Update 21B

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Product	Feature	Notes
30 JUL 2021	Financials for the Americas	Fiscal Attribute Import for Transactions with the Same Transaction Number	Updated document. Feature delivered in update 21B.
13 MAY 2021	Intercompany	Intercompany Clearing Account Generation Without Segment Value Security for Existing Accounts	Updated document. Feature delivered in update 21B.
13 MAY 2021	Intercompany	Descriptive Flexfield Improvements on Intercompany Spreadsheets	Updated document. Feature delivered in  update 21B.
05 MAR 2021			Created initial document.

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.

Common Technology and User Experience

Common Financials Features

Service Excellence Continuing Investments

In this update, our on-going investment in service excellence includes improvements in usability, resiliency, and performance. Refer to the What's New for more information.

Intercompany

Intercompany Descriptive Flexfield Transfer to Receivables and Payables

Transfer Intercompany descriptive flexfield information to Receivables and Payables. Transfer batch and provider descriptive flexfields to Receivables. Transfer transaction and receiver distribution descriptive flexfields to Payables.

Descriptive Flexfield Improvements on Intercompany Spreadsheets

The Receiver distribution descriptive flexfield and Context fields for all descriptive flexfields are now included on the Intercompany spreadsheets.

Intercompany Clearing Account Generation Without Segment Value Security for Existing Accounts

If you create intercompany clearing account combinations before entering transactions, segment value security will not be applied to these accounts when they are submitted for processing. This only applies to the intercompany receivables and payables account generated by the application.

Oracle Digital Assistant

Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite provides a digital assistant built on the Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) platform. The digital assistant delivers an intelligent conversational experience for employees to complete key tasks and quickly access information across Fusion Applications. For information about the complete set of current capabilities, see the Oracle Digital Assistant: Oracle Skills documentation.

For ERP, the digital assistant helps finance and operational professionals easily navigate and identify data and business insights that is contextual, relevant, and thoughtful. In update 21B, ERP has digital assistant capabilities for expenses, project time capture, and project management using channels including SMS, Oracle Web, and Microsoft Teams.

Look for enhancements and expansion to additional roles and business processes in future updates.

To learn more, review the update 21B features in the Oracle Financials Cloud and Oracle Project Management Cloud What’s New documents. In addition, see the topic: Getting Started with Oracle Digital Assistant for Cloud Applications for setting up the assistant.

Expenses Digital Assistant

The Oracle Expense Assistant is a skill within the Oracle Fusion Applications Digital Assistant that lets you create and manage your expenses using a conversational experience. It uses conversational channels such as native SMS, Slack, or Microsoft Teams on your mobile device to guide you through common expense tasks. As you interact with the assistant, it directly communicates with the Oracle Expenses web application to perform the tasks.

Conversational Expense Creation with Microsoft Teams

Create expense items from Microsoft Teams using conversational phrases, such as meal 30$ today, or create a taxi expense. Employees can also perform these actions: upload a receipt to create an expense; modify an existing expense; view the status of an expense report.

Frequently Asked Questions and Tips in Oracle Digital Assistant

Use Oracle Digital Assistant to allow employees to ask questions and seek tips using conversation.

Number of Attendees Recording for Expenses with Oracle Digital Assistant

Capture the number of attendees when meals and entertainment expenses surpass the designated limits specified by the company policy. Auditors can view the cost per attendee when auditing the expense.

Workflow for Financials

Approval Rules Navigation for Financial Workflows in Workflow Transaction Console

Use approval rules navigation in the Workflow Transaction Console to edit the rules for Invoice, Journal, Expense, and Holds Resolution workflows, and to enable the Alert Initiator on Error option to send notifications to the workflow initiator for failed workflow notifications.

Workflow Transaction Console

Using a single dashboard, administrators can proactively monitor workflow tasks and resolve exceptions for the Invoice Hold Resolution workflow. This feature was first delivered in update 19D for the Invoice, Expense, and Journal workflows. In update 21B, the Workflow Transaction Console is enhanced to display the workflow tasks related to the Invoice Hold Resolution workflow.

Financials

Advanced Collections

Enhanced Message Content for Dunning Letters Delivered Using Email

Send dunning letters using email with enhanced rich text content in the body of the message. Users can choose different fonts, modify font size and style, and insert logos and hyperlinks. The enhanced content improves the user experience for customers who receive dunning letters as an email attachment.

Assets

Derivation of Asset Location from Payables Invoice Ship-To Location

Use the Create Mass Additions process to transfer ship-to location information from Payables invoices to Assets. Assets automatically assigns an asset location to each Payables invoice line based on the HR location to asset location mapping, eliminating the need to enter an asset location manually.

Directly Add Assets in Tax Books

Add assets directly to a tax book using either the Add Asset page or the Add Assets spreadsheet.

Budgetary Control

Budget Entry Classification for Initial or Adjustment Budget Balance Using Spreadsheet

Select the budget entry type to impact either initial or adjustment budget balances. Specify the budget entry type when you use file-based data import or spreadsheet to load budgets. You can make budget revisions to the initial budget balance when the budget period is open for consumption.

Initial Budget Adjustments for Carry Forward Processes

Update the initial budget balance using the Carry Forward Purchase Order Budgetary Control Balances process and the Carry Forward Funds Available process. Budget entries for the carry forward of funds available and purchase orders updates the initial budget balance regardless of budget period status.

View Funds Reservation Errors When Final Close or Reopen Fails for a Purchase Order

Drill down to the funds reservation results from error messages. These error messages are displayed when final close or reopen fails for a purchase order because of issues in releasing or reserving funds.

Cash Management

Wildcard Support for Bank Statement Processing Using UCM Protocol

Retrieve multiple bank statements using the Universal Content Management Reader Protocol with a wildcard. Enter a wildcard in the file name to retrieve and download multiple files at once instead of doing it for each file.

Expenses

Cancellation of Payment Requests for Cash Advances

Automatically update an employee's cash advance status when a payment request for a cash advance is canceled. Employees see the correct status, thereby reducing inquiries to the accounts payable department.

Cancellation of Payment Requests for Expense Reports

When a payment request for an expense report is canceled, update the expense report status, delete both pay expense reports created to pay corporate card issuers, and reverse cash advance applications. This allows auditors to reprocess the expense report to Payables when needed to pay the employee and card issuer according to the correct schedule.

Detection of Duplicate Expenses

Identify duplicate expenses using a scoring model and alert employees when duplicates are found. Employees can review the duplicate expenses in the Expenses work area and take actions, such as deleting the duplicate or merging the duplicate expense with the original expense.

Federal Financials

U.S. Federal Financials is a configurable and flexible solution that enables U.S. Federal agencies to meet Federal financial management system requirements.  It supplements Financials and Procurement functionality by providing U.S. Federal specific functionality. The initial release of U.S. Federal Financials will include the features described below. Additional functionality to fully meet mandatory Federal financial management requirements will be provided in upcoming releases. 

U.S. Federal Payment Attributes

Capture voided payment numbers on the payment transactions to support the reclassification of payments.

General Ledger

Journal Categories Excluded During Manual Journal Entry

Optionally exclude journal categories that should not be used for manual adjustments when entering journals on the Create Journal page.

Search Section on Manage Journals Page Remains Expanded After Search

Optionally configure the Manage Journals page to leave the Search section expanded by default after search results are displayed.

Joint Venture Management

Distributable Costs by Project Attributes

Currently, Joint Venture Management identifies transactions to be distributed to joint venture partners based on distributable Chart of Account segment values.

This enhancement provides the option for customers to additionally specify project attributes –Project, Task and Expenditure Type– for identifying distributable transactions for a joint venture.

Task and Expenditure Type Overrides on Project Costing Adjustments

The existing Joint Venture Management and Project Costing integration enables customers to automatically adjust project costing to facilitate accurate project capitalization and gross to net reporting, budgeting and forecasting. With this integration, distributed costs sent to partners to recoup joint venture costs are also sent to Project Costing in accounted mode as cost adjustments. This integration enables customers to reconcile costs in Project Costing with General Ledger and gives the ability to budget and forecast by net costs.

This enhancement gives customers the option to tailor project attributes –Task Number and Expenditure Type— in cost adjustments sent to Project Costing from Joint Venture Management, providing greater flexibility by enabling the ability to budget and forecast by gross cost and net cost.

Transaction Date Determination from GL Lines

Currently, Joint Venture Management has the following options to determine the transaction date (also known as the service date or activity date in different industries) for transactions brought into Joint Venture Management for distribution to stakeholders:

1. Transaction date is defaulted from the accounting date for transactions that originate in subledger accounting.
2. Transaction date is defaulted from the effective date for transactions that originate in general ledger.
3. Configure the system to specify a reference date from the original subledger to use as the transaction date.
4. Configure the system to specify a date attribute from the general ledger header to use as the transaction date.

To split transactions for distribution among joint venture partners, Joint Venture Management uses the transaction date to determine which date effective ownership definition is used to calculate the split.

With this enhancement, it is now possible to select a field that represents the transaction date from one of the general ledger line attributes.

This provides companies with a stricter conformance to the joint operating agreement when the transaction date at the general ledger line level is different from the transaction date at the general ledger header.

Usability and Navigation Improvements for Joint Venture Invoicing

Improve the usability of Joint Venture applications and increase productivity by reducing the number of clicks, minimizing scrolling, and simplifying navigation.

Enhancements include:

• Incorporation of new application designs from the Oracle User Experience team in the Joint Venture Invoices work area, such as using smart filters and drawer panels for detail review.

• Ability to copy ownership definitions.

• Joint Audit Data Exchange (JADE) reporting.

Lease Accounting

Asset End Dates and Options

Amortize the Right-of-Use and Liability on equipment leases through the life of related assets rather than the life of the contract, when the asset life is less than the lease term. This is necessary because all assets on an equipment lease may not have the same life, and the options on an equipment lease may not pertain to all assets. Lessee administrators can also associate options to individual assets.

Lease Amendments for Scope Decreases

Perform amendments on a lease to modify payment amounts and shorten lease terms. Amendments include creating a new version of the lease, adjusting the accounting balances for the lease, and maintaining an audit of the changes.

Lease Contract Import and Conversion

Use the Lease Import utility to simplify both lease conversions and new lease creation. The Lease Import utility removes or reduces the need for manual intervention during the lease creation process. Import a batch of leases directly into the desired status: Draft, Validated, Complete, or Booked. Additional attributes for converted leases support the calculation and amortization of Liability and Right-of-Use balances mid-life.

Lease Payment Processing

Create lease invoices automatically in Payables for payment processing. Lessees can pay their lessors and other parties associated with their leases each period for rent, service, insurance, common area maintenance charges, or other amounts included in the leases.

Payables

Configurable Payables Workflow Notifications

Configurable Workflow Notifications are available for use for the following Payables workflows:

• Invoice Approval
• Payment Approval
• Hold Resolution
• Invoice Account Coding

Configurable Workflow notifications use Oracle Business Intelligence templates to generate the email and in-app notifications. You can modify the notification templates to display information based on your business requirements and policies. Choose from a comprehensive list of attributes to modify the notifications in accordance with your requirements. You can change both layout and content - add images, change colors and styling, add or remove attributes or modify text.

This feature was introduced in update 17D, with additional capabilities added in update 19D. In update 21B, additional attributes have been added to the list of attributes available for modifying the Invoice Approval, Hold Resolution and Invoice Account Coding workflow notifications. These include attributes for Invoice header descriptive flexfield, and Global descriptive flexfields for Invoice header, lines and distributions.

Creation and Management of Supplier Invoices with Retainage Payment Terms

In addition to calculating taxes on the net line amount (after deducting retainage) of Payables invoices, you can also calculate taxes on the gross amount. The gross amount is the amount of the line without deducting the retainage.

Data Security for Collaboration Documents

Secure access to business-to-business (B2B) messages in Collaboration Messaging Framework work area based on the user's job role. The documents Credit Note and Invoice Rejection can be viewed only by users having job roles Accounts Payable Manager, Accounts Payable Supervisor and Accounts Payable Invoice Supervisor.

Display of Cumulative Total Amount for Selected Lines in the Match Invoice Lines Page

View the cumulative total amount of the purchase order schedules in the Match Invoice Lines page. Accounts Payable Specialists can use this total to verify the value of the lines selected for matching with the physical invoice and reduce data entry errors.

Supplier Invoice Import with Requester Email Address

Specify the requester email address instead of the requester name when creating supplier invoices using the Import Payables Invoices process. This improves the process of identifying the correct requester details, because multiple users can have the same requester name.

Payments

Creation of All Payment Files in One Payment Batch Without User Intervention

Create and complete all the payment files in an electronic payment batch automatically when it is submitted with a payment document and results in multiple payment files. Payment supervisors can seamlessly process multiple electronic payment files in a payment batch without submitting the format payment files job for each payment file manually.

Receivables

Channel Revenue Management Integration with Receivables for Claim Creation and Settlement for Receipts Created Using Spreadsheet or SOAP Services

Initiate claims in Channel Revenue Management for receipts created using spreadsheet and SOAP services, when Receivables customers make invoice-related and non-invoice related underpayments and overpayments. Accelerate claim processing to quickly settle underpayments and overpayments, including processing all settlement-related financial transactions.

Custom Data Points and External Data Source Integration for Credit Management Using a REST API

Define custom data points using the Credit and Collections Data Points REST API. Populate the values for the custom data points, along with any non-system-derived, predefined data points, using the Data Point Values REST API.

Enhanced Message Content in Transactions Delivered Using Email

Send transactions using email with enhanced rich text content in the body of the message. Users can choose different fonts, modify font size and style, and insert logos and hyperlinks. The enhanced content improves the user experience for customers who receive transactions as an email attachment.

Revenue Management

Subscription Duration and Price Periodicity for Promised Services in Revenue Contracts

Capture the service duration and price periodicity for promised services created from Subscription Management, Order Management and Service Contracts for Oracle E-Business Suite, and third party applications. Use the subscription duration and price periodicity information to assign standalone selling prices to promised services for robust revenue allocation.

Subledger Accounting

Subledger Journal Entry Analysis

Analyze the accounting rules and source values used to create a subledger journal entry. Use this analysis to determine whether appropriate rules were used, and make changes where required. This facilitates rules configuration during implementation, provides better visibility into rule exceptions, and creates a full audit trail of accounted transactions.

Supporting Reference Balance Initialization Using a Simplified Template

Use the Adjust Supporting Reference Balances template to initialize or adjust balances for a supporting reference. Enter basic details including period, account combination, and amounts. The simplified template restricts users from entering any unbalanced journals that would result in the generation of intercompany or balancing entries.

Tax

First Party Tax Registration Number Default on Payables Invoices

Automatically default the first party tax registration number on non-PO Matched Imported Payables invoices with advanced legal structures, such as a legal entity with multiple legal reporting units and a different tax registration defined for each legal reporting unit. An incorrect First Party Tax Registration Number can lead to incorrect tax calculation and reporting.

Tax Deducted At Source Rate Change Within a Fiscal Year

Change the Tax Deducted at Source rate within a fiscal year. Being able to change this rate helps you accommodate legislative changes to the withholding rate.

Tax Registration Number Validation for Northern Ireland (XI)

Validate tax registration numbers in Northern Ireland for EU transactions, in accordance with the Brexit treaty business number validation rules.

Regional and Country-Specific Features

Financials for the Americas

Brazil

Fiscal Attribute Import for Transactions with the Same Transaction Number

Use the enhanced Outbound Fiscal Document Import FBDI template to import fiscal attributes for transactions with the same transaction number but from different product sources, such as Distributed Order Orchestration, Contracts, and Intercompany.

Financials for EMEA

Billing Software Certification for Portugal

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP has received the Billing Software Certification from the Portuguese Tax and Customs Authority. Comply with the legal requirements for billing software in Portugal using features across Financials and Supply Chain Management.

Customer and Supplier Balance Netting in Invoice Currency When Payment Currencies Are Different

Include invoices in netting settlements based on the invoice currency even when the payment currency is different.

Transaction Review Before Finalization of the VAT Period

Before finalizing the VAT period, alert users about transactions potentially modified after the last run of the selection process. This helps reduce unexpected errors in VAT Reporting.

Financials for Regional Localizations

Predefined Rules for Tax Point Date Adjustment

Use the Tax Point Date Adjustment process with predefined rules to automate the adjustment of tax point date information. The rules include criteria for Invoice Received Date, Goods Received Date, Invoice Date, and Delivery Date to provide updated processing over the existing tax point date adjustment spreadsheet.