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EFT Payments

EFT Payments - Notifications to bulk vendors

From: Vanessa Berry [mailto:VBerry@auspine.com.au]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 1999 5:14 PM
Sbject: Vendor Payments by EFT

Hi Everyone,

My company is encouraging vendors to supply information so we can make their payments by EFT rather than cheque. My query for List members is how others have handled notification to bulk vendors once payment is made. Does your company print remittance advises and mail or fax them manually? Or do you email/fax remittance advises directly from the system? Maybe your company does something else. I would be most appreciative of any input. If List members would like to email me direct at vberry@auspine.com.au I would be happy to collate the information and post a summary to the List.

Thanks in advance for your input.
Regards
Vanessa
Vanessa Berry
Financial Systems Manager
Auspine Ltd
PO Box 79
Mount Gambier SA
Australia 5290
Phone: +61 8 87215508
Fax: +61 8 87215556
Mailto:vberry@auspi


Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 11:06:51 -0700
From: Alex Waddell
Subject: RE: Vendor Payments by EFT

Vanessa

We are currently paying all employee expense via eft. We have encountered a number of problems with remittance notification.

Ideally we would like to use email. Our first hurdle was/is programming routines. We want our script to check the email field in the HR tables to check for an email address, failing to find one, then to check a field within an AP Vendor table. (As we are paying individuals that are not necessarily employees as well). Should no email address be found then the system will attempt to send to:

firstname.lastname@ourcompany.ca

This also causes us problems as some divisions do not have email. And many employees are not set up with the same convention in our email system as our financial system (ie. Robert Smith's email may be Bob.Smith@ourcompany).

We have a high percentage of email remittances which are automatically returned, since it would take a part time person dedicated to go through these and devising a manual notification we have opted to print a standard form letter, which we are currently ALSO mailing out to each EFT payee.

This system is cumbersome and not very efficient. It is still in it's infancy here so we are constantly working out bugs. I too, would love to hear any responses or suggestion you receive.

Regards, Alex Waddell


Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 12:38 -0600
From: Kelly J Hibbert
Subject: AP: Electronic Payments

I have started to investigate electronic payments and have found the OAUG Spring '98 white paper "Automation of Electronic Payment process from Imbound EDI Invoices to Outbound EFTs" by Nibedita Sharma. But I am unable to view or download it from the OAUG website. If anyone has this white paper, could you email me a copy please?

Also, if there is anyone so kind and generous to share their format payment script, it would be much appreciated.

Thank you,
Kelly Hibbert
Applications Developer
Johnson Controls, Inc
kelly.j.hibbert@jci.com
734-254-6947


Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 19:30:59 -0500
From: Steve Bradley
Subject: RE: Vendor Payments by EFT

EFT, to be considered a valid process improvement, should improve the overall process. It sounds like you need to rethink your EFT process. You are doing more re-work than you are saving if a large percentage of your emails are being returned. For starters, I would not set anyone up for EFT (I'm assuming ACH) unless they have an e-mail address for the remittance. The EFT process does eliminate the postage and check handling costs but you have created more work by printing the remittances and mailing them out for everyone- why not just print the check instead for the people with no email. You are working harder to provide EFT than to produce checks. Another option would be to send out a letter to all employees that says "If you want to be paid by EFT and be notified of a deposit you must have an e-mail account registered in our files. Employees without an email address will not receive a notification of EFT payments. You still have the option to receive a check by snail mail". Some people actually prefer to have a check. They are often the ones who don't have email.

Respectfully, Steve Bradley, CPA OASIS Consulting Group, Inc. Office 404-352-8387 Fax 404-609-9856 Pager 888-912-2569


Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 13:40:39 -0700
From: Deborah Linke linke@wapa.gov
Subject: Re: RE: Vendor Payments by EFT

We are using our internal Web intranet. We wrote a Cold Fusion program that allows employees to go the Web site, enter their Social Security Number and three digits of their name and call up all of their employee claims. They seem pretty happy with it.


Alex Waddell alex.waddell@shaw.ca
03/22 9:58 AM

Vanessa

We are currently paying all employee expense via eft. We have encountered a number of problems with remittance notification.

Ideally we would like to use email. Our first hurdle was/is programming routines. We want our script to check the email field in the HR tables to check for an email address, failing to find one, then to check a field within an AP Vendor table. (As we are paying individuals that are not necessarily employees as well). Should no email address be found then the system will attempt to send to:

firstname.lastname@ourcompany.ca

This also causes us problems as some divisions do not have email. And many employees are not set up with the same convention in our email system as our financial system (ie. Robert Smith's email may be Bob.Smith@ourcompany).

We have a high percentage of email remittances which are automatically returned, since it would take a part time person dedicated to go through these and devising a manual notification we have opted to print a standard form letter, which we are currently ALSO mailing out to each EFT payee.

This system is cumbersome and not very efficient. It is still in it's infancy here so we are constantly working out bugs. I too, would love to hear any responses or suggestion you receive.

Regards, Alex Waddell


Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 12:06:19 +0930
From: Vanessa Berry VBerry@auspine.com.au
Subject: Vendor Payments by EFT

Hi All,
Thanks to those who responded to my email of several weeks ago regarding vendor notification of EFT payment. As promised, this is a summary of the information I received.

While several of you are working on perfecting notification by email, it seems that the most satisfactory method used by most is faxing remittances direct from Oracle through a fax server. For those of you interested, there is an informative White Paper available from the OAUG web site called "WYPIWYF: What you Print is What You Fax from Oracle Applilcations" by Rob Walters STR Software Company.

Thanks again to those who responded.

Regards Vanessa ==============================
Vanessa Berry
Financial Systems Manager
Auspine Ltd
PO Box 79
Mount Gambier SA
Australia 5290
Phone: +61 8 87215508
Fax: +61 8 87215556
Mailto:vberry@auspine.com.au



EFT Format Files for Banks

Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:53:24 -0400
From: "Vallapareddy, Krishna" kvallapareddy@noblestar.com
Subject: EFT Format Files for Banks

I would like to know the correct rdf file that I can use for customizing for EFT payment formats for US banks.

Thanks in advance.
Krishna Vallapareddy
Oracle Financials Consultant
Noblestar Systems Corporation
(703) 464-4000 ext 2508 or
(800) 470-4668 ext 2508
http://www.noblestar.com


Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 14:02:00 -0500
From: "Aronovici, Sarah" Aronovis@augsburgfortress.org
Subject: RE: EFT Format Files for Banks

What version are you on?

If you're on 10.7, there is no 'correct' file that I know of. For 10.7, the one that I've used, and seen referred to most often is the BACS 1/2 Inch Tape format which is: APXPBFBC.rdf


Encryption for EFT payment

Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 11:29:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: Leanne Andre CMCILMA@NJTRANSIT.STATE.NJ.US
Subject: AP: Electronic Funds Transfer

Hello everyone,

Can someone please confirm whether or not Oracle standard functionality includes any type of encryption for EFT files? I don't think it does, but I would like some confirmation.

Is anyone using encryption for their EFT files? Are you using a third party software?

Thanks, Leanne


Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 09:49:20 +0200
From: "Sjoquist, Randy (AFIS)" Randy.Sjoquist@fao.org
Subject: RE: Electronic Funds Transfer

Hi Leanne,

No encryption is not provided by Oracle base functionality. Standard flat file formats are defined for each country, but usually need to be customized somewhat.

Normally the processing procedure, dial up etc, validates the flat file prior to sending, ensures that fields are correct length and correctly presented within the flat file. Then it validates that a code string within the file matches a configuration setting within the communication PC. Further, in our case, it requires two users, each with two levels of passwords, one a user defined and an other a special key that is validated by the PC.

The file is then encripted by the PC for the communcition process.

From what I have seen, most EFT systems work this way.

Hope your having a good summer.
See ya
Randy



AutoSelect

Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 22:20:20 +0530
From: Varun Mehra
Subject: AP-AutoSelect...

Hi everyone,
My client has a centralised accounting team which looks after the various sub-ledgers, with different databases. So at a time we can have three people working on three different kinds of payments but of the same Vendor/Paygroup). Now whenever they try to pay these through the payment batches mode, autoselect picks all approved batches for payment.

Is there anyway I can restrict selection of batches, by batch name or batch-id. Any leads on this would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards Varun Mehra


Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 15:38:30 -0500
From: "Joe Maliszewski" jmaliszewski@csi.com
Subject: RE: AP-AutoSelect...
You do not mention what version you are on. Also I am not sure why you mention different databases. I am assuming you are on 11, non-multi-org with one DB. If these are not true we are talking apples and oranges. There are many different ways you can accomplish this. Some very quick ideas are use of Payment Priorities and different Payment Documents. Use Templates on the Payment Batches form and query the Template for that particular User.

Joe Maliszewski Consultant jmaliszewski@csi.com


interface to WestCorp

From: Veach, L. Vincent [mailto:VeachLV@bvsg.com]
Sent: Friday, March 26, 1999 6:50 AM
Subject: AP: Batch Payments interface to WestCorp

I am looking for information on how to proceed with customizing the Format step during the Batch Payment process to create a flat file that will be sent to a 3rd party software package (WestCorp) where the checks will be printed.

I have a good "big picture" understanding of how I might do it; but I would like to know some detail information of problems I may run into and which of the standard format programs I should use as a template if any.

Thank You Vincent Veach veachlv@bvsg.com


Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 08:29:43 -0700
From: MANTOSRIDAR@micronpc.com
Subject: RE: Batch Payments interface to WestCorp

I coordinated with 3rd party to get the required format and customized the format payment process


Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 10:47:08 -0500
From: "Palad, Ed" EdPalad@firstusa.com
Subject: RE: Batch Payments interface to WestCorp

Vincent, We have similar situation here, I am assuming that when you format and confirm you will not in the future clear your checks which means that in AP_CHECKS the status_lookup_code will forever be 'NEGOTIABLE'. You are just using the invoicing and paying part of payables not the printing and clearing of checks (am I correct ?) So when you produce your flat you can get it from :
select amount, check_date, check_number, vendor_name, address_line ........
from ap_checks
where creation_date sysdate and
status_lookup_code 'NOGOTIABLE'
The creation_date criteria will prevent you from resending the the checks twice. Also if you don't plan to Auclear or clear you still might have to do manual Stops (for checks that bounce back to you). Regards, Ed Palad Consultant Oracle Financials, First USA (302) 985-8591 EMail - EdPalad@FirstUSA.com


Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1999 07:47:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Bill Bertolotti billbert@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Batch Payments interface to WestCorp

Vincent, When I last used WestCorp, I was able to simply pass the Oracle standard check output to the WestCorp system. Within WestCorp, our setup handled where the data would be (column, row, that type of thing). Then we would reformat the output within WestCorp.. You may want to look into that option.

Bill Bertolotti



Automating Batch Pmt

From: Veach, L. Vincent VeachLV@bvsg.com
Date: Tuesday, April 06, 1999 9:26 AM
Subject: AP: Automatic Batch Payment Processing

Has anyone automated the batch payment process.
We are currently in the design phase of automating the batch payment process.
More specifically, there are 3 steps within the batch payment process that we would like to automate: Select, Build and Format. The design requirements would include processing some bank accounts on a daily basis and others on a weekly basis.

To date we know that we can submit the above mentioned processes (reports) as a request set and run them either daily or weekly.

The problem is how do we set up the selection criteria once and then have the nightly process pick up that information to start up batch payment process.

Additional information:

We intend to create a flat file out of the format process and send that file to a third party software package for printing (WestCorp). The user will be required to confirm the printing of the checks manually.


Date: Tue, 6 Apr 1999 10:53:12 -0400
From: "Bill Venella" bvenella@appworx.com
Subject: Re: Automatic Batch Payment Processing

Vincent,
I do not know if you have put any thought into 3rd party tools for Automation. AppWorx provides a clean cut solution for all automation routines for Oracle Applications. We have Automated routines for A/P, G/L import and post( especially within the multi-org environment), Invoicing, MRP, Mass Allocations, and any process that explodes into multi-children processes. Our clients have found that they need a better way to control the batching of information so that it does not compete with or conflict with other things happening with the servers. AppWorx is able to provide enhanced control of the concurrent processes and has a central monitoring facility to manage/monitor the effects of the entire enterprise. This monitoring system also tracks and notifies users of errors immediately, via Visual notification.

AppWorx is easy to use, easy to setup, easy to maintain. If you are looking for increased performance and increased manageability of all applications take a look at AppWorx: http://www.appworx.com/ .

This is just one point of view. If you are tired of writing and maintain scripts, here is a better way.

Best regards, BV



Batch Payment problem

From: Rao, Paddy [mailto:prao@usa.capgemini.com]
Sent: Monday, April 12, 1999 12:49 PM
Subject: AP - Payment problem

I am trying to pay an invoice by check and the system prompts that the payment document is used by another payment batch. I am the only user and no other batches are being used. does anybody have a solution or how should I find which batch is being used.

Paddy


Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 14:19:03 -0600
From: Alex Waddell alex.waddell@shaw.ca
Subject: RE: AP

Try querying on batches with a STATUS of "New"

Alex


Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 18:23:38 -0300
From: Ken Heckbert kpheckbert@ihis.org
Subject: AP -Reply

Did you confirm your last payment batch yet? Until you do, you won't be able to use the particular payment document in another batch.


Date: Mon, 12 Apr 1999 16:33:40 -0400
From: "Jagannathan, Ravi" RJagannathan@prcnet.com
Subject: RE: AP

Hi Paddy,
Query Payment Batch with Status'Built'

Thanks Ravi Jagannathan (MIS) Tel : (305) 816 4831



Unable to cancel AP payment batch

Date: Wed, 23 Jun 1999 14:40:45 -0600
From: Alex Waddell alex.waddell@shaw.ca
Subject: AP: Unable to cancel AP payment batch

Application froze while user was modifying payment batch. User had to cancel the session. User was unable to change batch after re-querying. User attempted to cancel payment batch. Batch has a status of "cancelling", cancellation job runs continually. Cancelled the 'cancellation job' in concurrent requests. This succeeds, but batch continues to remain with a status of 'cancelling'. Any subsequent cancels run without finishing as before.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm desperate here as we are unable to produce a cheque. Oracle support lines seem to be down.

Alex Waddell
Financial System Administrator
Shaw Communications Inc.
Phone: (403) 750-4709
Fax: (403) 750-4505


Date: 23 Jun 99 17:23:54 -0400
From: "Diane Bayes" DBAYES@ca.oracle.com
Subject: Re: AP: Unable to cancel AP payment batch

Hello Alex,
Per my vm.

delete from ap_checkrun_conc_processes_all
where checkrun_name ='????????';

update ap_invoice_selection_critieria_all
set status =3D 'FORMATTED'
where checkrun_name = '???????'

Diane Bayes
Senior Technical Analyst - Applications
Oracle Corporation Canada Inc. Phone: (905) 502-3002
110 Matheson Blvd. West Email: dbayes@ca.oracle.com
Suite 100 Fax: (905) 890-0540
Mississauga, Ontario
L5R 3P4


Date: Thu, 24 Jun 1999 11:55:01 -0500
From: "Landa, Mark (c)" U25MIBG@Carlson.com
Cc: "'alex.waddell@shaw.ca'" alex.waddell@shaw.ca
Subject: RE: Unable to cancel AP payment batch

I am not sure if you have the same problem we had, but it sounds very similar to the one we had earlier this year in a development environment. Anyway, I have attached a script we received from Oracle Support.

checkrun_2.sql

filename="checkrun_2.sql"

-- get rid of a check run in a18ccp that we want to cancel but cannot.
--
-- Script provided by Oracle Support
-- tar # 11470695.600
--
-- Created: 02/12/99 M.Landa
--

prompt
prompt batch RTPAYNB 2/12/99
prompt

spool checkrun

DELETE from ap_checkrun_conc_processes_all where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';
DELETE from ap_selected_invoices_all where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';
DELETE from ap_selected_invoice_checks_all where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';
DELETE from ap_checkrun_confirmations_all where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';
DELETE from ap_awt_temp_distributions_all where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';
UPDATE ap_inv_selection_criteria_all SET status = 'CANCELED' where checkrun_name = 'RTPAYNB 2/12/99';

spool off



Payment Batch confirm error

Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 08:09:17 -0400
From: Chuck Leveillee chl@brooktrout.com
Subject: AP: Check Confirm problem

Using HP-UX 10.20, RDBMS 7.3.4.3.1, 10.7 SC161

We have added a new division that is trying to print checks using a new bank account. They are using the Payment Batches menu selection. The process works fine until they try to confirm a payment batch. It completes with an error status. I reviewed the report log and the error message is :
Getting payment batch parameter information
APP-10962 appbpr/1:ORA-01406: fetched column column value was truncated

I suspect it is a setup issue because it is a new division/ bank accout but I have not be able to identify the problem. Any help would be appreciated.

TIA
Regards,
Chuck Leveillee
cleveillee@brooktrout.com


Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:38:48 +0530
From: sprakash_x@hss.hns.com
Subject: Re: AP: Check Confirm problem

Please check for the lenght of the account name defined for the bank account. The account name must not exceed 26 charecters.

Try this out - hope it helps.
Regards Satya Prakash


Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 10:18:11 -0500
From: "Reynolds, Tomy T" tomy.reynolds@eds.com
Subject: RE: Check Confirm problem

Our problem was when the payment batch is confirming it gets locked by a rollback segment. Once we release the lock it completes.

Tomy Reynolds
EDS/SupplySource
Business Analyst
972/605-2220


Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 13:30:34 -0400
From: Chuck Leveillee chl@brooktrout.com
Subject: RE: AP: Check Confirm problem

Satya,
Thanks. My users did a check run and this resolved the problem.
Regards, Chuck