Oracle Applications Interview Questions (FAQS)

Q1. What are the setups required for Encumbrance Accounting? 

A: 1) In General Ledger 
a) Enable budgetary control in your Set of Books: 
Navigation: Setup->Financials->Books 
Alternative Region : Budgetary Control Options Flag Enable Budgetary Control.

b) Create budgetary control groups: 
Navigation: Budgets->Define->Controls 
Create name, description and enter Budgetary control rules. e.g.. Add Purchasing as Source with category Purchases. 
This control group has to be attached at the Site level or User level Profile Option (Budgetary Control Group) and this will control the behavior regarding the tolerance of budgetary control. 

c) Define Budget: 
Navigation->Budget->Define->Budget 
In Budget, basically you set period boundary for your budget i.e. time frame. 
Remember to open the periods for the budget by pressing the Open next year button. 
NOTE: A prerequisite to the above step is that Encumbrance year should be open at Set of Books level. 
Navigation: Setup->Open/Close 

d) Define Budget Organization: 
Navigation: Budget->Define->Organization 
In this step you choose the accounts for which you want to have control and link it to your Budget defined in step 'c'. Complete Header of form and Navigate to Ranges and define your ranges for your organization. 

e) Encumbrance types: 
Navigation: Setup->Journals->Encumbrances. 
Encumbrance types are defined so as to bifurcate the reservation of funds done at different levels i.e. Requisition, PO or Invoice level, it helps management people in having better financial control. 

2) In Purchasing 
a) Enable encumbrance: Encumbrance has to be enabled in Financial Options form in Purchasing modules. 
In Purchasing: Setup->Organization->Financial Options (Alternative region Encumbrance) 
Select different encumbrance types for different levels i.e. Requisition, PO and Invoice. Here you attach the types that you defined in step 1.e of GL setup.

FAQ Details

Q1. What reference columns does Oracle Purchasing populate in the table gl_bc_packets? And what information is populated in these columns?

A: Oracle Purchasing populates four of the five reference fields. 
Reference1 with the document type, e.g. PO or REQ. 
Reference2 with the document header id, po_header_id or requistion_header_id.
Reference3 with the distribution id, po_distribution_id or distribution_id.
Reference4 with the document number, purchase order number or requisition number.

  

Q2. If over receipt of goods, will Oracle Purchasing reverse encumbrances associated with the over receipt quantity?

A: No, this is not possible as the budget is only updated with the encumbrance amount when the purchase order was created. Since this transaction has already been logged in gl_bc_packets and potentially picked up by the Create Journals program there is no method to modify this transaction.

  

Q3. How do I liquidate excess encumbrances for the purchase order, purchase order line or purchase order shipment?

A: By performing a Final Close on the document. However, this action is irreversible, so be sure no other transactions need to be completed before the Final Close.

  

Q4. How can I tell if Oracle Federal Financials is installed in my database?

A: To check if Federal Financials is installed in the application, join the tables FND_APPLICATION and FND_PRODUCT_INSTALLATIONS as:

SELECT fa.application_id, fa.application_short_name,
fpi.status 
FROM fnd_application fa,
fnd_product_installations fpi
WHERE fa.application_id= fpi.application_id
AND fa.application_short_name like 'FV%'
SQL> /

APPLICATION_ID APPLICATION_SHORT_NAME 
-------------- ------------------------------------------- -
8901 FV I 

In addition to the status of installed, you can also query the dba_objects view for the object_name with a prefix of FV, for example:

SELECT object_name 
FROM dba_objects
WHERE object_name like 'FV%'
AND owner='APPS';

If there are any objects in the database with the prefix FV, a row will be returned. There are approximately 500 objects that belong to the Federal Vertical application.

  

Q5. Is there a way to unreserve or reverse an encumbrance on a purchase order? 

A: Beginning with Oracle Applications Release 11, there is the functionality of Unreserving an encumbrance at the header level of a purchasing document. The unreserve works only if funds are currently reserved for the document. Once you have unreserved the document you can modify as needed. 

 

Q6. What is a Transaction Code and how is this defined?

A: Transaction codes are typically used when the budgetary or the fund accounting model is employed. The vertical application Oracle Federal Financials includes the profile Enable Transaction Codes which activates this functionality. 

Once transaction codes have been enabled, they can be defined in General Ledger (Setup - Accounts - Transaction Codes). Transaction codes are used as a shortcut to create debit and credit pairs for a single transaction.

 

Q7. What steps do I take when the approval of the purchase order fails due to insufficient funds?

A: 1. Identify the distribution that is failing, the error message will usually indicate which distribution is in error. Obtain the ccid of this distribution account.

2. . Check the budget organization for which this code combination id is assigned. This is accomplished in General Ledger (Budgets - Define - Organization). 

a) First find the budget_entity_id (budget that this account is tied to)
select set_of_books_id , budget_entity_id ,
range_id, AUTOMATIC_ENCUMBRANCE_FLAG ,FUNDS_CHECK_LEVEL_CODE from
GL_BUDGET_ASSIGNMENTS where CODE_COMBINATION_ID = '&#####' ;

b) Using the budget_entity_id query the Budget Organization name.
select name, set_of_books_id , status_code from GL_BUDGET_ENTITIES
where budget_entity_id = '&####';

Specifically verify the Amount Type, the Boundary and the Funding Budget values. The funding budget should be active and ensure that your encumbrance amount has not exceeded the funds available for the funds checking interval (boundary). For example, if the budget total is $100,000.00, the amount budgeted per quarter is $25,000.00, the Amount type is YTD and the boundary is QTD, then check that the purchase order encumbrance would not exceed the boundary amount of $25,000.00.

 

Q8. The Encumbrance Detail Report does not pick up expected purchase orders. 

A: Review the parameters passed to the report to verify that the selection criteria did not exclude the purchase order. The selection of purchase orders on this report is based on the following information in the database:
- the setting of the encumbered_flag in po_distributions, needs to be set to Y, and the cancel_flag in po_line_locations must be set to N and
- the gl_encumbered_date in po_distributions must be between the dates passed to the report for the encumbered dates and
- the vendor used on the purchase order must be included by the Vendor parameter and
- the po_distributions.prevent_encumbrance_flag must be set to N

 

Q9. Records are appearing on the Uninvoiced Receipts report for expense items which have been received but not invoiced. How can these records be removed from the report and kept from accruing each month?

Q10. A purchase order shipment was received against, then cancelled. It now appears on the Uninvoiced Receipts report and accrues each month when running the Receipt Accruals - Period-End process. Why is this happening? 

A: These questions pertain to Oracle Purchasing release 10.7. The quantity on an approved, encumbered Purchase Order can be changed by deleting and creating a new line with a revised quantity.

There are restrictions regarding modifications to encumbered Purchase Orders after being approved, and the following is standard functionality:

An encumbered Purchase Order cannot be modified as follows:
- Cannot change price
- Cannot change shipment distribution
- Cannot change shipment quantity
- Cannot change accounts (distributions) 
- Cannot change currency

The line quantity can be increased as this will create more encumbrance. Upon doing so additional shipment lines have to be added to resolve the differences in the new quantity. A change in price would require real time modification to existing rows in the GL_BC_PACKETS table and there is no provision in the software code to do this. 

The most efficient and recommended manner for revision of Purchasing Documents is to cancel the Purchase Order line, shipment or even the entire Purchase Order then recreate the Purchase Order with the revised data.

This cancellation does not perform a reversal of funds, but it does a corresponding debit to the respective accounts to nullify the encumbrance.

 

Q11. If I go to cancel an encumbered/reserved purchasing document and the period in which it was created is closed, I cannot cancel the line or document due to the closed period?

A: There are software fixes released which place the reversing funds in the next available open Purchasing period.

10.7 - pofdo.lpc 80.28

11.0 - pofbd.lpc 110.13
pofin.lpc 110.5

This has been fixed in 11i.

 

Q12. I click on the Approve button for a Purchase Order and the reserved check box in the approval window is already enabled as default. 

A: This issue is addressed in bug 1535050. Fix will be available in Purchasing Patchset H for Release 11.

 

Q13. I am using encumbrance accounting and when I forward a Purchase Order for approval, I am encountering the following error: APP-14166: Please enter a forward to employee or funds are not reserved.

A: You must check the Reserve Funds check box when forwarding and/or approving a Purchase Order if you are using encumbrance. You can check to see if you are using encumbrance in Purchasing by doing the following:

1. Setup/Organizations/Financial Options
2. Change the Alternate Region to Encumbrance and see if the Use PO Encumbrance check box is checked.
3. Refer Note 1064155.6 for more details. 

 

Q14. I am trying to approve the Purchase Order and get the following error: "This record cannot be reserved for update. It has already been reserved by another user".

A: This is resolved In file version POXAPAPC.pld 110.37 (758079). This fix moves the document submission check from document approval manager to client side. 

 

Q15. Blanket Purchase Agreement have "Reserved" box checked on the purchase order lines. I am not using encumbrance accounting. 

A: This issue is Fixed file POXPOEPO.fmb ver 110.88 and also in Release 11i (889797). 

 

Q16. I reserve a requisition with 2 distributions - the 1st distribution succeeds but fails for the 2nd distribution. Distributions quantities for both distributions are changed and re-reserved but the reserved amount for the 1st distribution is not changed (and is wrong compared to the quantity on the distribution).

A: This issue has been fixed in the following file versions:
10.7 fixed in POXRQLNS.pld 916.68 Purchasing Patchset P-1618264
11.0 fixed in POXRQLNS.pld 110.65 Purchasing Patchset G-1525417
11.5 fixed in POXRQLNS.pld 115.53 - (Internal bug - 1363372)

 

Q17. I created a new requisition, then reserved (without approving) the funds are reserved. Then I delete the requisition from the requisition form, which does not un-reserve funds. 

A: This issue has been fixed in the following files:

10.7 -- Patchset O (Patch number 1267514)
POXRQRES.pls 80.1
POXRQREB.pls 80.4
po10sc.msg 80.20

11.0 -- Patchset F (Patch number 1330514)
POXRQR1S.pls 110.1
POXRQR1B.pls 110.5
po11.msg 110.25

11.5 -- Fixed in these files
POXRQR1S.pls-115.1
POXRQR1B.pls-115.1
poencmsg.ldt 115.0.