Oracle Account Payables Interview Questions

1.What are the modules that are interfaced with Oracle payables?       

General Ledger, Purchasing,AOL,Cash Management,Assets.

2.How does the information defaults in payables?

            Financial Option > Payables > Supplier > Supplier Site > Invoice > Distribution and  Schedule of Payment.

3. What is a distribution set? what are the types of distribution set?

Distribution Set is to automatically distribute Invoice amount in to different GL Account code Combination.

            Type of Distribution Set

            Full Distribution and Skeleton Distribution Set

            Full Distribution means we know the exact percentage and exact account code combination. The sum of the distribution percentages must equal 100 or 0.

            Whereas in Skeleton we don't the percentage but we know the GL Account Code Combination. So percentage should not be entered here.

4.What are the types of invoices used in payables?

            Standard, Credit Memo, Debit Memo, Mixed, Prepayment, Expense Report, Withholding Tax, PO Default, Quick Match. Retainage Invoice

5. What are the encumbrance options for AP? How are they used?

            Requisition Encumbrance, and  PO Encumbrance available in Financial Option.

            Encumbrance used to reserve the Funds at the time of raising the Requisition or creating of PO.

6.What are the different types of supplier sites?

            Pay, Primary Pay, RFQ, Purchasing, Procurement Card.

7.What are the types of Accounting Methods?

            Accrual, Cash.

8. What is Automatic Offset Methods ?

            Payables automatically create balancing accounting entries for your invoice and payment transactions.

            Three types of Offset Methods 1. None, 2.Balancing, 3. Account.

9.What is a Pay Group?

            Pay Group is to group invoices into supplier category for payments.

10.How do you create interest invoice?

            In Payable Option under Interest Tab Allow Interest Invoices. Enable this option if you want to allow Payables to calculate interest for overdue invoices and create interest invoices for selected suppliers. Payables  automatically creates interest invoices when you pay overdue invoices in a payment batch or with a Quick payment. If you pay an overdue invoice using a manual payment, Payables warns you that interest is due on the invoice and you should pay the invoice in a payment batch or with a Quick payment.

11.What is GL Date Basis & Prepayment settlement date?         

            The date you want Payables to use as the default accounting date for invoices during invoice entry.

            • Invoice Date. Invoice date you enter during invoice entry.

            • System Date. Current date for your Payables system. The date you enter the invoice.     

            • Goods Received/Invoice Date. Date that you enter in the Date Goods Received field. If no value is entered, then the invoice date is used.

            • Goods Received/System Date. Date that you enter in the Date Goods Received field. If no value is entered, then the system date is used.

            Prepayment Settlement Days. Number of days you want Payables to add to the system date to calculate a default settlement date for a prepayment. Payables  prevents you from applying the prepayment to an invoice until on or after the settlement date.

12.What are the levels of Tax calculation?

            Level at which the tax has to be calculated.

            Levels: line level, header level and tax code level

13.What is additional Pay Through Days?            

            Days specified in this column is added to the system date to select the invoice for payment which has the maturity date falling within these days

14. What are Term date basis & pay date basis?

            Term date basis

             Date from which the due date will be calculated based on the payment term.

            Pay date basis

            Selection criteria of invoices based on the due date or  scheduled discount date.

16. What are the types of payment terms?

            Imme,30days, fixed due date, instalments ,proxima.

17. What are holds in payables? How are they defined ?

            Restriction on the invoice for  further processing.

            Types: Manual and system holds. User can define any types of holds and can be attached to the invoice to stop further processing.

18. How do you create a foreign currency invoice and a foreign currency payment ?

            Any invoice that has been created from other than the functional currency.

            Steps: Payables option ,in currency tab enable use multiple currencies.

            Making foreign currency payment

            In the payment format enable multiple currency option and in bank enable multiple currency payments under payable option tab.

19. What are Expenses Report and Expense Report Template?

            Invoice created for the expense made by the employee.

            Expense report template

            Defining default values for expense items, and you can then choose those items from a list of values when you enter expense reports.

20.What are recurring invoices?

            A feature that lets you create invoices for an expense that occurs regularly and is not usually invoiced. Monthly rents and lease payments are examples of recurring payments.

21. What are the perquisites for entering a Standard Invoice?

             supplier, supplier site, payment term, payment method, distribution set(optional).

22. What are Tax Recovery Rules?

            Rules defined for the  amount of taxes that has to be recovered which  is usually a function of the nature (or intended use) of the taxable item.

23. What are payment formats and payables documents?

            Format in which the stationary has to be build i.e., where the attributes or the contents has to be placed.

            Payment document

            It is the actual negotiable or the legal document presented to the supplier.

24.What are the types of payment methods?

            Check, electronic, wire, clearing, future dated(Bill of exchange). Two places where you assign the method one is financials option at supplier payables tab and he override option at supplier site level, payable tab.

25.what are the different types of payment methods?

            Manual, quick and refund.

26. What are the different types of taxes used in payables?

            Sales, use tax, offset, user-defined, withholding tax.

27. What is future dated payment method?

            Payment of invoice where the due date(maturity date) falls in the future.ex- bill of exchange.

            Steps: Enable future date use in the future dated payments tab at the payables document.

28. How do you control accounting periods in payables?

            setup--accounting--ap accounting periods

            There is option of toggling between various status.

 Never opened, Future ,Open, Closed ,Permanently closed.

29. What are the Payment Programs?

            The following are the Payment Programs which is used in the payment batches.

            1.         Build Payment Programs

            2.         Format Payment Programs

            3.         Separate Remittance Programs.

Build Payment Programs

            It groups the Invoices of the suppliers in the manner in which payment should be made.

Format Payment Programs

            This program is used to know the layout of the payment documents and accordingly format the payments.

Separate Remittance Programs

            If the Payment Documents does not contains the Remittance advice, then we need to run the Separate Remittance Programs other this will run along with Payment Documents.

30.       What is difference between entering Invoices in Invoice Gateway and Invoice Work Bench Window?

Invoice Workbench used for entering and maintaining more complex invoices for which you require extensive online validation and online defaulting where as Invoice Gateway used for your everyday entry of invoice records. Use this window for rapid, high–volume entry of Standard and Credit Memo invoices that are not complex and do not require extensive online validation or defaulting of values during entry.

When you use the Invoice Gateway, you enter invoice header and line information in the same window, and can view only one record at a time. In the Invoice Workbench, you enter invoice header information in the Invoices window, and the related invoice distributions in the Distributions window. You can view multiple invoices at the same time in the Invoices window.

In the Invoice Workbench we can enter and apply prepayments. In the Invoice Gateway we cannot enter prepayments, but we  can apply existing prepayments to invoices you enter.

31.       What are the tables involved in AP Invoice Interface?

            AP_INVOICES_INTERFACE

            AP_INVOICE_LINES_INTERFACE

32.       What is Proration of Invoice Lines?

            When you check the Prorate in the Invoice Lines it will prorate expenses and Tax according to the Proportion of Line amount in the Invoice.

33.       What are the Offset Taxes? Where it is Used?

Offset Taxes

Offset tax codes are used to record self–assessed taxes on invoices, while reducing or completely offsetting tax liability. Offset taxes have negative–amount rates, so when you use them, you enter negative–amount invoice tax distributions.

It used in European Union,  if you are a member of the European Union (EU), you can report on these zero–rated taxes using the Intra–EU VAT Audit Trail report.

34.What are the types of Holds that are used to prevent the payment of Invoice?

Holds that we can apply manually or that Payables applies, prevent payment and, in some cases, creation of accounting entries for an invoice. We can remove holds that we apply, and we can manually release certain holds that Payables applies during Approval.

Payables provides some generic invoice holds for our use, and we can define our own, based on our invoice approval needs. We can also prevent payment of supplier invoices by placing a hold on the supplier rather than on each individual invoice.

There are two major category of hold 1] Manual Hold 2] System Hold.

Manual hold we can create and release manually where as system hold is created by system and normally released by system after due rectification.

There are three types of holds we can use to prevent payment of an invoice

 Invoice Hold. We can manually apply one or more Invoice Hold Reason Approvals (”holds”) to an invoice using the Invoice Holds window of the Invoice Workbench.

 Scheduled Payment Hold. We can hold payment on part of an invoice by placing one or more of the scheduled payments on hold in the Scheduled Payments window of the Invoice Workbench.

Supplier Hold. In the Supplier Sites window, we can enable the Hold All Payments, Hold Unapproved Invoices, or Hold Unmatched Invoices options. We also have the option of

specifying an Invoice Amount Limit for a supplier site.

35.What are the  hold option at the supplier Site?

In the Supplier Sites window, we can enable the Hold All Payments, Hold Unapproved Invoices, or Hold Unmatched Invoices options. We also have the option of specifying an Invoice Amount Limit for a supplier site.

36.       What are the ways in which invoice can be approved?

Before you can pay or create accounting entries for an invoice, including prepbayments, you must submit Approval for the invoice in one of three ways:

• Online by using the Invoice Actions window.

• Online by using the Approve button in the Invoice Batches

• Batch by submitting the Payables Approval program from the Submit Request window.

37.What are the methods of taking Discounts in Payables?

There are two ways to take discounts with Payables:

• Enable the Always Take Discount Supplier option. Payables  takes a discount regardless of when you pay the invoice.

• Select Discount for the Pay Date Basis for the supplier, and disable the Pay Only When Due check box for your payment batch. Payables takes a discount and pays the invoice within the discount period.

38. What are the matching approval Levels?

Match Approval Level. If we use Oracle Payables with Oracle Purchasing or another integrated purchasing product, we can perform online matching of invoices and original purchase orders or purchase order receipts. Matching ensures that we only pay for the goods and services we ordered and that our suppliers do not over–billed us. If we are billed for an item over the amount and quantity tolerances we define, the Payables Approval Program applies holds to the invoice and prevents payment until we release the holds.

39.What are the Payable Open Interface Table?

The Payables Open Interface tables store invoice information. The Payables Open Interface Import program builds Payables invoices based on the invoice records in the Payables Open Interface tables.

After the import program builds the invoices, they can be viewed, modified, and approved in the Invoice Workbench.

The invoice data is from e–Commerce invoices from your suppliers, invoice records that you entered in the Invoice Gateway window, invoices that you loaded with Oracle SQL*Loader, lease invoices that were transferred from Property Manager, and credit card transaction data.

40.What are the Invoice Matching Option?           

The following are the Invoice Matching Option  available :

Purchase Order Matching

 2–Way. When you match to a purchase order or receipt, Payables Approval performs these control checks:

            1. Quantity billed <= Quantity ordered (Symbol mean lessor)

            2. Invoice price <= Purchase order price

Receipts Matching

 3–Way. Control checks 1 and 2, plus:

            3. Quantity billed <= Quantity received

Invoice Matching

 4–Way. Control checks 1, 2, and 3, plus:

            4. Quantity billed <= Quantity accepted

41.       What is the Prepayment Invoice? What are the Types of Prepayment Invoice?

            A prepayment is a type of invoice we enter to make an advance payment to a supplier or employee.

The Following are the Two Types of Prepayments

            1.         Temporary and

            2.         Permanent.

Temporary prepayments can be applied to invoices or expense reports you receive.

Permanent prepayments cannot be applied to invoices.

42.       What are the purchase order matching database table?

Payables uses several of Oracle Purchasing tables for matching. To implement matching in Payables, you need to load these tables with the data from your non–Oracle purchasing application.

The following are the list of such tables :

• PO_HEADERS

• PO_LINES

• PO_LINE_LOCATIONS

• PO_DISTRIBUTIONS

• PO_DISTRIBUTIONS_AP_V (view of PO_DISTRIBUTIONS)

• PO_RELEASES (Blanket Purchase Orders)

• PO_LOOKUP_CODES

AutoInstall automatically installs these and other necessary Oracle Purchasing application tables when you install Payables.

43.       What are the pre-requisites for entering Payments?

The following are the pre-requisites:

1.         The invoice(s) we paid must be approved, uncancelled, validated, without holds, and must have the same currency as the payment.

2.         The bank account must have at least one payment document that uses the Recorded or Combined disbursement type.

India Localization:

44. How should I define surcharge for a TDS Tax?

You need to enter (in the Surcharge field on the Tax Definition) exact percentage that

has to be applied on the Invoice amount.

For example: In a case where TDS Tax Rate is 2% and a Surcharge of 10% is applicable

for this Tax. You should specify 0.2 in the Surcharge field.

45. What should be the Setup steps when I wish to implement TDS features only?

Setup only Step 16-21 of the India Localization Setups. Refer to the Setup Overview

chapter of the India Localization User Guide.

Following India Localization Setups need to be completed:

• Define TDS Related Information for the Organization

• Define Income Tax Authority

• Define TDS Sections

• Define TDS Tax Codes

• Defining TDS year Information

• Define TDS Details for Suppliers

46. What is the impact of assigning a Default TDS Tax Name to the Supplier Site?

This would automate TDS Calculation for every Invoice created for the Supplier Site.

This happens in spite of the fact that you override/ delete the TDS Tax Id before saving

the Invoice Distribution.

47. How many TDS Invoices are created when multiple Invoice Distributions have

the same TDS Tax Id?

Invoice created for the TDS Authority and the Credit Memo for the Supplier would be

consolidated for all Invoice distributions having the same TDS Tax Id.

48. What will be a pre-requisite to assign WCT Type of Taxes on Invoice?

It is necessary to assign a TDS Tax Id before you specify a WCT Tax Id. However, if you

only have WCT applicable to the Invoice, then, assign this code in the TDS Tax Id field.

For Supplier who does not have TDS Applicability but only have WCT calculated for

services provided by them, then, assign the WCT Tax Id in the default TDS Tax Name

field.

49. What will be impact on TDS Invoices when Prepayment Invoice with Single TDS

Code, applied to Standard Invoice has different TDS Codes attached?

TDS calculated on the Standard Invoice would be reversed in proportion of the amount

applied to the Total Amount Standard Invoice bearing TDS.

50. What happens when Standard Invoice having multiple TDS Codes is applied to a

Prepayment Invoice with multiple TDS Code?

TDS calculated on the Prepayment Invoice distribution to which the Standard Invoice is

applied is considered for reversal.

TDS Amount calculated on the applied Prepayment line would be reversed in

proportion to the amount applied to the Total Amount Prepayment Invoice.

51. Why should the user define a Fin Year for TDS? What is the impact of creating

such Fin Year? When should I close the current Fin Year?

This is mandatory for calculating TDS on Invoices. Also, the TDS Certificate Number

would be re-set every Fin Year.

Once the current financial year-ends, you will have to navigate to the TDS Period India

Localization screen and press 'New Financial Year' button.