Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Oracle Applications White Paper: White Paper On Invoice Approval Workflow Using Approval Management Engine in R12
Oracle Applications White Paper: White Paper On Invoice Approval Workflow Using Approval Management Engine in R12
2 OBJECTIVE ........................................................................................................................................................................... 3
3 SCOPE/OUT OF SCOPE........................................................................................................................................................ 3
5 BUSINESS CASE................................................................................................................................................................... 4
12 REFERENCE ........................................................................................................................................................................ 42
13 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................................................... 42
The Invoice Approval Workflow automates your invoice approval process. Based on rules you define (using the Approvals
Management Application), the workflow determines if an invoice needs approval, who the appropriate approvers are, and in what
order approvers should approve payment of the invoice. The workflow then sequentially asks each approver in the approval list to
approve invoices online.
2 OBJECTIVE
Objective of this white paper is to improve reader’s understanding of Invoice Approval workflow using Approval management
Engine in R12.This white paper demonstrates few business cases on how invoice is sent for approval using rules defined in
Approval management engine.
3 SCOPE/OUT OF SCOPE
This white paper will cover
1. Setup steps in System Administrator, HRMS, Payables, Approval Management Business Analyst for Invoice Approval
Workflow.
2. Test Cases to initiate invoice for approval using different AME rules.
1. Workflow details.
2. How to add AME responsibility to users And AME setups for different Transaction Types.
Operating Unit: OU
5 BUSINESS CASE
5.1 METHODOLOGY
The Invoice Approval Workflow automates invoice approval process. Based on rules
defined in AME, the workflow determines if an invoice needs approval, identify approvers, and order in which approvers should
approve the invoice. The workflow then sends approval in a serial order to each approver defined in the approval group. There
are four different business scenarios discussed in this White paper.
You also have an Option to Force approve the invoices. Enable “Allow Force approval” to get this functionality. Force approval
is required in cases where the payment is approved manually by a hard copy signature. When you force approve the invoice, the
approval status of the invoice is changed to “Manually Approved”. Force Approval of an Invoice can be done through Invoice
workbench=>Actions=>Force Approval.
If user wants to validate invoices before approval, enable “Require Validation Before Approval”. If this check box is checked in
payables option, then approval can be initiated only after invoice has been validated.
b) Query the OU for which you want to enable the Invoice approval workflow
Note : While defining a FND USER it is not necessary to associate any person or customer.
For example:
Ledger currency of the organization is USD, Transactions are entered in EUR. Approval is required for the invoices which are
entered in “EUR” currency. Following different activities would be performed in sequence:
b. Create an approval group with list of approvers who would be approving invoice
e. Initiate Approval
Note the Rule will be triggered based on the Functional amount of Invoice.
For example:-
SET UP STEPS
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Condition => Create
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Approver group => Create
e) Select the approver type as FND USER and associate list of approvers
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Rules => Create Rule
1. Create invoice with currency different than ledger currency. Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry
NOTE : Invoice Curr is EUR, Functional Currency is USD and Approval status of invoice is “Required”.
3. View the approval history of the transaction. Navigation : Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
Note: Here approval goes to “MEAGRAW” and “RUGHOSH” as defined in Approval group.
Review the Invoice approval history after MEAGRAW approves the invoice
Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
6. To check the final Status of Invoice, navigate to Invoice Workbench= >General Tab and review Approval Status. It should
be “Workflow Approved”
PO already requires approval in purchasing. Thus when a PO matched invoice is created in payables, the status of such invoice
changes to "Not Required". Based on the business requirement, if users want approval for PO matched invoice, following
mandatory setups are required:
a) End date the existing AME rule: “INVOICE HEADER MATCH CHECK” and “INVOICE LINE MATCH CHECK”.
SET UP STEPS
b) Query “Invoice Header Match Check”, Click on update icon and enter “End Date”.
c) Query “Invoice Line Match Check”, Click on update icon and enter “End Date”.
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Condition => Create
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Approver group => Create
e) Select the approver type as FND USER and associate list of approvers
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Rules => Create Rule
When an invoice is matched to PO, attribute APPROVE_MATCHED_INVOICES is set to True. Once the rule is setup with
condition APPROVE_MATCHED_INVOICES = True, this rule will then be applicable to all the PO Matched invoices.
Note: Here approval goes to “MEAGRAW” and “RUGHOSH” as defined in Approval group.
6. User “MEAGRAW” reviews the worklist to approve the invoice. Navigation: Payables Super User -> Workflow -> Worklist
Review the Invoice approval history after MEAGRAW approves the invoice. Navigation:
Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval history
7. User ‘RUGHOSH’ reviews worklist to approve the invoice. Navigation: Payables Super User -> Workflow -> Worklist
Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
8. To check the final Status of Invoice, navigate to Invoice Workbench= >General Tab and review Approval Status. It should
be “Workflow Approved”
Every organization has supervisor associated to an employee. There can be business requirement, wherein invoice needs an
approval from the supervisor of the employee.
In this scenario “Requester” becomes a mandatory field to be entered while creating invoice. When approval is initiated
workflow engine will look for the supervisor assigned to the Requester in Human Resource Responsibility.
SET UP STEPS
Note: For detailed explanation on how to register an Employee in HMRS, refer Oracle HRMS user guide
c) In the list of value for ‘PERSON’ , select the employee created in HRMS (E.g. Agrawal,Meha)
d) In the list of value for ‘PERSON’ , select the supervisor associated to employee created in HRMS (E.g. Arora, Mr.
Rajiv)
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Condition => Create
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Rules => Create Rule
Note: As per above rule if supplier_invoice_amount is greater than 20000 USD, then approval will go to supervisor of requester.
1. Create an invoice in Payables, Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry. Enter the “Requester” field.
Here requester is the employee.
Note: Here approval goes to “Arora, Rajiv” supervisor of Requester “Agrawal, Meha”
4. Supervisor “RKARORA” reviews the work list to approve the invoice. Navigation: Payables Super User -> Workflow ->
Work list
Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
For example:
This business case explains the implementation of AME rule to achieve the requirement.
SET UP STEPS:
1. Create a custom attribute to derive the Legal Entity of transaction. Custom attribute is created when there is no seeded
attribute available to create required AME condition. Following step explains the same.
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Attribute => Create
Note: An attribute item class determines the class of items having value for the attribute. Attributes belonging to the
header item class are sometimes termed header-level attributes. Attributes belonging to subordinate item classes are
sometimes termed line-item-level attributes or cost-center-level attributes.
d) Enter description
For more details on custom attribute creation refer to Implementing Oracle Approvals Management Guide
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Condition => Create
c) Specify legal_entity_id.
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Approver group => Create
e) Select the approver type as FND USER and associate list of approvers.
a) Navigation : AM Business Analyst =>Transaction Type Id: APINV =>Rules => Create Rule
1. Create invoice in Legal Entity 204 (used in this business case) .Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice
Entry.
2. Initiate Approval. Navigate Actions > Select Initiate Approval > Click Ok
3. View the approval history of the transaction. Navigation : Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
Note : Here approval is sent to ‘MEAGRAW’ as defined in approval group of AME rule.
4. User “MEAGRAW” reviews the worklist to approve the invoice. Navigation: Payables Super User -> Workflow ->
Worklist..
Review the Invoice approval history after MEAGRAW approves the invoice
Navigation: Payables Super user=>Invoices=>Invoice Entry=> Invoice Workbench Tool Bar=>Reports=>View invoice approval
history
5. To check the final Status of Invoice, navigate to Invoice Workbench= >General Tab and review Approval Status. It should
be “Workflow Approved”.
b) In transaction Type select "Payables Invoice Approval" and Click on Test workbench,
d) Enter Transaction_id as Invoice_id(which is having issue) and click on Run Test Case (2).
2. Invoice approval status stuck in “ Initiated" status and no approval notification sent to approvers
9 TECHNICAL ASPECT
Once the invoice approval work flow is initiated, invoice document approval history can be viewed through “View Invoice
approval history” tab under reports in invoice workbench. This window following details:-Approver name, future approver,
Amount reviewed, Action date.
“View Invoice approval history” is enabled only when we navigate to Headers region of invoice workbench. Data shown
in approval history window is based on data from table AP_INV_APRVL_HIST_ALL.
In R12, invoice approval work flow mainly involves the following concurrent programs, work flow and tables:
a) Package: AP_WORKFLOW_PKG (aphanwfs.pls, aphanwfb.pls)
b) Concurrent Program : AP Invoice Approval Workflow (APINVAPR) - apfhanwf.wft
c) Table : AP_INV_APRVL_HIST_ALL, AP_APINV_APPROVERS
1. The Approver can either Approve or Request the lines in the notification.
2. If the Approver fails to respond, an escalation notification will be sent to his/her Supervisor as setup in HR.
3. This process Ends in statuses ‘Approve’ or ‘Reject’, which in turn is used in the main process to either continue the
workflow process or to stop it (i.e., Approval stops at the first Rejection).
Note: The workflows shown above are based on the latest available AP_WORKFLOW_PKG (120.64.12010000.56) and
workflow file apfhanwf.wft (120.36.12010000.15)
Invoice document and all lines requiring approval should be approved before the invoice can be paid. If both invoice lines and
document need to be approved, all the lines of the invoice requiring approval must be approved before the invoice document can
be approved.
Invoice approval status is derived from approval status maintained at invoice header level and approval status maintained at
invoice line level.
The item class provided in defining rule in AME would determine whether this rule effects the invoice document approval or
invoice line approval. If item class is given as Header, this rule would govern the invoice document approval and if given as Line
Item, would govern the invoice line approval. Rest all setups in AME are same as the setups in R11i.
View Invoice approval history is enabled only when we navigate to Headers region of invoice workbench. Data shown in this
form is based on data from table AP_INV_APRVL_HIST_ALL.
View Line approval history is enabled only when we navigate to lines region of invoice workbench. This form shows the line
level approval context of respective lines. Data shown in this form is based on data from table AP_APINV_APPROVERS.
Note: Line-level approval is available for invoices that are matched to a purchase order. The line level approval work-flow is
designed to work for PO matched lines only. For detailed explanation on Line level approval, please refer to AME
Implementation guide.
11 PARALLEL APPROVAL
Invoice approval workflow now supports parallelization at the invoice header level on 12.1.x and 12.2.x.The main advantage for
this change is to shorten the processing time for an invoice to get approved.
The parallel approval process imposes a hierarchical (tree) structure on the transaction’s approver list and enables each part of the
tree at a given level to progress through its notification-approval cycle asynchronously. This enables the approval process of each
item in the transaction to continue irrespective of the progress of approval process of other items in the transaction and reduces
the transaction's approval process time.
If user selects the parallel ordering mode, the approval notifications will be sent to all approvers at the same time. The invoice
may get approved when one or all approvers approve the invoice, depending on the voting regime that is set up.
The available voting regimes are serial, consensus, first-responder-wins and order number.
This enhancement is available with 12.2.4 and can be added to 12.1.x by the application of patch 19608529:R12.AP.B
13 CONCLUSION
The goal of this document is to help you learn and understand the flow of Invoice approval workflow using AME rules. For a
more detailed explanation, please refer to Implementing Oracle Approvals Management and Oracle Payables User Guide.