R12: Employee Type Suppliers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

R12: Employee Type Suppliers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q1) Users are unable to query employee suppliers. What could be wrong?

The function POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER has not been properly setup for the responsibility that is being used to run the supplier form.  New functionality in R12 has Employee type suppliers not being enterable or queriable unless the function POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER is assigned to the menu where the Supplier forms is called from.

• Include the function POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER with the grant flag checked in the menu of the responsibility which the customer plans to have access to both standard and employee vendors.
  or
• Check the grant flag for the function POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER in the menu POS_HT_SP_FULL_ACCESS_MENU. However then all users that can create standard supplier will also be able to create employee supplier.

Then bounce the Apache server.

See Note.1371295.1 for more information.

Q2) Where is the Create a Supplier from an Employee Option in R12?  We are only able to create standard suppliers.

The solution is the same as shown above in Q1 for Querying An Employee Supplier

See Note:1371295.1 for more information.

Q3) Upgraded employee suppliers are not available in the suppliers form in R12. However, the supplier can be used to create an invoice. What is the problem?

New functionality in R12 has Employee Supplier Type not being enterable or queriable unless the function POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER is assigned to the menu where the Supplier forms is called from.

The function Create/Update employee supplier details (POS_HT_SP_EMP_SUPPLIER) has not been properly setup for the responsibility that is being used to run the supplier form.

See Note:422849.1 for more information.

Q4) Why can address information not be viewed from AP for employee type suppliers?

In R12, employee address information is stored only in Oracle Human Resources. It is no longer stored in supplier records in the case of employee type suppliers. This is because the employee type supplier is modeled differently than standard suppliers. While processing payments or employee expense reimbursements the employee address information will be picked up from HRMS.

This enhancement is done to support the Safe Harbor related requirements, which requires the application to support data privacy and data security of sensitive information.

Q5) Why are we unable to view the address information in AP for suppliers created automatically by the Expense Report Export program?

Employee type suppliers do not have Address records in TCA associated with them. They can have the OFFICE or HOME site, but there is no address as defined in TCA. Address elements (Address1, City, State, etc.) are taken directly from HR, but are not displayed in the Supplier form at all. This is intended functionality meant to address the fact that a Payables clerk does not need to have access to the home address of every employee who is set up to receive Expense payments.

The address elements for the HOME site are from the address of the the employees record as seen in the People form in HR.

The address elements for the OFFICE site are from the address of the location of the employee’s current assignment. Get the Location from the Assignment window of the People form and then use that in the Locations form.

See Note:878607.1 for more information.

Q6) Why can the Employee Name not be updated from the AP webform in R12? This information was able to be updated in R11i.

In R12, it is no longer possible to update employee data directly via the supplier record. This data has to be updated in HR and then the changes replicated into the AP data by running the Employee Update Program.

Q7) Why are users unable to update a few attributes for employee type suppliers?

Users are prevented from updating employee type supplier attributes in AP because the supplier data should be in sync with that of the employee data in HRMS.

The following list of attributes cannot be updated in AP:

Supplier Name
Alternate Supplier Name
Alias
SIC Code

Please refer the following for details:

Bug 6666051: R12upgrade: Supplier search result and detail show diff. supplier name

Q8) Why is the data for employee suppliers when queried in AP different to how the data displayed in HR?

When a change is made to a HR employee record, that data is only updated in AP when the Employee Update Program is ran.

Q9) In invoice/payment workbench, when querying employee supplier, the display name is having format of Last name-First Name-Middle Name where as in HR such employee name is different. i.e  Swain, Sunil Kumar in Payables and Sunil Swain in HR.

Employee Supplier name (vendor_name in AP_SUPPLIERS) was incorrectly updated to the format last_name,first_name Middle name after the employee update program was run. This format did not match the way the name was stored in HR (PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F).

This was reported as Bug 9615088 and was fixed with a patch.

See Note:1269458.1 for more information.

Q10) In R12, what information for an employee type supplier is updated via Employee Update Program (EAP)?

The employee update program updates employee type supplier records if the corresponding employee record has been changed. In R12, when you submit the Employee Update Program, the system identifies any employee records that have changed since the last time you submitted the program.

If any employee records have been updated, then the Employee Update Program updates the supplier name (updated from Employee Name) and the inactive date information in the supplier records.

This program no longer updates the address information for the supplier.

Q11) How does duplicate supplier name validation happen in R12?

Duplicate supplier name validation happens only in case of standard suppliers.

It is a valid business scenario in case of multiple employees having same name. Hence the duplicate supplier name validation is not done for employee type supplier and also between standard suppliers and employee type suppliers.

Q12) How can multiple employees with the same first and last name be differentiated?

A field named ‘Employee Number’ has been provided to resolve this issue.

• In Invoice and Payment workbench: Employee Number column was added in the Trading Partner and Supplier Num LOVs.

• In Invoice Overview: Employee Number column was added in the LOVs belonging to Trading Partner section.

• In Payment Overview: Employee Number column was added in the Name and Supplier Number LOVs belonging to the Payee section.

Q13) Why am I unable to create a provisional supplier site for employee suppliers?

Employee related information has to be maintained in HR. Till recently, there were only TWO ‘Mail To’ options available in HR Employee information – ‘Home’ & ‘Office’. These available ‘Mail To’ options were utilized to create the supplier site in Payables and while processing payment the address information will be retrieved from HR (for the applicable site) and printed on check.

If the requirement is to allow payments to a temporary address (Other than ‘Home’ & ‘Office’), then Patch:8320268, currently available for OA release 12.0 and 12.1, can be applied.

See Note:835313.1 for more information.

Q14) Some of our employees want to be paid in cheque to OFFICE or PROVISIONAL address.  In 11i, we can only use HOME address for employee-suppliers in Oracle Internet Expense. Can we use OFFICE and/or PROVISIONAL site addresses for employee suppliers in addition to HOME in R12?

Yes, in R12, the iExpense Application supports, Home, Office and Provisional as the address type.

See Note:1342265.1

Q15) Why are users unable to create and view contacts for employee type suppliers?

In R12, contacts cannot be created for employee type supplier. The supplier site contacts import program also has been modified to prevent import of such contacts. The view PO_VENDOR_CONTACTS.xdf has been modified to prevent contacts for employee type supplier from showing up in the view.

Please refer the following for details:

Bug 7390094: Data fix: Unable to view PO from Purchase Order Summary form

Q16) Why is the Tax and Financial Information Region Missing for Suppliers Classified as Employees in Oracle Payables?

The system is working as intended. This region is available for all suppliers except the ones classified as employees. The tax information is stored for the employees in HR. Define all the tax information for employees in HR.

See Note.466367.1 for more information.

Q17) What is the Address Printing logic on Checks for Employee Expense Reports?

In R12, employee address information is stored only in HRMS. It is no longer stored in supplier records in case of employee type suppliers. This is because the employee type supplier is modeled differently than standard suppliers.

In order process employee expense reimbursements, the following logic is applied:

• If the expense payment site is ‘Home’, then the primary address of the employee record as seen in the People form in HR will be used.

• If it is ‘Office’, then the address of the location of the employee’s current assignment will be used. You can get the Location from the Assignment window of the People form.

• If the expense payment site is ‘Provisional’, then the address with address type as ‘Mailing’ from the employee record will be used.

However if the expense payment site is different from any the above mentioned (generally in case of an application upgrade from Release 11) (i.e.) ‘Home’, ‘Office’ or ‘Provisional’ then the logic applied for ‘Home’ will be applied.

Q18) When attempting to uncheck the ‘Federal’ checkbox in Supplier Entry for terminated employees the following error: FEDERAL_REPORTABLE_FLAG and 1099_TYPE do not match 1099 Type is inconsistent EMPLOYEE_ID is invalid Employee Info is invalid.  What is the problem?

Applying the patch released for Bug 7676989 for Oracle iSupplier Portal allows updating Supplier Tax Details (Federal; Reportable Flag and Income Tax Type).

Q19) Why can the termination date not be removed from an employee in AP in order to allow their final expense report to be entered and paid?

The new requirement that an Employee type supplier can not be updated if the associated employee record is not current. The core problem is that when the Employee Supplier record is inactivated by the Employee Update Program, the Actual Termination Date is used as the Inactive Date. This doesn’t allow for a grace period when an terminated employee can still get expenses paid.

Various bugs were logged for this and Patch 10014253 was released to correct the problem so that when the Employee Update Program is run, the Inactive Date on the supplier record is stamped with the Final Process Date from the employee’s termination record.  If the Final Process Date is NULL then the Actual Termination Date is used. If the Final Process Date is changed and Employee Update Program is run again, then the supplier Inactive date will be set to the new Final Process Date.