Whats New in Oracle 12.1.1 Purchasing

Oracle Purchasing

Overview
Oracle Purchasing is the application for procurement professionals that streamlines
purchase order processing while strengthening policy compliance. It is a key component
of Oracle Advanced Procurement, the integrated suite that dramatically cuts supply
management costs.

Features

PO and Requisition Mass Update

Oracle Purchasing will include a new capability to mass update buyer, approver, and
deliver-to person information in Purchase Orders (PO) and preparer, requester and
approver information on requisitions to streamline the process of maintaining
organizational changes.
A new program “Mass Close of Purchase Document” will allow users to mass close
Purchase documents. The Mass Close functionality applies to Purchase Orders that have
been fully processed i.e. batch processing has completed, but are not in the closed status
as well as for Purchase Orders that the user needs to manually close. The program is
applicable to Standard Purchase Orders, Blanket Purchase Agreements, Planned
Purchase Orders and Contract Agreement and Blanket Releases

Enable All Sites for Global Contract Purchase Agreements

A new feature “Enable All Sites” in Global Contract Purchase Agreement has been
introduced to allow Contracts to be referenced from any of the valid supplier sites while
creating standard PO and requisitions. This allows broader use of GCPA, such as for
suppliers with many valid sites in a single master agreement.
Additionally, a profile option has been added to allow a Requisition or Standard
Purchase Order to reference a GCPA from any of the Supplier Sites while the GCPA is
being amended. By default, the profile option is set to “No” to preserve current
behavior.

Deliverable Payment Holds

Engineering and Construction (E&C) firms have unique requirements regarding
subcontractor management, subcontractor payment, and customer billing. Pay When
Paid is a payment term common in this industry, where sub-contractors are not paid until
the customer pays the general contractor. In addition, it is sometimes necessary to require
subcontractors to maintain specified insurance coverage and other work related
certifications. The general contractor frequently reserves the right to withhold payments
to subcontractors until proof of insurance or proof of certifications has been provided.
Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.1.1 Release Content Document Oracle Purchasing 7
The following features enable users to track such requirements and to automate the
payment hold process.
Note: This feature requires both Services Procurement and Procurement Contracts to be
licensed as it applies to complex purchase orders and leverages deliverable
functionality..

Payment Hold Deliverables

Tracking insurance and certification requirements is often a cumbersome and
manual process. Deliverables will be used to track these requirements. Initiate
Payment Holds functionality will provide users the ability to initiate payment
holds on all future invoices when a deliverable approaches its due date or when a
deliverable becomes overdue. For example, a subcontractor may be required to
be licensed yearly. To ensure that licensing happens, the buyer or project
manager can define a deliverable to hold all payments if the subcontractor fails
to renew his license.

Payables Integration

In Release 12.1.1, new hold and release reasons are seeded in Oracle Payables.
A “PO Deliverable” hold can be placed on all supplier invoices that are matched
to a purchase order that has a deliverable with payment hold terms and is nearly
due or is overdue.
Releases may be automatic or manual. A concurrent process automates the
release of PO Deliverable Payment holds. The process is submitted
automatically when the user updates the Due Date for a deliverable that is within
the defined payment hold terms. Project managers can also use the
Subcontractor Payment Management Workbench to manage Deliverables. A
Payment Hold Status and Payment Indicator allows users to quickly see whether
all deliverables have been met and determine whether payments can be made to
the subcontractor. Project managers can override the automatic payment holds
caused by overdue purchase order deliverables.

Support for Pay When Paid Scenarios

Many construction firms adhere to a “Pay when Paid” policy for subcontract
agreements, in order to manage cash flow for a project. Specifically, construction
companies will hold the payment of subcontractor bills until the construction firm
has been paid by the owner. Now, a Pay when Paid payment term may be
specified for a subcontract to automatically result in the placing of holds on all
subcontractor invoices under that subcontract until the corresponding customer
payment is received.
A new Subcontract Payment Controls workbench allows the project manager to
manage these holds, with visibility into both the customer invoices and the
associated subcontractor invoices. Alerted by workflow notifications once the
customer payment is received, the project manager can then choose to
automatically or manually release the corresponding subcontractor invoices. The
associations between the customer invoices and the subcontractor invoices may
be automatically maintained based on the billing of project expenditures in the
case of a cost-plus contract, or manually maintained for fixed price contract
scenarios.