Invoice in AR is used to bill the customer for the goods and the services offered (rendered).
Debit Memos in AR have the similar concept as that of an invoice. A debit memo could be used to invoice the customer for certain miscellaneous expenses incurred which were not included in the actual invoice for the product/service. Debit memo information is stored in ra_customer_trx_all, the type of transaction a particular row represents can be found out from the field class of ar_payment_schedules_all by linking the customer_trx_id field in the two tables.
Debit Memo is not created like credit memo. Debit memo is usually not linked to any other Invoice like credit memos; the whole idea behind creating a debit memo is to increase the customer outstanding balance.
Why create a debit memo instead of invoice then,
Debit memo would mean that we billed you short in our invoice and with reference our previous transaction we are billing you with the remaining amount. You can enter the source invoice number in “Reference field”
Credit Memos with negative amount are typically used for crediting the customer’s account with some balance. Credit memo information is also stored in ra_customer_trx_all
Credit memo can be created in two different ways; the idea behind creating a credit memo is to reduce the customer invoice balance.
Credit Memo can be created in two ways
1. Manually creating a credit memo like any other AR manual invoice.
i. Invoice Class: Credit Memo
ii. Invoice Type: OM Credit Memo, Credit Memo
2. Querying an existing AR Invoice and calling the Credit function from Actions menu
Query the AR Invoice for which you want to create a credit memo
i. Click on “Actions menu”
ii. Specify the “Reason for Credit Memo”
iii. Enter the Line % for Credit memo (Eg: 25% entered)
iv. Enter the Tax % for Credit memo (Eg: 10% entered)
v. Click the Save button
4. Deposit/Advance Creation Process and Apply to Invoices
Deposits are entered in the AR system to capture the customer advances and apply them to the AR invoices.
APPLY DEPOSITS TO AR INVOICES
Query or Enter the AR Invoice for which you want to apply the deposit
a. Click on Actions menu
b. Click Apply Deposit, Select the Deposit , Click Ok
c. Deposit is applied to the Invoice.
Auto Lockbox automatically creates receipts in Receivables using electronic information that your bank provides. Receivables let you specify the payment method for each Lockbox you define. Payment methods provide the default accounting information for receipts you create through Auto Lockbox. Receivables display active Lockboxes as list of values choices in the Submit Lockbox Processing window. You can disable a Lockbox by un-checking the Active box, and then saving your work.
Remittance - Payment
An adjustment as the name signifies is used for adjusting some of the amount in invoices. For e.g. if some insignificant amount is outstanding a particular invoice, it can be adjusted for the purpose of closing the invoice. Adjustment information is stored in the table ar_adjustments_all and can be linked to ra_customer_trx_all by the field customer_trx_id.
Aging buckets are time periods we can use to review and report on your open receivables. For example, the 4–Bucket Aging bucket that Receivables provides consists of four periods: –999 to 0 days past due, 1 to 30 days past due, 31–61 days past due, and 61–91 days past due. When you create your Collections reports or view your customer accounts, you can specify an aging bucket and ’as of date’, and Receivables will group the transactions and their amounts in the appropriate days past due period. You can define an unlimited number of aging buckets and lines (time periods) within an aging bucket. However, all Receivables aging reports include a maximum of the first seven time periods for an aging bucket. If you want to report on additional time periods, you must create custom aging reports. You can also customize the aging buckets that Receivables provides.
These are letters that are used to chase up receivables from customers. Receivables let you create dunning letters using two different methods. You can use one of the ten dunning letters that Receivables provides, or create your own, custom dunning letters in the Dunning Letters window. The ten dunning letters that Receivables provides include text files that you can customize to suit your dunning needs. Each of these letters (entitled USER1 – 10) includes two flat files: one for the body of your dunning letter text and the other for footer information. These files reside in the Receivables $AR_TOP/reports directory. For example, the dunning letter USER1 has a body file of ardl1b.txt and a footer file of ardl1f.txt. The ’b’ and the ’f’ identify these files as body and footer files, respectively.
Standard memo lines are lines that you assign to a transaction when the item is not an inventory item (for example, ’Consulting Services’). You can assign memo lines to debit memos, on–account credits, debit memo reversals, charge backs, commitments, and invoices. Receivables display your standard memo lines as list of values choices during credit memo entry in the Credit Transactions window and during invoice entry in the Lines window. When you create charge backs and debit memo reversals, you can either use the standard line that Receivables provides or enter your own. You can create an unlimited number of standard memo lines.
AR Technical Process
Start with creating customers in Accounts Receivables. Customers in AR (or Accounts Receivables) can be of two types namely:
- Person
- Organization
As is evident from the names a customer type is defined as a Person when the customer is a single person and while creating a customer, which is organization, the customer type is kept as Organization. From the back-end point of view, a customer can be distinguished as a person or organization from the field party_type of the table hz_parties which is linked to the table hz_cust_accounts by the field party_id.
The main attributes of a customer are:
- Customer Name (Stored as party_name in the table hz_parties, first name, middle name and last name are also present for a customer type as Person)
- Customer Number (Stored as account_number in the table hz_cust_accounts)
- Address: There can be multiple addresses defined for any customer and these addresses can be for various purposes for eg. Billing or Shipping the goods. Also, we can specify if a particular address is active at any point of time or not. The primary flag indicates whether a particular address is primary or not. Moreover, within an operating unit there can be only one primary bill to address (active) for any customer. Information regarding all this can be derived from the tables hz_cust_site_uses_all and hz_cust_acct_sites_all, where the cust_account_id of hz_cust_accounts acts as a foreign key.
Main Tables
hz_parties -> hz_cust_accounts -> hz_cust_acct_sites_all -> hz_cust_site_uses_all
Now since we are ready with a customer in AR, we need to Invoice him/her for the goods/services rendered. This brings us to the next step of AR i.e. invoicing the customers.
The main attributes of creating an invoice in AR are:
- Number (can be entered manually or can be generated automatically based on the source of the invoice).
- Date
- Currency
- Source
- Class (Invoice)
- Type (Transaction type name e.g. INV_TRX_TYPE1)
- Ship to Customer (Ship to address of the customer).
- Bill to Customer (Customer to be invoiced)
- Payment Terms (The system generates Due Date based on this).
Each invoice can have multiple lines describing the Item, Quantity, Price of the product/services for which the customer is being invoiced. The system calculates line Amount based on the Quantity and Price. The sum of line amounts of all the lines in an invoice makes the Invoice Amount.
After entering the lines for an invoice and saving it, an invoice needs to be completed for it to appear for any payment application. Pressing the Complete button at the lower most left corner of the transaction screen does this. Any further changes to the invoice can only be done by again incompleting the invoice.
The invoice information is stored in the table ra_customer_trx_all where the trx_number corresponds to the invoice number entered from the front end. Once an invoice is completed the record appears in ar_payment_schedules_all table, where the customer_trx_id from ra_customer_trx_all acts as a foreign key.
Now since we have invoiced our customer, we expect to receive payment from the customer against an invoice. This brings us to the next step of AR, where we have to create receipts in AR for the payment that we received from the customer in form of Check, DD etc.
The main attributes of receipt in AR are: -
- Receipt Number
- Currency
- Net Receipt Amount
- Receipt Date
- GL Date
- Payment Method
- Transaction Number (to which the payment has to be applied)
After entering this information we proceed to applying the receipt to the invoice, here we can change the amount to be applied to the invoice and also the apply date on which the receipt should be applied. Also we have control over the transaction to which the receipt should be applied, a receipt can also be kept unapplied or onaccount if so desired. After entering the information in the applications screen, save the application.
Receipts information is stored in table ar_cash_receipts_all, where receipt_number corresponds to the receipt number entered from the front end. Each receipt record is also stored in ar_payment_schedules_all where cash_receipt_id from ar_cash_receipts_all acts as a foreign key.
A receipt created in AR can have any one of the following statuses: -
- Unidentified - When the receipt is created without linking it to customer or invoice. Unidentified receipts could be created when the source of the incoming payment is unclear.
- Unapplied – When the payment is linked to a particular customer but has not been applied to any of the transactions.
- Onaccount - When the amount of the receipt is not applied to any of the transactions and is kept on-account of the customer.
A receipt can also have some amount as applied, some as unapplied and some as on-account or a combination of any two of these.
This completes one basic cycle of AR i.e.
- Creating a customer
- Invoicing the customer
- Applying payment to the invoice and closing it.
Note: While this illustrates the brief functionality of AR, appropriate accounting entries need to be passed by setting the accounts for the customer.
The application of a receipt to an invoice can take various other forms for e.g.
- To an invoice of amount $100, a receipt of amount $50 is applied. In this case the invoice remains open with an outstanding amount of $50 while the receipt amount gets exhausted.
- A receipt of amount $200 is applied to an invoice of amount $100. In this case the remaining receipt amount i.e. $100 can be kept unapplied or on-account.
If you apply a receipt against an invoice whose revenue was automatically deferred upon import, and you later reverse that receipt, then the impact of the receipt reversal differs depending on the original reason for the revenue deferral:
If revenue on an invoice was deferred due to unmet header level collectibility requirements, then Receivables initiates revenue recognition whenever you apply a receipt to the invoice. If you
reverse a previously applied receipt, then Receivables automatically unearns the previously earned revenue. In some cases, you might apply a receipt against an invoice line, but Receivables cannot recognize revenue for that line due to unmet line level collectibility requirements. Therefore, Receivables leaves the receipt amount as unearned revenue, but flags the amount as pending revenue recognition at a later date. If you later reverse the receipt, then Receivables reflects the receipt reversal by simply removing that pending flag from the receipt amount.
If revenue on an invoice was deferred due to unmet line level collectibility requirements only, then the reversal of a receipt does not impact the amount and timing of revenue recognition.
The process for creating invoices in AR manually has been demonstrated in the earlier sections. However, considering the volume of transactions involved, it is not always feasible to create all the invoices manually. To overcome this AR provides a standard program called ‘Autoinvoice Master Program’. Whenever shipment of certain items happen from the Order Management Module, Workflow background process is run to populate data into the interface tables provided by AR and then the autoinvoice program can be run to automatically generate invoices in AR. Optionally, data from some legacy systems (if applicable) can also be populated into the interface tables by building customized interfaces. The following interface tables need to be populated before running autoinvoice
- RA_INTERFACE_LINES_ALL
- RA_INTERFACE_DISTRIBUTIONS_ALL (Optional depending on the specific project requirements)
- RA_INTERFACE_SALESCREDITS_ALL (Optional depending on the specific project requirements)
Autoinvoice program can also be used for creating debit memos and credit memos apart from invoices. Also, applying a credit memo to invoice can also be done using autoinvoice
Auto invoice is the process used for importing the transactions from feeder moudles like project accounting, order entry etc. and also from existing applications/systems if the receivable module is installed for the first time.
Auto-Invoice
Navigation: Receivable >> Interface >> Auto-Invoice
Chargeback Creation Process
Chargeback is postponement of payment date. It can be done only in the receipts workbench. In this process the old invoice is cancelled and a new transaction is created for the postponed date.
Or, Adjusting remaining balance of the existing debit item to zero, and create a new debit item to bill customer for unpaid balance of original invoices.
After apply the receipts to any invoice, if you want to re-activate the Invoice by also keeping the Receipt in place. Then click the Chargeback button.
Adjustment Creation Process
Adjustments are created for Receipts in case of applying some extra value to the transaction, like Bank charges, bad debts etc. Click the Adjustment button on the Receipt apply window.
Credit Memo Usage
In order Management, sometimes goods may return to supplier because of damage. To refund that material amount, supplier will create Credit Memo to customer, to credit customer balance.
Auto Invoice
Create invoices from other sources like Order Management, Service Contracts, Projects Billing, etc,. This will be done using Auto Invoice master program.
Tables in AR
1. The RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_ALL table stores invoice, debit memo, commitment, bills receivable, and credit memo header information. Each row in this table includes general invoice information such as customer, transaction type, and printing instructions. One row exists for each invoice, debit memo, commitment, bill receivable, and credit memo that you create in Oracle Receivables. Invoices, debit memos, credit memos, bills receivable, and commitments are distinguished by their associated transaction types, which are stored in the RA_CUST_TRX_TYPES_ALLtable.
2. The RA_CUSTOMER_TRX_LINES_ALL table stores information about invoice, debit memo, credit memo, bills receivable, and commitment lines. For example, an invoice can have one line for Product A and another line for Product B. Each line requires one row in this table.
3. The RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_GL_DIST_ALL table stores the accounting records for revenue, unearned revenue, and unbilled receivables for each invoice or credit memo line. Oracle Receivables creates one row for each accounting distribution, and at least one accounting distribution must exist for each invoice or credit memo line. Each row in this table includes the General Ledger account and the amount of the accounting entry. The AMOUNT column is required even though this column is null allowed. Receivable uses this information to post the proper amounts to General Ledger.
4. The RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_SALESREPS_ALL table stores sales credit assignments for invoice lines. If Receivables bases your invoice distributions on sales credits, a mapping exists between the sales credit assignments in this table with the RA_CUST_TRX_LINE_GL_DIST_ALL table
5. The RA_CUST_TRX_TYPES_ALL table stores information about each transaction type that is used for invoices, commitments, bills receivable, and credit memos. Each row includes Auto Accounting information as well as standard defaults for the invoices that result.
6. AR_PAYMENT_SCHEDULES_ALL holds the payment schedules for the transactions
