Bill Presentment Architecture : A Flexible Invoicing Solution : Let’s

Get Those Bills Paid On Time !

JYOTI NAGARAJAN

NORDSTROM INC.

Introduction
This presentation gives an insight into Oracle’s Bill Presentment Architecture in R12. It describes setups
that can be accomplished by an end user with minimal technical assistance, with the focus on interaction
with various Oracle modules to retrieve billing data, and offers tips for implementing all the functionality
needed for a full-fledged invoicing solution. It also shares industry best practice invoicing formats and
explains the flexibility of various delivery options available out-of-the-box.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 DOCUMENT PURPOSE ................................................................................................................... 3

2 UNDERSTANDING BPA .................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................... 3
2.2 FRAMEWORK AND ILLUSTRATION ....................................................................... 3
2.2.1 Create Template To Present Bills ............................................................... 3
2.2.2 Template Assignment ................................................................................. 9
2.2.3 View Online Bills ..................................................................................... 10
2.2.4 Data Retrieval ........................................................................................... 12
2.2.5 Print BPA Invoices ................................................................................... 17
2.2.6 Delivery Options....................................................................................... 18
3 CONFIGURATION ITEMS............................................................................................................ 19
3.1 DEFINE PROFILE OPTIONS .................................................................................. 19
4 KEY FEATURES.............................................................................................................................. 19
5 BENEFITS......................................................................................................................................... 20

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1 DOCUMENT PURPOSE

This document provides the necessary guidance for using Bill Presentment Architecture Feature of Oracle.

The target audience for this document is Functional Implementers and Implementation Consultants for
Oracle EBusiness Suite applications.

2 UNDERSTANDING BPA

2.1 Overview
1. Oracle Bill Presentment Architecture is a bill presentment tool that helps to create and present
comprehensive and more-customer-focused invoices that increase the likelihood and timeliness of
payment.

2. BPA provides the architecture to retrieve billing data from multiple data sources, including
transaction flexfields and other data not interfaced and stored in Oracle Receivables. This means
that the physically presented bill is no longer limited to information contained within Oracle
Receivables. BPA provides template-based configuration of online and printed bills, thereby
giving the ability to select the content of the bill, choose the layout design, display parent billing
lines and drilldown details, and then set up the assignment of these billing templates by defining
rules based on criteria. Oracle BPA is part of the Oracle E-Business Suite, an integrated set of
applications that are engineered to work together.

3. BPA provides all the invoice specific functionality needed for a full-fledged invoicing solution
from Applications

2.2 Framework And Illustration

BPA helps bypass the complex coding and customization traditionally associated with creating
customer or industry centric invoices. It can help lower the cost of doing business while increasing
the efficiency of billing and collections groups. Using an intuitive, easy-to-use portal page, we can
graphically design the content and layout of the invoices, as well as dictate the source of billing
data.
By following a simple five-step process, we can create a customized billing template, and preview
it with actual transaction data.
1. Create Template to present bills
2. Template Assignment
3. View online bills
4. Register Data Sources
5. Print BPA invoices

Each of these steps are indicated below with appropriate screenshots

2.2.1 Create Template To Present Bills

The next step is to design billing templates for each transaction class, choosing the layout and
content to determine how the billing data should appear in an online or printed bill. We can design
custom templates or use the default invoice template provided by Oracle

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 The following screenshots illustrate the steps to create a custom bill template

Template Management > Templates > Create Template: General Information

Define a template name for a specific transaction class and primary data source as shown in above
screenshot
Template Management > Templates > Create Template: Primary Page Design

To design the primary page of the template, use ‘Select Content and Layout’ icons for the three
blank content areas: Headers, Lines and Tax, and Footer

Using the icons, we can perform additional operations like splitting the content areas horizontally
and vertically; moving swapping or duplicating the content items and layout; and updating
properties like spacing, width and labels

Primary Page Design > Header > Select Content and Layout - I

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 Fig a. Content Area -> Header

Primary Page Design > Header > Select Content and Layout - II

Primary Page Design > Lines and Tax > Select Content and Layout

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 Primary Page Design > Footer> Select Content and Layout

Once the content and layout for each section is selected, the Invoice template will appear as given
below:

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 Template Management > Templates > Create Template: Print Setup

Enter information for the layout of the printed bill in the Print Setup step

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 Template Management > Templates > Create Template: Preview
Given below are the preview of the default Invoice template provided by Oracle. The default
invoice template has been split into two screenshots below for better viewing.

Default Invoice Template - I

Default Invoice Template - II

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 Template Management > Templates > Search Template

The last template creation step involves marking the template as ‘Complete’

2.2.2 Template Assignment

This step consists of:
a) Defining Rules
b) Assigning Template to Rule

BPA uses rules to determine which template to use to display online or print a bill. When we
define a rule, we specify one or more criteria for content item values. We can create different rules
to assign templates to present online bills and printed bills. When we select a bill to view online or
print, BPA reviews the rules in the order we specify until it finds a match, and then uses the
template associated with the rule to format the bill
Template Assignment > Assignment Rules

Define a rule name and specify the attribute matching criteria

Assign a template to the rule defined in above step

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 Template Assignment > Assigned Templates
Once the template is assigned to the rule, the screenshot will appear as given below

2.2.3 View Online Bills

Internal users and external customers can view bills online using Oracle Receivables, Oracle
iReceivables, Oracle Collections or other calling application. When a user selects a
transaction number, the assignment engine in BPA determines which template to use to display the
bill. When viewing a bill, all the features and functionality of BPA's Interactive Preview, such as
drilldown to transaction details are available to the user.

Navigate to Template Management section and select the template we wish to interactively preview.
Click on Interactive preview icon

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 Select the transaction number and click on Online Preview icon

The screenshot given below shows a preview of the online bill

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2.2.4 Data Retrieval
• Register Oracle applications and third-party data sources and their corresponding
database views and content items
• Support Oracle Receivables transaction flexfields
• Retrieve billing data from multiple data sources at runtime
• Pre-defined data sources include Oracle Receivables, Oracle Service Contracts, and
Oracle Order Management

Data Sources

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Register Data Source

Search Context Code

Register Data Source

Register Data Source – Confirmation

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Synchronize Data Source

Synchronize Flexfield Content Items

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Register View

Search and Select View

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Register View: General Information

Register View: Parameters and Content Items

Confirm View Registration

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Enable Data Source

2.2.5 Print BPA Invoices

BPA provides the flexibility to print a single transaction or batch of transactions through the print
management tab or alternatively by launching the BPA transaction print program from Forms-
based applications such as Oracle Receivables. BPA generates a PDF file for printed bills as
shown in the screenshot below:

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2.2.6 Delivery Options

Invoice Print BPA Master program generates one PDF file for each group of invoices and stores it
as the output file of the concurrent program. The PDF file can be saved and emailed as attachment
to the Customers

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3 Configuration Items

3.1 Define Profile Options

This section lists the profile options that are used to specify how BPA controls access to and
processes data:

AR: BPA Detail Access Enabled

Determines whether a user can access the details page of an online invoice. If set to Yes, user can
access the details via the billing lines hyperlink. If set to No, no hyperlink is displayed. Default is set
to Yes.

AR: BPA Attachment Update Enabled

Controls whether attachments are updateable on BPA online bills. If set to Yes, the customer can
view, add, or delete an attachment when viewing the online invoice. If set to No, the customer can
only view the attachment. No default is set for this.

OIR: Bill Presentment Architecture Enabled

Determines whether iReceivables will use BPA to present invoices. If set to Yes, the BPA bill is
displayed from iReceivables. If set to No, the standard iReceivables bill is displayed. Default is set
to Yes.

HZ: Enable DQM Party Search

Set this option to enable DQM searching for customers in Interactive Preview. If this is not set,
DQM search will not work properly for customer search. No default is set for this.

AR: BPA Print Attachment Category

To print attachments with printed bills, configure the AR: BPA Print Attachment
Category profile option. While printing a transaction the profile option triggers printing associated
PDF attachments that match the specified document category. This applies to both internal and
external templates. We can set this profile option at the site, application, responsibility, and user
level.

4 Key Features

BPA provides extensive abilities and flexibility to design an online bill that best suits the customer
and the company. Some of the features of BPA are-

1. Retrieve Billing Data from Any Source

BPA provides flexibility to incorporate billing information into invoices from any source, not
just Oracle Receivables. With access to all pertinent information, customers can more quickly
understand and pay their bills.

2. Template Management
Allows billing personnel to create multiple billing templates based on customer need using the
user-friendly Template Management UI.
• Layout design and content item selection
• Option to print summary lines with or without child lines
• Flexible tax formatting, including itemization and summarization
• Page setup capability for printed bills

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 • Flexible header and footer format design for printed bills

3. Interactive Preview
Interactive preview feature helps to preview the template [in online preview and print
preview mode] using any transaction in Oracle Receivables.

4. External Template Upload

Supports invoice printing using external customer-provided templates.
• Upload of PDF or RTF templates
• Support of uploading files in multiple languages
• Mapping of external file field names to BPA content items
• Option to display itemized tax

5. Template Assignment
Supports assignment of billing templates to different customers or customer categories based on
user-defined criteria.
• Ability to define assignment rules and order them by preference
• Rules applied based on ordering and bill creation dates
• Choice of different assignments and ordering for online and printed bills
• Default templates and assignment rule provided

6. Invoice Batch Printing

Supports batch printing of invoices.
• Batch print request submission and monitoring via BPA User Interface
• Batch print request submission and monitoring via Oracle Receivables
• Generation of printed invoice in PDF format

7. Drilldown Capability
Provides progressive drilldown capability from billing lines to billing details, as well as drilldown
from any hyperlinked attribute on the online bill.

5 Benefits

In Summary the key benefits of the BPA functionality are listed below

1. Expedite Payment and Improve Cash Flow

The invoice designs we create can be assigned to particular customers or particular transactions.
This format consistency will help customers process their bills quickly. To efficiently address
disputes, billing personnel, receivables clerks, and collectors can view bills in Oracle iReceivables,
Oracle Receivables, or Oracle Collections, in the same format the customer sees.

2. MLS enabled
BPA is MLS-enabled. Templates can be created using any available session language. When
printing bills, BPA selects the appropriate template file based on language associated with
customer’s address

3. Template for transaction classes other than Invoice

BPA supports template creation for invoices, credit memos, debit memos, chargebacks, guarantees
and deposits. Oracle provides seeded templates for the above mentioned transaction classes

4. Flexibility to incorporate Company logo

Custom images and messages can be incorporated in BPA templates

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 5. Access to Attachments
Provides ability to view, add, update and delete attachments from BPA online bills

6. Incorporate hyperlinks on online invoices

BPA supports creation of hyperlinks and associating them to any content presented in wer online
bill, including in the billing lines or in the detail lines. Links can be generic, such as access to a
company home page, or they can be transaction-specific, such as access to the actual sales order
listed on the bill.

7. Grouping of billing lines

For Oracle Service Contracts bills, we can provide summarized billing lines for customers who
desire less detail than is stored in Oracle Receivables.

8. Restrict access to details information

BPA enforces security control on the level of billing details external users are allowed to view
online

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