9.5 Conversion Rate Policies, Receipt Requirements and Payment Hold Rules

The published objectives are Manage Conversion Rates and Policies and Manage Receipt Management Policies. Both decide whether the amount an employee claims is supported before money leaves the company.

Conversion rates and policies

Employees often pay cash in a foreign currency and are reimbursed in their own. On Manage Conversion Rates and Policies (the Edit Conversion Rates and Policies page) you define, for each business unit:

• the conversion rate type: Corporate, Spot or User;
• whether that rate defaults onto new expenses;
• warning and error tolerance percentages;
• optional tolerances for specific currencies.

When an employee enters or overrides a rate, it is checked against these definitions.

Oracle's worked example

• An employee claims a 25 GBP meal at a rate up to 1.65795: no violation.
• Above 1.65795 and up to 1.7369: a warning, if you chose to display it. Warnings are tracked on the report.
• Above 1.7369: an error. The report can't be submitted.

Rules to remember

• Conversion rate policies apply only to cash expenses, not corporate card expenses. Card charges use the billed amounts in the card feed. If a company account allows multiple billed currencies, Expenses converts them to the account's payment currency with General Ledger daily rates, and marks charges with no rate as Missing currency conversion rate.
• The default rate is also for cash transactions only.
• If General Ledger has no conversion rate for the reimbursement currency, the policy can't be enforced. Maintain daily rates for every currency your travelers use.
• Category policies with single-currency limits (section 9.3) also need GL rates to compare a foreign amount with the limit.
• To let employees choose their reimbursement currency, set Allow Reimbursement Currency Selection in system options and limit the allowed currencies by business unit. Cash advances in other currencies use Advance Currencies Allowed in the cash advance policies (section 10.3).
• Approval notifications show foreign currency totals in both the reimbursement currency and the approver's preferred ledger currency.

Receipt management

Receipt management makes sure required receipts arrive before employees are paid. You assign receipt and notification rules to business units.

Decision 1: type of receipt

On the header of Create Receipt and Notification Rule, require:

• Original (paper) receipts;
• Imaged receipts (camera, scanner or fax);
• both.

If you don't choose, Originals only is the default. For imaged receipts, also choose the stage at which they must be attached. Prevent submission if receipts aren't attached is the strictest choice. To force a receipt on each line, set Enable Attachment to Lines required in system options.

Decision 2: level

You can use any combination of levels, or none.

Decision 3: receipt requirements

On the template or expense type you can set requirements for:

• cash lines, corporate card lines and negative lines;
• the amount above which a receipt is required;
• disallowing missing receipts;
• displaying a missing receipt warning.

Overdue and missing receipts

The scheduled Process Overdue and Missing Receipts process checks submitted reports, and the rule controls what it does:

• Enable overdue process;
• Receipts are overdue after a number of days, counted from the report submission date;
• Notify individual when receipts are overdue;
• Send missing receipt declaration notification.

Escalation to approvers is set on the FinExmReceiptsOverdue task's Deadlines tab in the BPM Worklist.

Oracle suggests running the process daily if you want prompt notices. An employee can mark a receipt as missing on the expense or from a notification. If your rule requires a missing receipt declaration, the completed declaration replaces the receipt. Audit and payment then proceed, and the reminders stop.

Receipt check-in: auditors record the Original Receipt Package Check In Date on Manage Receipt Packages, searching by report number or bar code, or on Audit Expense Report. A default receipt date rule fills the date automatically when imaged receipts are attached by an auditor or clerk, or arrive through WebCenter Imaging or Capture. It doesn't fill the date when the employee attaches the images.

Payment hold rules

The Expense Report Payment Hold section of the receipt and notification rule can hold payment to individuals and to corporate card issuers:

• Hold payment if receipts are required but not yet received.
• Hold payment if receipts are overdue on a previously submitted report. Once any report has outstanding overdue receipts, all subsequent reports are held.

How holds work:

• Process Expense Report Reimbursement, scheduled regularly, applies the holds and also checks whether they can be released.
• Held employees get a notification.
• Holds release automatically when receipts are received, waived or declaration received. An auditor can also release a hold manually on Audit Expense Report.
• Under Both Pay, if Apply Hold Rule To covers reports of both individuals and card issuers, neither the employee nor the issuer is paid while the hold lasts.
• Project-only expense reports aren't held by default. Select Apply hold rules to expense reports in the rule to include them.