary of the itemization that’s been created. The application also automatically identifies hotel charges that have a high probability of being personal expenses and includes them in the itemization.
Automatic Submission of Completed Expenses
Automatic submission allows the user to set up a specific day of the week to have their expenses compiled into a report and submitted for approval. The company administrator configures this for each business unit and determines which days of the week are available for employees to select for automatic submission, after which employees can turn on auto submission from the Settings page. On the selected automatic submission day, the Touchless Expenses application compiles all eligible expenses into a single report and submits them for approval. Any expenses that require additional information remain in the application and are not automatically submitted. By enabling automatic submission, the expense user’s experience can be fully automated from expense creation to submission.
Intuitive User Interface and Application Experience
Touchless Expenses supports policy enforcement, configuration for company-specific information, attendee capture, and various types of default values. The application is simplified into four main pages: expense landing page, manual expense creation page, search page, and settings page. It also provides employees with a seamless first-time user experience.
- First-Time User Experience
When users log in to Touchless Expenses for the first time, they are taken through a first-time user experience, including an initial welcome screen and a prompt to accept the company's terms and conditions. They can also view what’s new in the application. For companies that currently use the Oracle expenses application, the users’ existing expenses will be migrated to the new Touchless Expenses application seamlessly and will appear on the landing page.
- Expense Landing Page
When users log in to the Touchless Expenses application, they arrive at the landing page. The landing page shows existing expenses and recent expense reports. From the landing page, users can edit or add information to existing expenses, submit expenses manually, view expense statuses, and review expenses that will be included in the next automatic submission. Users can also view recently submitted expense reports and approval activities.
- Manual Expense Creation Page
Expense users can create expenses manually in a few different ways: enter required fields manually to create an expense, upload an image of an expense receipt, or use Oracle Maps to create a mileage expense. When creating an expense from receipt upload, the application scans the receipt and fills in the expense fields based on the receipt details. When creating a mileage expense, the user enters their start and end destinations, and the application automatically calculates the reimbursable amount based on the distance traveled and company expense policies for mileage.
- Search Page
The search page enables expense users to filter expenses by multiple criteria including merchant name, payment method, expense report status, and dates of incurred expenses. The search results return the expenses that best match the criteria specified by the user. Next to each expense on the search page, there is an expense status to help users easily identify where expenses are in the reimbursement process. Users can also filter expenses by the expense status to refine the search results.
- Settings Page
Users can configure aspects of the Touchless Expenses application from the settings page. On this page, expense users can enable automatic submission and select the day of the week they’d like their expenses to be submitted. The settings page is also used to configure reimbursement methods, add bank account details, and assign/view delegation.
Business Benefits include:
- Reduced effort with real-time expense entry from J.P. Morgan corporate cards.
- Increased productivity with guided assistance for expenses that require additional information.
- Time saved with automatic itemization of emailed hotel receipts and automatic submission of completed expenses.
- Improved employee satisfaction with intuitive user interface that simplifies the employee expense reporting experience.
Steps to Enable
To enable this feature you need to log a Service Request (SR).
Before enabling Touchless Expenses with J.P. Morgan in Cloud ERP, your enterprise must be enrolled in a J.P. Morgan corporate card program. You must also inform your J.P. Morgan implementation team that your enterprise would like to enable the integration with Oracle Touchless Expenses. Please contact your J.P. Morgan Sales/Relationship manager.
If your enterprise is new to Oracle expenses and has not completed the implementation process, please review the Implement Expenses section of Getting Started with Your Financials Implementation before enabling Touchless Expenses.
Touchless Expenses is currently in controlled availability and requires promotion codes. Log a Service Request through My Oracle Support to request your promotion codes. You will need to provide the production and test pod names, and business units for which Touchless Expenses should be enabled.
Once the above is completed, follow the steps in the Service Request to enable Touchless Expenses for the related business units, including the following setup steps to enable the connectivity between J.P. Morgan and Cloud ERP.
- In the Banking Configurations functional area, click Manage Banking Configurations for J.P. Morgan.
- The following page will be displayed. All services on this page are selected by default. To configure real-time integration for expenses, ensure that ‘Corporate Cards’ is selected, then click Next.
NOTE: Oracle Cloud ERP will directly connect and exchange security keys and other setup data with J.P. Morgan to enable the selected flows. This process may take up to 24 hours to complete.
- Once the enablement is complete, you receive a bell notification. Revisit the J.P. Morgan onboarding setup task to view the latest status.
- Click ‘View Configurations’ to review and complete any pending setups. The descriptions under the flows will guide you through the pending setups to be reviewed and completed.
Tips And Considerations
- Touchless Expenses is enabled at the business unit level and can be turned on for specific users. It is possible to have some users on Touchless Expenses and other users on the existing Oracle expenses application.
- If your company uses the delegation functionality, both the delegator and delegate must be on Touchless Expenses to continue using delegation.
- The following functionality is not yet supported in Touchless Expenses: per diem, projects, cash advances, spend authorization, split allocation, trip itineraries, daily/monthly/yearly rate policies, and full key flexfield support.
Access Requirements
You must have the Financial Application Administrator job role to establish connectivity with J.P. Morgan and to review all related predefined and automatically configured Functional Setup Manager tasks.