Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

ACCOUNTING HEALTH CHECK

DIAGNOSTICS > ORACLE FINANCIALS > ACCOUNTS PAYABLE MODULE
Version - Release 12

Author: Karthikeyan P
Email: karthikeyanp1981@gmail.com

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Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

Greetings fellow professionals,
Today would like to discuss something on diagnostics provided by oracle and how it can help us in
better troubleshooting and also maintaining the instance with good care.
Diagnostics are not something external to oracle applications, they are built in. Oracle has developed
few diagnostics script for certain modules which it felt relevant, they are accessible from Oracle
Diagnostics Tool responsibility. Through this responsibility one can run those scripts and analyse the
output. There are many scripts that are provided by oracle, which will help us in understanding few
back end details also. These diagnostic scripts are not a simple output of a sql query; they are much
more than that. They identify the cause of the issue and also the action to be taken, hence the
diagnostic scripts itself acts as an advisor.
Of many scripts that are provided by oracle, I haven taken one script for discussion, which is
"Accounting Health Check" available for Payables Module.
This script will fetch all inconsistencies related to accounting for payables transactions and displays
in the script output. In earlier versions many of the diagnostic scripts can be ran only from the back
end and not through front end. In Release 12, the Diagnostics tool responsibility contains all possible
diagnostic scripts, accessible from the front end, just like any other responsibility.

Now what is special about Accounting Health Check, never heard of it before?
Accounting Health Check diagnostic script checks the accounting areas related to payables module
alone. If you have not heard about this so far, nothing wrong in it. It is not a mandatory information
one must know, as its usage is very limited. This diagnostics acts as a tool for monitoring the
applications performance with respect to Payables Accounting. And very handy in case of
troubleshooting accounting issues related to Payables.

What are the details required in order to run the Accounting Health Check?
One must know the responsibility id of the payables responsibility, it can also be determined from
the List of Values also. Apart from that, all other parameters are self explanatory.

What other information this diagnostic will display apart from payables accounting?
Any diagnostic script output will contain the details of the environment under which the script is
being run. The details are split into different sections such as:
1) Database Information (Server, Database Version etc ...)
2) Application Information (Release Version, Responsibility etc ...)
3) Available modules and the patch set level of those modules.

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Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

What sort of accounting information does Accounting Health check provides to us?
Accounting health check output displays the exceptions under the following categories:
Accounting Event Data
Invoice Distribution Data
Payment Accounting Event Data
Payment History Event Data
Event is Accounted and Posted Flag is not equal to Y
Out of Sync Posted Flags (Invoices)
Out of Sync Posted Flags (Payments)
Unaccounted Invoices in Closed Period
Unaccounted Payments in Closed Period
Unaccounted History transactions in Closed Period
Unaccounted Events in Closed Period
Transactions Missing Accounting Events
Transactions Missing Accounting Events but Headers exist.
Accounting for Payments with multiple invoices
Out of Sync Accounting Dates
Out of Balance Headers
Large Rounding Lines
Large Write-off Lines
Invalid CCIDs
Prepayments with Invalid Amounts Remaining
Inconsistencies within a payment transaction
Type 1 - 6 Orphans
Invoice Distribution Orphans
THATS LOT OF INFORMATION..............
If the output of the Accounting Health Check returns any rows, does it mean we have a serious
issue to be corrected?
NOT a serious issue, since the diagnostics displays all inconsistencies at the time of running the
report, the inconsistencies may be intentional, which could be corrected later by users at their
convenience or these inconsistencies will not affect the day to day functioning of the application.
However there many areas in the diagnostics output, which really requires some series attention,
since most of the sections of the output displays the inconsistencies by the system and not by the
user
As a functional consultant will one be able to understand the output of the diagnostics at ease?
Its not that easy to understand on a very first reading. The output contains information related to
tables with column names and rows as stored in the database. Understanding the same requires
technical knowledge on how accounting happens at the backend. Only then the output of the
diagnostics report can be properly interpreted.
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Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

How accounting is performed in the backend?
In back end, for every accounting activity we perform in the front end, an Accounting Event ID is
generated by the system. Accounting Activity refers to Invoice Validation, Invoice Cancellation,
Payment, Voiding Payment etc.
The Accounting Event ID is stored in XLA_EVENTS table
In the XLA_EVENTS table, the initial status of the accounting event id will be recorded as U which
means unprocessed.
After performing accounting successfully from the front end, system will create records in two most
important tables,
1) XLA_AE_HEADERS (PARENT TABLE) 2) XLA_AE_LINES (CHILD TABLE) and it will change the status in
the XLA_EVENTS table as P, which means processed.
To summarise,
XLA events will store Accounting Event IDs
XLA Headers will store the Header level data for the accounting event id in XLA events
XLA Lines will store the line level or accounting entries data. Available in the XLA headers
The flow is from top to bottom.
What are important or key sections one must be concentrating on from the Health check output?
One must concentrate on all sections of the output, nothing to be ignored.
Can one explain in detail about the sections that are being reported by the Accounting Health
Check output?
Most part of the output is self explanatory, however providing a brief explanation on the thumb rule
followed in every section reported by the Accounting health check:
1) Events with Unaccounted status and an accounting header created:
When the event is in unaccounted status, there should not be any records in accounting header
relating to that event id
2) Event with Accounted status and no rows in XLA_AE_HEADERS.
When the event is in accounted status, rows must be populated in Headers and Lines table.
3) Posted transaction rows without Accounting Event Id.
Every transaction which is accounted will have a reference to the Accounting event id.
4) Unvalidated transaction rows with Accounting Event Id.
An accounting event id is generated for an invoice, once it becomes validated; therefore for invoices
not validated accounting event id must not be generated.
5) Payment rows without an Accounting Event Id.
Every payment will have an Accounting event id generated.
6) Payment Clearing rows without an Accounting Event Id.
Every payment cleared will have an Accounting event id generated.
7) Accounted Events with Posted_Flag not equal to Y.
8) Out of Sync Posted Flags (Invoices)
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Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

Posted_Flag column must be set to Y, if ACCRUAL_POSTED_FLAG or CASH_POSTED_FLAG is Y
9) Out of Sync Posted Flags (Payments)
Posted_Flag column must be set to Y, if ACCRUAL_POSTED_FLAG or CASH_POSTED_FLAG is Y
10) Unaccounted invoice distribution(s) in a closed period.
You cannot close a period with invoices having distributions unaccounted
11) Unaccounted payments(s) in a closed period.
You cannot close a period without creating accounting for payments
12) Unaccounted history row(s) in a closed period.
You cannot have any unaccounted transactions in a closed period.
13) Unaccounted event(s) in a closed period.
You cannot have any unaccounted events in a closed period.
14) Invoice: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events.
Every Invoice eligible for Accounting will have a reference of its Accounting event id
15) Payments: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events.
Every Payment eligible for Accounting will have a reference of its Accounting event id
16) Payment History: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events.
Every payment that is cleared will have a reference of it Accounting event id.
17) Invoice: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events but Headers exist.
For an invoice, if there is no Accounting event id, then no Headers must be available
18) Payments: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events but Headers exist.
For a payment, if there is no Accounting event id, then no Headers must be available
19) Payment History: Transaction row(s) referencing missing accounting events but Headers exist.
For a cleared payment, if there is no Accounting event id, then no Headers must be available
20) Payment(s) for multiple invoices with the accounting event id missing.
Accounting event id must be present for every payment
21) Event(s) with Accounting Date out of sync with base tables.
Accounting date must be same between Accounting Tables (XLA) and Transaction tables (AP)
22) Header(s) have out of balance Accounted/Entered amounts.
Transaction (Entered) Amount and Accounted Amount must be the same.
23)Headers with ROUNDING line(s) greater then $.10
Rounding off is automatically generated based on setup. However if any significant amount has been
rounded off, the same can be found out from this section.
24)Headers with WRITEOFF line(s) greater then $.10.
Writing off is actually book entry, where the company decides to cancel unnecessary entries.
However if any significant amount has been written off, the same can be found out from this
section. Apart from that, system also generates write off lines instead of liability account at times
during payment. So one need to be aware of the usage of Write offs happened.
25) Accounting Line(s) having account codes = -1.
Account codes are nothing but your Flexfield Account code combination, this will normally be any
value apart from -1. If it is -1, then you have not entered a valid account in the transaction or there
could be numerous other reasons as well.
26) Prepayment(s) having invalid amounts remaining.
Prepayments which are applied to invoices must not have any amount remaining.
27) Check(s) have inconsistent flags/dates/events within a payment transaction.
Inconsistencies from payment related tables.
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Accounting Health Check for Payables Module

28) Type 1 - 6 Orphans.
It is very clearly explained in the Output itself.
29) Line Number on Distribution Not Present/Not Found in Invoice Lines.
Every Distribution must be accompanied by a valid line number
What could have caused records to fall under the above sections? If there is an issue with the
system, it must be consistent for all transactions, why only for few transactions and not for all?
It always becomes difficult to find out the true cause of the issue. However we can speculate on the
possible causes which could have contributed to the issue. Few possible speculations are:

Latest Patch Set has not been applied

Data Corruption
User mistake
Unidentified Bug
Etc...

Do we have Accounting Health Check diagnostics for Release 11 too?

We do have the Accounting Health check diagnostics for Release 11, but it is not forming part of the
instance. It is available as a separate script available with oracle support, which can be downloaded
without raising a service request. After downloading the script, the same needs to be run from the
SQL Plus. Check Metalink references for the Note number.

Metalink References
Release 12 - RUP 6 and Above - 732161.1 - R12.0.6+: Oracle Payables Accounting Health Check Setup
Test
Release 12 - Rup 4 and below - 463727.1 - R12.0.[3-4] : Oracle Payables Accounting Health Check
Setup Test
Release 11i - 416699.1 - 11i - Payables Accounting Health Check

Thanks for your time.

Feedback can be emailed to the Author karthikeyanp1981@gmail.com or Administrator
ivruksha@gmail.com

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