Expenditure Types still not by Operating Unit in R12.1.1

I was surprised to find out when installing R12.1.1 that Expenditure Types are still not Operating Unit (OU) dependent. Oracle have made a big push to add multi-org functionality to most areas of the E-Business Suite in R12, but they seem to have missed Expeniture Types. This is most frustrating in environments where there are two OUs within one business using Oracle Projects;

• It is difficult to identify between each OU who owns / has set up which expenditure types
• Related to the former, when entering transactions (e.g. in Purchasing and Payables), users are likely to choose expenditure types intended for other OUs

There are some workarounds of course. For example:

1. Introducing a descriptive flexfield (DFF) segment on the expenditure type to flag which OU owns it
2. Using Transaction Controls to restrict which expenditure types are chargeable
3. Customise the Expenditure Type list of values in AP/PO and restrict the values available by referencing the DFF in point 1 above
4. Prefix expenditure type names with a code relating to the OU

None of these workarounds are ideal for obvious reasons. However, I am hoping that this is something that will be brought into the core product. If this functionality is made available, there will need to be the ability for users to share Expenditure Types between OUs (akin to Rate Schedules). This will be needed for all of those organisations who are happy to share expenditure types between OUs!

https://www.rfsuny.org/media/RFSUNY/Procedures/ae_transaction-controls_pro.htm