By Neeraj Garg

Oracle E-Business Suite Project Costing

Labor Costing Enhancements: Labor transactions in Oracle Projects can now be costed via several new methods:

1. Costing using HR Rates (includes support for multiple rates and rate by criteria). This feature now enables support for the Davis-Bacon Act.
2. Support in Oracle Time and Labor for additional data to be captured to support rate by Criteria.
3. Total Time reporting. This feature allows the standard/actual cost for Exempt employees to be automatically pro-rated over all hours charged to projects by the employee. Before this enhancement, exempt employee costs could be over-counted if they set more than the standard working hours.
4. Labor costing using Payroll actuals. This feature supports using actual payroll costs to drive project labor costs. Support is included for Oracle Payroll or a third-party payroll system.
5. When using Payroll actuals for labor costing, you can accrue labor costs using standard rates before the payroll run. This allows you to continue billing all project costs using the accrued standard cost and then post adjustment entries to invoices based on the actual payroll run. Combined with the “Adjusted transactions on standard invoice” feature in Oracle Project Billing, the accrual adjustment feature is seamless to the end client.
6. Expenditure Batch Reversal: To support the payroll feature of reversing a payroll run, Oracle Project Costing now supports reversing the costing for an expenditure batch and reverting the costed transactions to an uncosted state.

Integration to Oracle Complex Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (cMRO):  Support for unplanned and non-routine maintenance has been added to Oracle cMRO, and existing support for Regular maintenance. Such maintenance visits/activities can now be associated with new or existing projects/tasks.

Enhanced Cost Collection by Cost Code: A new classification –Cost Code – is now available on a project/task. A Cost Code can be a multi-segmented attribute and can be set up to represent a hierarchy of values.  These cost codes are predefined during implementation and can be associated with a project. Each task can then be assigned one or more values for the cost code. Once this is done, all actuals must include valid cost code values in addition to the project and task. This allows for more granularity in the setup and collection of actual costs and easy comparison of similar types of costs across projects and tasks for metrics like productivity that are key in the Engineering and Construction industry.

Self-Assessed Tax from Payables: Oracle E-Business Suite Projects Applications will bring over any self-assessed tax on project-related supplier invoices from Oracle Accounts Payable as a project expense.

Oracle E-Business Suite Project Billing

Standard Invoicing for Adjusted Transactions: Adjusted transactions can now be included on a net new invoice instead of going to a credit memo. This is controlled via an option at the project and task level for labor transactions only or all transactions.

Oracle E-Business Suite Project Management

Planning with HR Rates: If you use the HR Rates option for labor costing, these rates are also available in the planning screens (WorkPlans and Financial Plans) to determine the planned cost for labor lines.

Forecasting Using Updated Rates: When generating a forecast, ETC amounts are computed using updated rates (from the rate schedules) for all rate-based resources.

Planning Without Resource Classes: You can now plan for projects, tasks, and resources without assigning a resource class. This allows additional flexibility in determining the planning granularity.

Planning by Cost Codes: You can now plan by cost code (assigned to project/task) and further at any level of the cost code you choose.

Technology

Online Patching: In addition to these features specific to Oracle E-Business Suite Projects, the most significant technology update is Online Patching.  Online Patching uses the Oracle Database 11g Release 11.2.0.2 feature of “edition-based” redefinition to significantly reduce the downtime traditionally needed for patching and related maintenance activities.

The way this works is fairly elegant. An “edition” is a private environment where you can redefine database objects. With online patching, patches are applied to a separate edition while users work with the original edition. After applying patches, the system is cut over to make the patch edition the new production edition. After the initial upgrade to Release 12.2, all future patches and maintenance packs will be applied online, requiring only a brief cutover period to make the new functionality active.

If you have any questions about the new features in Oracle E-Business Suite Applications, Release 12.2, don’t hesitate to contact us via our online form or call me at +1.650+712.6200.