tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64844655256472574472024-02-20T07:18:08.371-08:00Oracle Intercompany FinancialsAlthough there are plenty of general finance and tech posts. This blog mostly covers Oracle Financials, with a particular focus on Intercompany.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.comBlogger78125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-73277511943313678322014-01-20T21:01:00.002-08:002014-01-20T21:01:54.609-08:00As you may have noticedAs you may have noticed, I am not actively blogging over hear at the moment. I have decided that i prefer the wordpress site so I am currently blogging over there. You can see it at http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-48754503078501997532010-08-20T22:15:00.000-07:002010-08-20T22:16:52.295-07:00Cool iPhone Video (and product)I saw this on a <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/FinancialsMkting/">Theresa's excellent Fin Apps blog</a>, which I always read and you should too. It's a video for a new Oracle Peoplesoft iPhone App called Oracle iReceipts, the product is cool, but I think the animation is worth watching for it's own sake - very funny.<br />
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iPhone Apps are all the rage at the moment, but I do feel there are a lot of Apps created just for the sake of it and not well thought out. Reminds me of the dot com era where all companies were desperate to have a web presence but didn't necessarily know why they wanted it or what they wanted to get out of it. That said, managing my expenses with a mobile device, taking pictures of receipts and entering them real time is always going to be a Killer App.<br />
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Anyway, enough of me, here's the video...<br />
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<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6TzxDmdG6kU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6TzxDmdG6kU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-69481622516403794902010-06-01T10:52:00.000-07:002010-06-01T10:52:32.958-07:00Issues with posts migrated from WordpressFor some reason when I try and view a post using the direct url, I am gettign the below error. I am investigating this and will try to get it fixed as soon as possible. This post will also help me to test if the new posts I create here have the same issue.<br />
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Provide the following error code and additional information.<br />
bX-un82ty<br />
Additional information<br />
host: intercompanyfinancials.blogspot.com<br />
uri: /2010/04/new-oracle-financials-blog.html<br />
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This information will help us to track down your specific problem and fix it! We apologize for the inconvenience.<br />
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See if anyone else is having the same problem: Search the Blogger Help Group for bX-un82ty<br />
If you don't get any results for that search, you can start a new topic. Please make sure to mention bX-un82ty in your message.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-57653438180279786782010-04-17T13:10:00.002-07:002010-06-18T21:39:55.055-07:00New Oracle Financials BlogThere is a new Financials blogger on the block and her name is Theresa Hickman. I have been fortunate to work with Theresa during her time managing the product management teams for General Ledger and Accounts Payable products and her time working in the financials strategy team, she's very knowledgeable, dedicated and a big asset to Oracle. Already she's doing some good stuff in her new role in Financials Product Marketing. So <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/FinancialsMkting/" target="_blank">check out her Financials Blog</a>, where she covers Oracle product items and general finance topics such as latest news on IFRS. She also has a twitter account @OracleFMS which is worth following if you even have a passing interest in finance topics.<br/><br/>If you have any other blogs of interest or tweeters, please share them with all the readers in the comments below.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-17302681099890858802008-11-17T14:35:00.002-08:002010-09-10T22:33:38.341-07:00One Laptop per Child - the perfect gift[caption id="attachment_69" align="alignleft" width="340" caption="XO Laptop"]<a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/olpc.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-69" title="XO Laptop" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/olpc.jpg" alt="XO Laptop" width="340" height="255" /></a>[/caption]<br/><br/>Written by <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/about/">David Haimes</a><br/><br/>I <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/one-laptop-per-child-better-than-an-iphone/">blogged</a> some time ago about the <a href="http://www.laptop.org">One Laptop per Child Foundation</a> and how myself and others had <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/one-laptop-for-two-children/">taken part</a> in the give one get one program last year. I think the XO laptop is an amazing machine and more importantly I fully support the goals of the foundation.<br/><br/>I got an email and a <a href="http://www.laptop.org/thankyou/">message</a> to thank me for giving the laptop and as it suggests I will tell 100 people (I hope I have that many readers) and be taking my XO laptop to work this week so I can show people the machine and spread the word about the excellent work the foundation is doing - feel free to drop by my office to check it out. If you want to give then you can do this at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/xo">www.amazon.com/xo</a>David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-65889896146981140012008-11-16T17:07:00.002-08:002010-09-10T22:33:27.325-07:00FSAH and AGIS Intercompany Implementation thoughtsWritten by <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/about/">David Haimes</a><br/><br/>As Intercompany transactions are very likely to cross systems they are a good candidate for integration in a 'Hub' of some sort.<br/><br/>In R12 the Financials Services Accounting Hub (FSAH) allows integration of third party systems to Oracle and is incredibly powerful and flexible.<br/><br/>Let's use a simple example:<br/><p class="MsoNormal">Company A and B both use two different Ledgers. A Sales Invoice is issued by Company A (to Company B) for $5,000</p><br/><p class="MsoNormal">The accounting needs to be created as below, they need to be booked with the same accounting date in the same period.</p><br/><p class="MsoNormal">In Company A</p><br/><br/><p class="MsoNormal">Debit Intercompany AR $5,000<br/>Credit Intercompany sales $5,000<br/><br/>In Company B<br/><p class="MsoNormal">Debit Expense or inventory (per content), $5,000<br/>Credit Intercompany AP, $5,000<br/><br/>So there's a number of options that come to mind (in no particular order).<br/><br/>1) Using Oracle <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/05/12/financial-services-accounting-hub-fsah/">Accounting Hub </a>you can account for transactions form third party systems, it uses the Subledger accounting engine to process accounting events defined for the third party system. If your invoice systems are third party applications, you could create 2 events (one for each company/ledger/party to the transaction) for the sales invoice and get the full accounting out of the single system integration.<br/><br/>2) Enter these transactions in AGIS, the specific accounting will be entered/generated and approvals from company A and B obtained before AGIS either books it direct to GL or generates the Invoice for company A and B if required.<br/><br/>3) It may not be ideal to force users to navigate to a different screen (or change some import process, EDI, XML feed etc) to issue Intercompany invoices from other invoices as in 2) above. So continue to enter in your regular sales invoice system but run a process which detects an invoice is Intercompany and cancels it, then generates a transaction for it in AGIS (via the Open Interfaces) or FSAH.<br/><br/>I don't think any one of these is right for all situations, detailed analysis of the particular implementation environment and requirements needs to be done to figure out the best approach. If you have any thoughts, better suggestions or experience then please share them in the comments.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-44969199795226668952008-09-29T13:34:00.002-07:002010-09-10T22:33:07.419-07:00Quiet Period OverI was hoping that I'd find time to blog regular updates during the Open World week, but this proved a lot more difficult than I anticipated. There was simply so much going on during the days and evenings plus I had to continue with my day job; building Fusion GL and Intercompany Applications (that's the day job I can't blog a lot about). So to summarize my Open World, I saw a lot of people, talked a lot about Oracle, presented an Intercompany Session, spent some time on the DEMO booth and was exhausted at the end of it all.<br/><br/>I was going to attempt to write a review of the week, but there's so much to say and so many people to remember to give a mention that now is not the time. I will focus on one particular area, the DEMO grounds; working here is IMO the hardest job at Open World <a name='more'></a>(although I haven't actually done all the jobs so what do I know?). What you do is stand there for four or five hours at a time and wait for people to come and ask you to Demo anything they want to see or ask you any question at all vaguely related to the area you are covering. You get questions ranging from 'Can you tell me the differentiators between Oracle Apps and SAP?' or 'What's new in R12?' to 'I have logged SR number X and I'm not sure I agree with the response, can you take a look?'. The eBusiness suite area seemed pretty busy this year and we often had a decent size group of people gathered round, which can be tough but it's good that people are interested. The conversations that I most enjoyed were when somebody had a customization in 11i that they thought they could replace with standard functionality in R12 and I could confirm they were right. However the most amazing thing about the demo booth is the amount you learn about how customers actually use, or would like to use our products and the real day to day issues they have around implementing, manging and extending them to meet business needs.<br/><br/>What do you think about the DEMO grounds, best place to go and get questions answered? Or are they somewhere you avoid? If you worked there, let me know what your experience was - sound off in the Comments.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-5274203830935950552008-09-19T07:24:00.002-07:002010-09-10T22:32:12.303-07:00Is oracle.com cool again?After last year's Oracle Open World I asked if <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/11/30/is-oracle-cool-again/">Oracle was cool again</a> and that post was <a href="http://eyeonoracle.blogs.techtarget.com/2007/12/03/oracle-vs-google/">picked up by eye on oracle</a> and created quite a bit of debate. Now we are approaching Open World again and I see Oracle has put it's mix social network front and center taking over the oracle.com home page with the Oracle Listens campaign. Already <a href="http://twitter.com/monkchips">@monkchips</a> thinks it's cool.<br/><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/monkchips1.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-280 aligncenter" style="margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:5px;" title="monkchips1" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/monkchips1.jpg?w=468" alt="" width="468" height="207" /></a></p><br/><br/>Not as cool as google? I don't want to <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/comparing-google-and-oracle/">go there</a> again. In fact there is a huge amount of <a href="http://search.twitter.com/search?q=oracle.com">buzz on twitter </a>from many people, Oracle and non Oracle alike. I like the cynical take by <a href="http://twitter.com/jknoll">@jknoll</a><br/><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/jknoll1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-284" title="jknoll1" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/jknoll1.jpg?w=468" alt="" width="468" height="205" /></a></p><br/><br/>I don't think Oracle has run out of ideas, I just think they are admitting that customers and partners might have some equally good ideas that we should listen to.<br/><br/>I'm browsing through the ideas and there's an amount of <a href="https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/55124-eat-more-chicken">noise</a> as you might expect, but there seems to be a new idea submitted about every five minutes. That amount of feedback is immense. Credit to the Oracle marketing team for driving this, I see <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/otn/2008/09/the_best_ideas_thus_far.html">Justin </a>is answering a lot of the ideas right now and other Oracle folks are jumping in too. Expect to hear a lot more about this next week.<br/><br/>My opinion is this is a bold move and Oracle has convinced me its cool again this year. Do you agree or think it is just a gimmick? Make your voice heard in the comments.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-7007868996689861442008-09-18T14:49:00.002-07:002010-09-10T22:32:54.903-07:00Got my OOW badge<a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/p-640-480-feefad3a-d07c-4980-80d1-be746a861fb3.jpeg"><img class="size-full wp-image-364 alignleft" style="margin:10px;" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/p-640-480-feefad3a-d07c-4980-80d1-be746a861fb3.jpeg" alt="" width="293" height="390" /></a>I collected my badge here at Oracle HQ, so I can avoid the crowds at the Moscone. Now what I don't have is a ticket to the Party on Wednesday Night, which is held on Treasure Island with UB40, Seal, Elvis Costello and some Country artist who's name I don't recall (sorry - but I only dislike two kinds of music; Country and Western). People may not know this, but Oracle employees in general do not get a ticket to the party even if we have DEMOgrounds or Speaker ribbons on our badges. So there's normally a load of Oracle folks asking customers for and spare tickets. The past few years friends have sorted me out, but this year I have no leads...I will be in the DEMOgrounds Wednesday and Thursday mornings so you can drop by there to chat or contact me if you want to arrange to meet some time.<br/><br/>I plan to do <a href="http://twitter.com/dhaimes">updates via twitter</a> and post here on the blog regularly throughout the conference so stay tuned.<br/><br/>Also check out the <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/oracleopenworld/">official Open World Blog</a>, they're getting great content on there this year and I'll be watching that closely.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-60249622246458374352008-09-18T07:29:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:46:43.195-07:00Financials Sessions at Oracle Open World 2008A lot of people are asking when various sessions are, readers of this blog are probably interested in Oracle EBS financials, Helle <a href="https://mix.oracle.com/group_messages/51274-look-here-to-find-the-oracle-open-world-schedule-for-ebs-financials-presentations-keynotes-application-lounges-and-demogrounds">posted on Oracle Mix</a> a couple of useful links. I recommend looking at <a href="http://www.oracle.com/openworld/2008/focuson/e-business-suite-financials.pdf">this pdf</a> which lists all the financials sessions including demogrounds, apps lounges, presentations etc.<br/><br/>My session is listed there, I look forward to seeing some of your there.<br/><br/>Thursday 25th, 3:00 p.m.<br/><br/>Moscone West 2006<br/><br/>Are Intercompany Processing and Reconciliation Currently Pain Points for Your Enterprise?<br/><br/>David Haimes, Oracle; Helle Hennings, Oracle<br/><br/><a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/apps-lounges.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-263" title="apps-lounges" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/apps-lounges.jpg?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="138" /></a>I <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/12/15/friday-night-writes/">blogged last year</a> about the meet the Experts Lounge, well this year it has been renamed to Applications Lounge. I haven't been asked to attend this year, so if you want to ask me any questions or provide feedback you'll have to come to the session above, find me at the DEMOgrounds, the Blogger Meetup or follow me in twitter, or use this blog all year round - remember customer interaction is not just for Oracle Open World, it's for life.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-37654240015206101652008-09-09T02:51:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:46:32.355-07:00Driving 2.0 - Socializing The Freeway<a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/448px-us_101_casvg.png"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-243" style="margin:10px;" title="448px-us_101_casvg" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/448px-us_101_casvg.png?w=300" alt="" width="300" height="257" /></a>I drive from San Francisco down the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_101">Highway 101</a> to <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/larry-is-in-the-building/">Oracle HQ</a> everyday (sometimes on a Saturday too), I sometimes see people I know on the freeway, I often see the same cars, I certainly see people do (IMHO) idiotic things and I occasionally see people do (IMHO) courteous and considerate things.<br/><br/>So an idea came to me as I passed the ebay commuter bus the other day. Why can't I rate the drivers on the freeway just like I rate sellers and buyers on ebay? You cut me up, you get a thumbs down, I see you <a href="http://davidhaimes.blogspot.com/2004/05/breakfast-to-go.html">driving whilst eating a bowl of cereal</a> thumbs down for you, if you let me change lane safely I can give a thumbs up. Sound like fantasy land? Well it could be easily done, I can see your registration easily enough I snap a picture of <a name='more'></a>it with my iPhone, character recognition software reads it I have a nice thumbs up or thumbs down option to hit and this is shuttled off to a website where people's rating is displayed. The value really comes into play when we display a person's rating on the car for all to see - I'm thinking of some kind of intelligent display device replacing license plates, then it can show the star rating right there for all to see and heck it might even be able to replace those registration stickers that you have to remember to stick on your plate once a year.<br/><br/>So what goes through your mind as you drive to work? Are you thinking about more important things or do you have some crazy ideas like me that you want to share? Can you think of a better way to apply Web 2.0 principals to the freeways? Sound off in the comments.<br/><br/>UPDATE (9-SEP-08):<br/><br/>Thanks to Caroline for sending me details of a Web 1.0 idea for drivers on Highway 17, that was <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9512/web_shame/">featured on cnn</a>.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-52941043958477152762008-08-27T13:53:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:46:21.664-07:00The end of US GAAP?As reported in the <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121985665095476825.html?mod=djemTEW">Wall Street Journal today,</a> the SEC is proposing to pull the plug on US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and move to the International Financial Reporting Standards(IFRS) which is used in many countries around there world already, notably in Europe. A few weeks ago I <a href="http://www.oracle.com/applications/financials/preparing-us-companies-for-the-transition-to-ifrs-white-paper.pdf">blogged </a>about this change that's been brewing for some time and plugged the <a href="https://mix.oracle.com/groups/12153">IFRS Oracle Mix group</a>, the power of my blog increased membership by over 65%. Yes, there are now 5 members up from from 3. Why am I surprised people are not excited about accounting standards?<br/><br/>If you're sitting around wondering if Oracle is going to release an IFRS patch, that won't be necessary, Release 12 has all the tools you will need and Oracle has a <a href="http://www.oracle.com/applications/financials/preparing-us-companies-for-the-transition-to-ifrs-white-paper.pdf">White Paper</a> explaining what tools it has to get you ready for IFRS, which I recommend as a good starting point.<br/><br/>If you want more join the mix group, I'll post information there as I find it and the members though small in number are all top notch including Sanjit Anand who you may know from <a href="http://www.oracleappshub.com/">Oracle Apps Hub</a>, one of the richest sources of information on Oracle Financials.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-18352979780679038922008-08-21T16:43:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:46:10.560-07:00Advanced Global Intercompany System R12 White PaperThere is a white paper available on metalink (metalink note 418649.1) that describes in detail each set up step you need to perform to set up AGIS. It is a very nice document with screen shots to show you every step of the way and there are also some viewlets that show you the set up in progress.<br/><br/>This is a pretty good starting point if you are setting up AGISDavid Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-75250683437089382582008-08-19T14:35:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:45:58.176-07:00Pull up a chair<div class="mceTemp"></div><br/><br/>[caption id="attachment_194" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Have a seat"]<a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/photo1218864495654.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-194" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/photo1218864495654.jpg?w=300" alt="Have a seat" width="300" height="224" /></a>[/caption]<br/><br/>As Meg <a href="http://talentedapps.wordpress.com/2008/08/15/a-culture-of-thanks/">mentioned last week</a>, we've been clearing out old chairs and sprucing up our offices in 300 building at HQ over the last few months. I am very pleased with <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/11/26/cleaning-out-my-closet/">my office move</a> and the <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/05/20/larry-is-in-the-building/">view</a> is pretty good.<br/><br/>The other morning I took this snap as they unloaded an entire truck full of office chairs, one of these Meg is enjoying now and giving thanks for.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-44168005435995503482008-08-15T14:14:00.002-07:002010-07-26T21:45:48.353-07:00Fixed Assests Intercompany in R12[caption id="attachment_182" align="alignleft" width="258" caption="Fixed Asset?"]<a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/security-2.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-182" style="margin:10px;" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/security-2.jpg?w=258" alt="Fixed Asset?" width="258" height="300" /></a>[/caption]<br/><br/>Something I often forget to mention is the enhancement of Intercompany functionality in Fixed Assets (FA) that has been provided in R12. So here is my attempt to explain it, based on an old email discussion with the FA team, I wouldn't describe myslef as an FA expert, but if there are any comments or questions I might be able to find an FA expert to get an answer. :)<br/><br/>In 11i FA stores reference accounts in two setup entities; Book Controls and Categories. The intercompany Payables and Receivables accounts were stored directly on the book, only the natural accounts segment were stored for these two accounts. The Account Generator definition would combine the natural account with other sources to get a full account combination. Out of the box, those sources were a default ccid which is also on the book and a ccid from the asset assignment. So the balancing segment is derived from the asset assignment, the natural account from the values on the book, and other segments from the default account.<br/><br/>The intercompany would kick in for two transaction types "Transfer" and "Unit Adjustment". However, other transactions could result in intercompany impacts, but they would not be generated in FA so GL would do the balancing when the accounting was posted there.<br/><br/>So in R12 FA uses the AGIS Intercompany balancing feature, which is <a name='more'></a>called from SLA and so we'll balance all transactions that are out of balance right there in the subledger without having to let some of it hit GL and with all the flexible rules available in the new <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2007/11/28/r12-intercompany-accounts-set-up/">Intercompany Accounts Set Up</a>.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-16419877130103562522008-08-15T11:43:00.002-07:002010-09-10T22:32:27.179-07:00The Freakonomics of Coffee and ElevatorsI've been reading <a href="http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/">Freakonomics </a>recently (the book and the blog) I love the way that they come up with interesting theories or questions and imagine how we might get data to investigate or answer them.<br/><br/>I often find myself doing this type of thing too, in those quite moments such as waiting in for for the elevator. So here is one Freakonomics type theory I have.<br/><br/>People who are highly stressed/cafinated/busy tend to push the elevator call button or door close buuton multiple times in a attempt to make the elevator move faster. So if we had access to the maintenance records for some of the large elevator companies we could look for patterns in the dataDavid Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-80315286679315771822008-08-07T01:37:00.002-07:002010-07-22T07:31:54.453-07:00Photos from Wordpress iPhoneJust taken a picture from my office window of the Americas Cup yacht that is now afloat in the lake at Oracle HQ.<br/><br/>I'm using wordpress iPhone app to post this, which seems to be a nice way to write short text based blog posts and post pictures (assuming this works ok).<br/><br/><a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/p-640-480-8d9271fc-4381-49cc-a4ae-710d69c98a30.jpeg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-364" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/p-640-480-8d9271fc-4381-49cc-a4ae-710d69c98a30.jpeg" alt="" width="225" height="300" /></a><br/><br/>UPDATE : When I view the post - the photo didn't get uploaded correctly, looking into that now.<br/><br/>UPDATE 2 : I did nothing and now the photo is there, I think it is just a timing issue, seems the text appears before the photo has finished transferring to the blog. Anyhow, if I am patient it works :)David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-85222263933790959142008-08-05T10:55:00.002-07:002010-07-22T07:33:02.222-07:00Wordpress for iPhoneI just downloaded worpress for the iPhone, looks like I can write blog posts from my iPhone quite easily. However it doesn't have a lot of formatting features, not sure I can even insert a hyperlink. Might be good for drafting posts when I have few moments.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-7714648883943121782008-08-04T07:34:00.002-07:002010-07-22T07:31:40.266-07:00International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) is a set of standards that are gaining momentum. There is market pressure to have a single language for companies to communicate financial results, globalization of companies and markets make this inevitable. There is also some regulatory pressure likely to come in the US as the <a href="http://www.sec.gov/spotlight/ifrsroadmap/ifrsroundtable080408-agenda.htm">SEC are having a round table</a> today, the Wall Street Journal <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121781030173108745.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">discusses</a> it today too.<br/><br/>I notice the <a href="https://mix.oracle.com/groups/12153">group on Oracle Mix</a> to discuss IFRS has just three members, so I wonder if this is on the radar of the Oracle community yet.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-83486913800479215512008-07-18T14:14:00.002-07:002010-07-13T17:01:35.061-07:00Interesting R12 Upgrade Session at Open WorldA session I hope to attend at Open World is the one by Nayyar about Oracle's internal upgrade to R12. I spent some time working with Nayyar and his team earlier this year and it was a good experience, at times it was very tough but it's been very valuable. Oracle has a lot of<a name='more'></a> Intercompany transactions and does use AGIS, so they give the product a decent work out. I also represented GL and as I have taken over GL more recently this was a really good chance for me to learn more about how a large GL customer operates and the things that are important to them. I was motivated to help them out when needed not least because they literally pay my wages.<br/><table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%"><br/><tbody><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" width="17%" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee">Session ID:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy" width="83%"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />S299147</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Title:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Lessons Learned in Upgrading to Oracle E-Business Suite Financials Release 12: Oracle's Internal Upgrade</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Abstract:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Want to hear about Oracle's Global Single Instance upgrade to Release 12? Want to find out about specific lessons learned from the project team? Come to this session to get a detailed look at Oracle's own upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite Financials Release 12.</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Track:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />APPLICATIONS, Oracle E-Business Suite</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Focus Areas:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Not Applicable</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Type:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Conference Session</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Product Area:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Financial Management</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Duration:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />60 minutes</td><br/></tr><br/><!--tr>--><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Room:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Rm 2006</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Speaker(s)/Company:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Nayyar Siddiqui, Oracle</td><br/></tr><br/></tbody></table><br/><!-- -->David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-72540079872724593922008-07-14T14:14:00.002-07:002010-06-27T10:13:26.026-07:00First Party? Third Party? Which Party am I?Written by <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/about/" target="_self">David Haimes</a><br/><br/>This is from an email sent to me by Amazon<br/><br/>==============================================<br/><pre>The following items have been shipped to you by Amazon.com:<br/>---------------------------------------------------------------------<br/>Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal<br/>---------------------------------------------------------------------<br/>Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC):<br/>1 Seventh Generation Chlorin... $42.99 1 $42.99</pre><br/>===================================================<br/><br/>It tells me the Legal Entity that I have a contract with, if those Diapers don't arrive as advertised I know it is Amazon.com, LLC that I need to drag through the Legal System, it will also tell me something about <a name='more'></a>what taxes they are going to apply if I look up where that Legal Entity is registered.<br/><br/>In this transaction I am the first Party and Amazon is the third Party. If I used an ERP system I'd be entering this transaction into my Payables system, David Haimes would be the first party LE and Amazon.com, LLC are the Supplier also known as the Third Party LE.<br/><br/>In Amazon's ERP system, they used Receivables to generate the Invoice above and when they entered the Customer they entered David Haimes, he is the Third Party LE and they would also have Amazon.com, LLC as the First Party.<br/><br/>The interaction between myself and Oracle generates two transactions in two ERP systems and the same party is the First Party and the Third Party depending on where you are looking at it from. Still with me? It gets more confusing when we're dealing with Intercompany (as usual) because we both of those transactions will be in the same ERP system, both the payables and the receivables transaction are present and the the same entity is a First Party LE (in Oracle defined in the Legal Entity Configurator) and a Third Party LE (defined as a Customer and Supplier).<br/><br/>So the only thing remaining is to work out who is the second party and why are they never involved, I have no idea on that one - if you do please let me know in the comments section.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-9088464746349772352008-07-13T02:46:00.002-07:002010-06-27T10:13:03.597-07:00Intercompany Session at Oracle Open WorldThe content catalog is available so you can <a href="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/catalog.jsp">go and search</a> for sessions.<br/><br/>There's an Intercompany session (<img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />S299151), it is not scheduled yet and as I am one of the presenters I can tell you it definitely isn't written yet, next week I'll get started on that with my copresenter from strategy, Helle. the details of the session are below. If you have any suggestions about what we should cover, how we might cover it or anything else for the session it would be great to hear from you - add them to the comments and let's see if we can try and tailor the presentation to the audience a little.<br/><table border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3" width="100%"><br/><tbody><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" width="17%" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee">Session ID:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy" width="83%"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />S299151</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Title:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Are Intercompany Processing and Reconciliation Currently a Pain Point for Your Enterprise?</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Abstract:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Having problems reconciling your intercompany activity? Would you like better documentation and visibility into your various intercompany activities? Are acquisitions or changing legal structures making intercompany processing more expensive and time-consuming? Attend this session, which discusses and demos capabilities of Oracle Advanced Global Intercompany System in Release 12 and implementation options such as using this application as a standalone hub for all your intercompany activity across multiple ERP instances from multiple vendors.</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Track:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />APPLICATIONS, Oracle E-Business Suite</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Focus Areas:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Not Applicable</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Session Type:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Conference Session</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Product Area:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Financial Management</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Duration:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />60 minutes</td><br/></tr><br/><!--tr>--><br/><td bgcolor="#eeeeee" class="bodycopy" align="left" nowrap><img src="images/hp_spacer.gif" height="1" width="2">Room:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="images/hp_spacer.gif" height="1" width="2">Rm 2006</td><br/></tr><br/><tr><br/><td class="bodycopy" align="left" bgcolor="#eeeeee"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />Speaker(s)/Company:</td><br/><td class="bodycopy"><img src="http://www28.cplan.com/cc208/images/hp_spacer.gif" alt="" width="2" height="1" />David Haimes, Oracle.; Helle Hennings, Oracle</td><br/></tr><br/></tbody></table>David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-75424017441157866462008-06-30T12:46:00.002-07:002010-06-27T10:12:38.627-07:00Still time to vote for bloggingIf you read a lot of Oracle blogs you can't have missed the news that you get to vote for some of the sessions at Oracle Open World this year on <a href="https://mix.oracle.com">Oracle Mix</a>. There's a lot of great sessions suggested and although I'm about to plug my own I would encourage you to check out the other suggestions and vote often.<br/><br/><a href="https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/36837-why-product-development-should-blog---how-blogging-will-help-your-customers-and-you">My suggestion</a> is for a session inspired by the series I started on <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/02/07/why-product-development-should-blog-part-1/">Why product development should blog</a>, which only got as far as three part:<br/><h3><a href="https://mix.oracle.com/ideas/36837-why-product-development-should-blog---how-blogging-will-help-your-customers-and-you">Why Product Development should Blog - How blogging will help your customers and YOU</a></h3><br/>A bold claim, but one I'm pretty confident I can back up. I'd also be interested in getting input form other bloggers within and without Oracle so I can share some of your wisdom in this session too. So add your comments and remember to go and vote.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-1936709873569193502008-06-26T09:38:00.002-07:002010-06-18T22:11:41.985-07:00What is your functional currency?by <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/about/" target="_self">David Haimes</a> (with excerpts from an internal document by Seamus Moran)<br/><br/><a href="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/monopoly-money1.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-154" style="margin:10px;" src="http://davidhaimes.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/monopoly-money1.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="200" /></a>Regular readers will probably be used to this answer now... it depends.<br/><br/>In General Ledger 11i your functional currency referred to the currency of your set of books, it was one of your three Cs (Calendar, Currency and Chart of Accounts). In R12 we changed the terminlogy, there is no more set of books that is now renamed Ledger and the Currency of your Ledger is referred to as the Accounting Currency of the Ledger.<br/><br/>This is a subtle change and I'm sure experienced 11i practitioners are still using the term functional currency but you all need to stop because it's confusing people.<br/><br/>In Financial standards (IAS 21 and FAS 52), Functional Currency is a test<a name='more'></a> for the integration of your overseas and home businesses. If the businesses share a Functional currency, they are integrated, and you must use a financial statement conversion method called "remeasurement". If the businesses do not share a Functional Currency, they are stand alone, and you must use a financial statement conversion method called "translation". To determine the Functional currency, there are a series of cash flow related tests: it is an objective, situational determination, and not an optional choice.<br/><br/>Now just because your auditors tell you that your functional currency is Euro, this does not mean that you need to go about the tricky business of changing your Ledger Accounting Currency (or Set of Books functional currency) to Euro. What it means is that you need to remeasure in Euro rather than translate.<br/><br/>To do this re measurement you can use<br/><ol><br/> <li>The GL translation program</li><br/> <li>A secondary Ledger</li><br/> <li>A consolidation program such as Hyperion</li><br/></ol><br/>It is not standard to have your Ledger Accounting currency different to you local currency, you will need to file local statutory reports in local currency, your bank will likely send you statements in local currency etc. so you really need your ledger operating in local currency to handle these easily.<br/><br/>So remember my Ledger Accounting Currency does not have to equal my functional currency.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6484465525647257447.post-30916069026356142982008-06-13T16:18:00.002-07:002010-06-18T22:11:11.705-07:00R12 Best Practices White PaperI noticed today on <a href="http://blogs.oracle.com/schan/2008/06/12#a2762">Stephen Chan's blog</a> that this White Paper is available on metalink<br/><br/><a href="https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/showdoc?db=NOT&id=580299.1">Best Practices for Adopting Oracle E-Business Suite, Release 12</a> (Metalink Note 580299.1)<br/><br/>I haven't reviewed the document yet, despite there being a section on AGIS. As soon as I resolve the problem I'm having with my metalink login I will take a look. I understand it was pulled together by Anne Carlson, who I know reads this blog becasue she mailed me just today with a question about it, I'm hoping some of the useful posts from this blog made the cut.<br/><br/>I want to use this opportunity to plug two other guides that are new in R12 and I highly recommend you read if you are looking at upgrading to R12.<br/><h3><a href="../2008/01/05/useful-oracle-financials-resources/download-uk.oracle.com/docs/cd/B34956_01/current/acrobat/120fincg.pdf">Oracle Financials Concepts Guide, Release 12 (Part No. B28873-01</a></h3><br/><h3><a href="http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B34956_01/current/acrobat/120finprcug.pdf">Oracle Financials and Oracle Procurement Functional Upgrade Guide: Release 11i to Release 12 (Part No. B31543-01)</a></h3><br/>I discuss them a little more along with a few other resources in <a href="http://davidhaimes.wordpress.com/2008/01/05/useful-oracle-financials-resources/">this post</a>.<br/><br/>UPDATE (June 16th):<br/><br/>I reviewed the White Paper and the AGIS section is fairly sparse - I will be contacting the author to try and get more detail in there.<br/><br/>However on the whole I think it's a great document and essential reading for anyone looking to implement or upgrade to R12. Now if we can just publish that information on a blog, then we'll truly have a living document, I'll ask that question of the document owners.David Haimeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08553294104727744220noreply@blogger.com6