Document Sequencing: Setupfor Oracle Payables and CashManagementJoan CurrenceOracle Support

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of thesteps to setup and use documentsequencing for Invoices and Paymentswithin Oracle Payables as well as BankStatements within Oracle CashManagement.

Scope

I. Document Sequencing OverviewII. Defining Document SequencesIII. Defining Document CategoriesIV. Defining Document AssignmentsV. Activating Document SequencingVI. Troubleshooting

I. Document Sequencing Overview

Document sequencing provides amethod of numbering documentsuniquely from numbers generated withinthe application. The number is

generated when the documenttransaction is committed to the database.If the document is subsequently deleted,the document sequence data remains foraudit purposes. This data is stored inaudit tables in each application.

In the sysadmin responsibility thefollowing steps are performed.• Define a document sequence• Define a document category if

necessary.• Assign the document sequence to a

document category.• Enable the ‘Sequential Numbering’

profile option.

In the Payables responsibility, you canoptionally enable Document CategoryOverride in the Payables Optionswindow in either the Invoice or Paymentregion. This allows users access to anycustom defined document categories.

In the Cash Management responsibilitydefining a document category is not anoptional step since the category is basedupon the bank name.

II. Defining Document Sequences

The first step in setting up documentsequencing is to define a sequence. Thesequence determines how the documentnumbers are to be generated and to whatapplication the sequence will belong.

There are 3 different methods forgenerating the document number: Automatic – sequential numbergenerated automatically. These numbersare not guaranteed to be gapless. Gapless – same as automatic exceptthat it ensures that the document wassuccessfully generated before issuing anumber so that no gaps exist due toincomplete or failed document creation.(The recommendation is to use thismethod only if absolutely necessary dueto performance issues). Manual – instead of beingautomatically generated by the system,the number is entered manually by theuser. No number ordering or uniquenessis enforced.

III. Defining Document Categories

The second step is to define a documentcategory. A document category defineswhat type of transactions you will be

assigning document numbers to. It alsospecifies what table the transactioninformation will be written to. This stepis optional for Oracle Payablestransactions because Payables seedscategories for all payment and invoicetypes. These seeded categories are what

will default into the Payablestransactions.In Cash Management there are no seededcategories. Thus, this is a required step.The category for Cash Managementbank statements is defined using thebank account name as the code. Aseparate category would need to bedefined for every bank account forwhich you want to use documentsequencing. The table used to store theinformation isCE_STATEMENT_HEADERS.

Navigate:Application:Document:Categories

Navigate:Application:Document:Sequences

IV. Defining Document Assignments

The last setup step is creating thedocument assignment. The sequenceassignment ties together the documentsequence and the document category.There are several items specified on thedocument assignment that are used bythe application as selection criteria whensearching for a document assignment forthat transaction. The combination ofthese values must be unique for activeassignments. When the applicationsearches for a sequence assignment for atransaction, it should return only onerow. Application – the application thedocument is generated from. Category – from step 2, it specifies thedocument type. Set of Books* – specifies the chart ofaccounts document is generated from. Method* – specifies how the documentis generated. There are 2 methods.

Automatic, for transactionsentered through a concurrent process,(ie. Invoice Import, Payment Batch).

Manual, for transactions enteredin the system manually through a form. Begin Date – specifies the date that thesequence assignment begins to be active. End Date – if specified, is the last datethat the sequence assignment is active.

*These optional fields are enabled viathe descriptive flexfield DocumentFlexfield.

V. Activating Document Sequencing

Once document sequence is complete,you need to specify the profile option,Sequential Numbering. This activatesdocument sequencing specifying bothwhat level of the applications to activate,and what level of enforcement will beused. This profile option can be set ateither the site or the application level.When set, there are 3 levels ofenforcement, Always Used - requires assignments forall documents. Not Used – will not check for anyassignments. Partially Used – will check forassignments on all documents and willissue a warning if not found.

Payables Options to consider:Invoice Region – Allow Document Category OverridePayment Region – Allow Document Category OverrideThese options allow the user to overridethe default category assigned to thedocument by Payables.For Invoices, this allows the user tochoose a custom invoice category ratherthan the default category that comesseeded with the application.For payments, this allows the user tochoose a custom category or populatethe category in the payment document.

Navigate:Application:Document:Assignments

Navigate:Profile:System

This can be useful when documentsequencing was setup after the paymentdocument was created. If documentsequencing was not setup at the time thatthe payment document was entered, thedocument category would not getpopulated.

VI. Troubleshooting

The most common errors result fromproblems with the sequence assignment.

• APP-1702 An assignment does notexist for these parameters and one ismandatory.

This error results from the profile optionbeing set to ‘Always Used’ and theapplication is not able to find andassignment that matches the criteria forthe transaction being entered.To resolve this issue, check thefollowing:- Does the application creating the

transaction, match the application onthe document assignment?

- Does the document category matchthe document category of theassignment?

- Does the assignment set of booksmatch the set of books on thetransactions?

- How was the transaction entered?Manually or automatically? Doesthis match the method on theassignment?

- What is the GL date on thetransaction? Does it fall within thebegin and end dates of theassignment?

• APP- 1728 An assignment does notexist for these parameters.

This message is a warning, not an error.It occurs for the same reasons as theerror message above, but is a warning

because you have your profile option setto ‘Partially Used’. Use the same stepsto troubleshoot. If document numberingis not needed for the transaction, themessage can be ignored.

Q: Why does an Automaticnumbering method not guarantee agapless number?

A: If the record insert fails for anyreason, Oracle does a rollback. Thesequence select does not roll backbecause other users may havesuccessfully committed transactionsusing the numbers read into memoryfrom the sequence select.For performance reasons, Oracle usescaching with a default cache value of 20.This means that when a transaction isentered, 20 numbers are selected fromthe sequence and read into memory. Thenext time a number is requested from thesequence, it can be read from memoryrather than disk

About the Author

Joan Currence has worked with OracleSupport Applications for the past fouryears.