Over 20 years ago, Finance and IT organizations (under the direction of the Chief Financial Officer), were in control of systems and desperately wanted to instill some financial controls and measures into the Delivery organizations that ran projects. The battle was always that the Project Managers (PMs) didn’t want to be controlled by departments they felt had no understanding of the world of project management, they wanted complete flexibility to best deliver their projects, and they were not concerned with the CFO’s desire for visibility into projects. Most PMs managed projects using personal systems based on Microsoft® Excel or Microsoft Access. The more sophisticated project managers used Microsoft Project, and the most advanced firms used Primavera, Cascade, Mantix, Artemis, and Cobra. BUT, the project systems used by PMs seldom could reflect accurate cost data which then made it difficult to really know the financial health of the project. Therefore, many PMs simply managed to effort and schedule.

In the “old days” a job code equating to a project was part of the general ledger chart of accounts – and most PMs were not strongly concerned about financials. So, how could you let accountants manage financials and project managers manage projects? You needed a system that allows both worlds to obtain the information that they wanted in the format that they wanted. To meet this need, in the early 1990’s Oracle released its first Project Accounting (PA) system: a true project based sub-ledger.

When the initial implementations of PA started, it was the Finance group that was imposing controls onto the Project Managers. Finance wanted visibility into ongoing projects, hence Finance was making most of the decisions, which generated friction between the organizations. To meet the requirements driven by Finance, PMs needed to change the way they were managing projects and that introduced a large opportunity for Change Management.

Getting structure into a non-structured environment was the primary challenge. When companies have been doing things a certain way for decades, it is VERY hard to change that culture… so compromises are made in an attempt to balance the needs of both organizations. Some folks would create a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to map to a Cost Structure simply so that they could track and control costs. Other companies placed intelligence into both the Project number as well as the WBS … because that was the way it was always done in the past. Some would claim that it made controlling charges easier while others would claim that it made reporting easier. But, in both cases, Project/Task naming was mirroring the way a General Ledger chart of accounts is structured, and not the way a project manager manages a project.

As time progressed, operations and project-based delivery organizations matured and developed a better understanding of what is needed to facilitate harmony between Finance and Project based Operations. At the same time, Oracle developed a Project Management system that was closely linked to its Project Accounting application. When Oracle released its Oracle Project Management (PJT) application and companies began to implement it, it became clear that Oracle had taken one step closer to really bridging the Accounting world to the Project Management world. But that still was not enough. PMs wanted and needed an EASY tool to assist them with their Project Management needs. Then, Oracle made the smart decision to purchase Primavera.

For those companies that implemented Oracle Project Costing and Project Billing only, without a futuristic vision of having a truly integrated Project Management system in place, trying to implement any form of integration of Project Accounting to a Project Management system became a horrible mess. When that happens, the only real thing that can be done is to update the implementation of Project Costing and Project Billing with a clear understanding of how it would integrate with either Oracle Project Management or Primavera. If there are other major issues that also need to be addressed, then a complete reimplementation of these modules should be considered.

Any company that is upgrading to E-Business Suite Release 12, or implementing R12 for the first time, will have the opportunity to rethink or redefine how they will move to become a truly project centric organization. Whether you are implementing for the first time, updating your implementation or re-implementing, thinking through the business needs that address both Project Accounting and Project Management will be paramount for your future long term success.

This issue applies to more firms than one might initially expect. I have always stated that “every company is a project company … they just don’t know it yet.” As more and more organizations decide to operate their firm or certain divisions on a project basis to better understand costs and level of effort and to develop repeatable processes using a structured Project Management methodology they will look to Oracle’s Enterprise Project Portfolio Management solutions, which remain the most complete in the market. And they will benefit from the significant evolution of these applications that enable Finance and Project Management to work together in harmony.

By Pat Bowyer

On March 28, 2012, we presented an OAUG Sponsored webcast to discuss and demonstrate the timecard entry solutions we’ve developed, our mProjects Time Management™ mobile timecard and our TimeSpeed™ spreadsheet user-interface applications, both fully integrated with Oracle Time and Labor and Oracle Projects, and extending the functionality of those applications, that will help take the headache out of project timecard entry.

Sound interesting? You can register to view the recorded webinar here.

View my presentation and see how you can stop wasting time entering time!
We all know how frustrating and time-consuming timecard entry can be, and the amount of effort expended to get this routine but critical task accomplished costs us all both big money and big aggravation.

Project Partners has done the homework for you, come and benefit from the lessons learned:
Does your workforce in the field have to jump through hoops to get their timecards in on time?
What does that cost your organization, not only in $, but in added stress/unhappiness for the employees who have to struggle to connect to the system either from hotel rooms after work, or on weekends when they’d rather be enjoying their personal time?

And how about the cost and delays caused by all the error-checking that has to be resolved downstream when group timecards or Timekeeper data is entered late or wrong?
Navigating through multiple, mandatory screens and pop-ups slows production significantly in a heads-down data entry process.

We all know the venerable old IT adage: You can have it fast, right, or cheap – pick any two!

The truth is that now you can have it all: fast, right and inexpensive, anywhere you are, with the practical convenience of a mobile device. Project Partner’s Time Management solution solves the business challenges you face, with applications that can be accessed via your smartphone or laptop, whether you’re in airplane mode or in a remote location without cellular reception, as easily as from your office.

The greatest data precision results when labor costs are entered as quickly as possible from the time the labor actually occurs. Making project time entry easy and more efficient increases timeliness and accuracy, which also improves the reliability of your project performance reporting.

In upcoming blog discussions here, we will examine some case studies and the productivity gains this solution offers.

Whether your organization needs time entry via a smartphone or complex individual/group time entry via a spreadsheet, Project Partners’ easy to use and affordable applications take the burden out of timecard entry.

We are so confident that our Time Management solutions will work for you, we are now offering, for a limited time only, a 10 Day Free Trial of both our mProjects Time Management™ mobile timecard and our TimeSpeed™ spreadsheet user-interface applications to all qualified organizations.

Why delay? Call us today to get started on your Free Trial right away!

For further information, please call me at 1.650.712.6200 or email: info@projectp.com

In both Release 12 and 11.5.10, out-of-the box integration between Oracle E-Business Suite Projects and Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) allows the collection of maintenance costs into Oracle Projects from EAM. You can carry out maintenance activities, consume different resources and the resulting costs of those activities can be transferred into Oracle Projects. These can be brought in as an accounted cost or an unaccounted cost and will facilitate the analysis of Project Based P&L’s. Oracle treats internal maintenance costs as Work in Process (WIP) and is used in conjunction with an Oracle WIP Job. Utilizing Oracle Project Manufacturing enables the integration of Oracle Projects and EAM. Without configuring PJM along with Oracle Projects and Oracle EAM, you cannot leverage this standard out-of-the-box integration.

Additionally, if you utilize Oracle Purchasing, standard configurations and integration further supports EAM, by allowing EAM based Purchase Orders to create corresponding commitments in the Oracle Projects module. That’s the good news!

Now for the “gotcha’s”… There are some challenges to be aware of. Project financial tasks cannot be mapped to the multiple operations required to complete the Oracle Work Order. In fact a financial task can only be linked to the Work Order header and not at the line level. This prohibits the smooth flow of flexible task structure functionality provided in Oracle Projects to EAM. There is a “wWorkaround” – If there are multiple financial tasks on a project that needs cost collection from EAM, you need to create multiple Work Orders to ensure the integration flow. While this works, it is not the most elegant process to follow and presents operational challenges.

We have seen creative solutions to this challenge. Listed below are two of these.

• Customer X mapped an Oracle Project to a single EAM Work Order. This requirement created a design limitation where we had to define a single EAM task and dedicate it to the Work Order. In this  case, the project had the visibility of the rolled up cost from EAM mapped to a single task with various  expenditure types / resources. The problem was resolved by creating the Project, Task and Work Order automatically and linking them to ensure an improved end user experience.
• Customer Y had multiple financial tasks and required costs to be collected from EAM Work Orders. Each Project with multiple Work Orders mapped to one financial task only and one Work Order was created. Again this was operationally less challenging and more user friendly, with the integration  between Oracle Project tasks and an Oracle Work Order.

As you can see, the solutions are not perfect. The integration and functional gaps between Oracle Projects and Enterprise Asset Management can be better handled if we think through the details of the financial task structure of that project and design it accordingly. Additionally, if the relation between an Oracle Project and Oracle EAM Work Order is properly thought through and configured, then more robust integration may be achieved with minor customization and stricter process discipline.

Continuing our discussion from last week, I’d like to share with you the importance of three more new features and functions in Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite Financial Applications.

E Business Taxes

Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 offers a global tax solution for “Order to Cash” and “Procure to Pay” flows. This feature utilizes centrally defined rules, rates, and jurisdictions which are stored in a Tax repository to calculate Taxes at a line level and offers strong audit capabilities using the Tax Record Repository. Oracle users no longer need similar tax codes scattered across multiple sub ledgers.

E-Business Tax also offers integration with 3^rd party vendors like Sabrix, Vertex, Taxware and provides support for VAT and other country specific taxes. 

Intercompany

In Oracle EBS 11i the Intercompany features where known as Global Intercompany System. In R12 Oracle offers Advanced Intercompany System (AGIS). AGIS can be configured to create invoices in payables and receivables based on intercompany transactions. Users enter transactions from one initiator to multiple recipients within a single batch.  Pre-seeded Web ADI is also available to enter Intercompany transactions from MS Excel. Combined with R12 Multi Org Access Control (MOAC) users can initiate intercompany transactions for many trading partners without changing responsibility. The rules for approvals and notifications can also be customized using Oracle Approval Management Engine (AME), which allows users to add extra approval hierarchies to meet unique approval requirements.

AP/AR Netting

In R12 the Contra Charge functionality has been optimized and changed into the AP/AR Netting functionality for payables and receivables. This provides the ability to reduce your receivables balances with the amount owed by your Organization in payables when the customer and supplier are the same and agrees to sign a Netting agreement. The matching of open receivables and open payables is automated. You can now determine whether you or your trading partner has a greater balance outstanding and update your books, collect payments or make payments accordingly.

The features I’ve described in this two part article have enabled many Oracle R12 customers to realize  benefits and ROI from an Oracle R12 environment. There are many other robust features such as improvements in the AR Revenue Recognition process, the centralized use of bank accounts and parties, and the association of a bank within a single LE thereby allowing AP to pay invoices from multiple Operating Units.

As you embark on your Oracle R12 project be sure you choose the right Oracle implementation partner to help you achieve the full potential of Oracle R12. Project Partners has the resources and experience across industries to help you attain your R12 goals and realize the benefits of Oracle R12. Click here to learn more.

Oracle customers around the globe eagerly awaited the release of Oracle E-Business Suite Release
12 for several years. Oracle R12 was touted as being a truly globalized release.  Since Oracle R12 became publically available on January 31,2007 many customers have migrated to a full Oracle R12 environment by upgrading, implementing (or re-implementing). As an Oracle Financial Consultant for more than 10 years, my opinion is that Oracle R12 finally addresses some fundamental financial weaknesses from prior versions.  Across our customer base and the projects I’ve worked on, the most well received features and functions in Oracle EBS R12 Financials are related to new centralized functions to manage Ledgers and Legal Entities, Sub ledger Accounting, Taxes, Intercompany, and AR/AP Netting functionality.

In this two part article we will discuss the most important new features and functions.

Ledgers and Legal Entities

In Oracle EBS 11i GL is configured to support one or many Legal Entities. 11i OU’s are associated with these Legal Entities through Oracle Sets of Books. The Set of Books is the structure defined by the famous 3 C’s in (driven by Oracle GL configuration) – Chart of Accounts, Currency, Calendar.

In R12 the concept of Ledgers and Ledger Sets replaces Sets of Books. Ledgers are now associated with 4 C’s – Chart of Accounts, Currency, Calendar, *Accounting Convention.  R12 Ledgers now associate Oracle OU’s to Oracle Legal Entities. The advantage here is that a ledger can be used to post transactions in one or many Legal Entities originating from a single transaction. Additionally, this single transaction can drive subsequent entries/transactions into various Legal Entities, OUs, Primary and Secondary Ledgers by configuring and utilizing “Accounting Setup Manager”

*Note: The concept of accounting conventions indicates the accounting standards your company follows, for example, International Accounting Standards (IAE), International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), USGAAP, etc.

Subledger Accounting (SLA)

In 11i Oracle Subledgers such as Projects, Receivables and Payables offer functionality to configure how
Oracle generates the values for each accounting segment in the Chart of Accounts. This configuration depends on variables such as, the type of transaction, the organization where the transaction originates, and/or the product or service for which revenue/cost will be accounted for. Once accounting rules are defined for each subledger, Oracle will post the transaction directly to GL without an opportunity to modify, split or change the accounting beforehand. This problem is now solved in R12 using Subledger Accounting (SLA). Oracle Subledger accounting (SLA) is essentially an accounting hub. It is used to derive all attributes required to account for a transaction in Oracle General Ledger. In R12, SLA is used to derive the very basic accounting attributes such as entered amount, accounted amount, date, currency code etc., along with complex attributes like Ledger, Code Combination ID, Periods. After
deriving these accounting attributes the transactions are moved to GL from SLA.  Thus in R12 subledgers transactions do not move directly to GL without passing first through SLA. SLA provides flexibility to manage the entire accounting rule from a single place and establishes a single source of truth for GL.  

At the SROAUG conference, Project Partners’ Neeraj Garg will be presenting Contract Based Project Billing with Fusion Project Portfolio Management

Neeraj will be presenting this content in his presentation:
Oracle Fusion Project Portfolio Management offers Project Contracts features that are part of the Fusion Enterprise Contracts model. Fusion Project Contracts offers sell side contracts functionality that helps to drive revenue and billing independent of project setup and execution. This presentation highlights the core features including a flexible approach to billing by contract lines, contract level summaries, consolidated bill plans, billing controls, improved user interface and improved process efficiencies.

If you can’t attend the conference in person, that’s not a problem!  You can view this presentation online here.

“Technology professionals serving the engineering and construction industry should be aware of three major emerging trends in 2012,” said author Scott Bartlett.

The #1 Trend: Construction projects will continue to increase in complexity

The #2 Trend: Economic pressures will continue to force companies to work globally, with increased competition for the same projects

And the #3 Trend: Owners are demanding a more efficient way of turning over all documents at the end of a project

At Project Partners we see this same focus among our multi-national Engineering and Construction customers and are glad that Oracle’s products support these key trends.

You can read the full article here: http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/profit/opinion/012312-sbartlett-1496768.html

Businesses of various shapes and sizes across the globe continue to invest in and expand the footprint of their ERP applications. Much of this increased spend includes mission critical projects such as

1) Upgrades

2) Deploying new applications and

3) Migrating new businesses, acquired companies, countries and/or re-engineered processes into an existing “corporate” ERP.

So how do these companies begin the process? What are the key considerations in play to complete these daunting tasks within an Oracle ERP environment?

Oracle E-Business Suite Applications Releases 11i and R12, and Oracle Fusion Applications – the significant majority of existing Oracle ERP customers use these 3 applications suites.

First the 11i customer. These customers are most likely represented in one (or more) of the following scenarios

1)     Will stay on Release 11i as long as they can because they see no ROI or strong business case to move to R12.

2)     The value of an R12 migration project is recognized, but not currently in the budget

3)     Users know the current applications (with known shortcomings) and will not accept or have time to participate in an upgrade project of this magnitude.

The R12 customer can most likely by categorized as

1)     Adopted R12 very early, completed one or more minor point release upgrades and are stable,

2)     Recently migrated to R12 and have stabilized their environment,

3)     R12 migration is underway.

And finally the Fusion customer can be depicted as

1)     Considering a net new Oracle implementation in the next 1-3 years

2)     Will sign up as an early adopter with a strong commitment and participation with Oracle

3)     Currently planning a very large global implementation project.

Wherever you find your organization described above, your project can be off to a great beginning by performing an Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Assessment.  Project Partners has delivered multiple assessments across our customer base to provide the focus, the strategic direction, roadmap and the assistance in business case development for your Oracle project. Project Partners has a proven and  repeatable approach which provides specific and relevant recommendations based on our key findings during the assessment scope of work. The work products of our assessment will provide customers with actionable and robust recommendations across multiple Oracle Applications suites, including Financials, Manufacturing and Projects, along with the inherent integration in other areas such as Human Capital Management and Time & Labor.

Organizations successfully working in Oracle EBS and other ERP environments have come to view a well-executed assessment as a critical first step in ERP project lifecycles.  The most competitive firms leverage the expansion of ERP into Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Human Capital Management, and Project Portfolio Management, and integration with Social Media and mobile technology.

This underscores the importance of conducting an Oracle EBS Assessment, which will show you how to get there.  Extending your Oracle EBS environment into these areas is the next wave for your Oracle ERP and neatly falls in line and in scope of a properly executed Assessment.

Let Project Partners be part of your Oracle EBS Assessment and we can begin to write your ERP Roadmap and Success Story together.  Contact us to positively impact your future.

On January 18th, I presented a webinar featuring a case study of a firm that is successfully using Oracle E-Business Suite Projects, Oracle Order Management and Oracle Receivables, and I showed how they manage their revenue.  This customer leverages R12.1.3 revenue management functionality for GAAP revenue recognition and uses EBS Projects with a different revenue recognition basis.  In this webinar I also showed how creative approaches to integrating Orders and Projects are possible with minimal development, that robust solutions support long term business needs while also providing flexibility for growth, and that simple approaches lead to the best long term solutions.

Sound interesting?  You can view the webinar here