During the Payables Invoice Interface process, one of the validations involve validating the Vendor Number for which the Invoice is being created for. The Validation logic checks in the system to see if a vendor already exists for that vendor number. If Yes, then an Invoice can be created for that Supplier. Else, since that Supplier doesn’t exist, Invoices cannot be created against that supplier and the validation should result in error.

DECLARE
   p_vendor_num   ap_suppliers.segment1%TYPE;
   l_vendor_id    ap_suppliers.vendor_id%TYPE;

   CURSOR cur_vendor_num_chk (cp_vendor_num ap_suppliers.segment1%TYPE)
   IS
      SELECT vendor_id
        FROM ap_suppliers
       WHERE segment1 = cp_vendor_num;
BEGIN
   OPEN cur_vendor_num_chk (p_vendor_num);

   FETCH cur_vendor_num_chk INTO l_vendor_id;

   IF (cur_vendor_num_chk%FOUND)
   THEN
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (
            'Supplier exists in the system '
         || CHR (10)
         || ' Thus, Invoice Can be created for this vendor.');
   ELSE
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line (
         'Supplier does not exist and Invoice cannot be created using this Supplier');
   END IF;

   CLOSE cur_vendor_num_chk;
EXCEPTION
   WHEN OTHERS
   THEN
      DBMS_OUTPUT.put_line ('Error while validation: ' || SQLERRM);
END;

Objective: The primary objective of this post is to understand why and how to import data into Oracle Applications in order to create Payables Invoices.

As one can understand the difference between a conversion process and an Interface – A conversion process is conducted once during a cycle to import legacy data into the Oracle, whereas an Interface is used on a daily basis to import external data into Oracle.

Many a times, users are given the task of importing external data into Oracle and create AP Invoices. Invoice data comes from sources including:

• EDI invoices from your suppliers that you load through Oracle e-Commerce Gateway.
• Supplier invoices that you transfer through the Oracle XML Gateway.
• Invoices that you load using Oracle SQL*Loader lease invoices from Oracle Property Manager.
• Lease payments from Oracle Assets, credit card transaction data that you load using the Credit Card Invoice Interface Summary.
• Invoices that you enter through the Invoice Gateway.

An Interface process goes through the following stages. A brief overview of the process is as below.

Invoice_Interface_Process

Step1: Loading into Staging table

Also, the inbound data can be loaded into the staging table in either of the following ways:

1.  Interfaced into the staging table using middleware technologies like webmethods or SOA.
2. The data can be created and placed in a csv file and can be loaded into the staging table using SQL Loader. (Please check my sql loader tutorial for understanding this process).

Usually the data and the staging tables are designed in such a way that one row in the staging table has all the header and Line Information associated with the Payables Invoice. Also, the staging table is designed in such a way that it mimics the columns in the AP Invoice Header and Line tables. (AP_INVOICES_ALL and AP_INVOICE_LINES_ALL) tables.

Step 2: Validating Staging table

Once, the data is placed in the staging table, the data here goes through validation. Some of the basic validations that are required for AP Invoice Interface are:

1. Validate Invoice Number.
2. Validate Vendor Name.
3. Validate Vendor Number
4. Validate Invoice Type
5. Validate Invoice Amount
6. Validate Payment Terms.
7. Validate Payment Method.
8. Validate GL Date.
9. Validate Payment Reason Code.
10. Validate Line Type.
11. Validate Sum of Line Amount
12. Validate POET (Project, Organization, Expenditure, Task).
13. Validate Tax Code.
14. Validate Operating Unit.
15. Validate Exchange Rate.
16. Validate Exchange Type.
17. Validate Bank Account.
18. Validate Tax Location and Tax Code.

And depending on the data / columns in the staging table – more validations may be required based on the current requirement.

During the validation process, each record in the staging table is marked either as a Processed record or a failed record, depending on whether the record passed validation or not.

If the record fails validation, then the corresponding process_flag (or whatever the name of the column that you give) column in the staging table is marked as E (error). Else, if the record passes validation, then the process_flag for that record is marked as V (Validated)

Step 3: Loading into Interface Table. 

All the records from the staging table that has the process_flag as ‘V‘ are then inserted into the Interface tables.

All the Header information from the staging table is passed to AP_Invoices_Interface table and all the Line Information is passed to AP_Invoice_lines_interface table.

Some of the important columns that have to be populated in the Interface tables are:

AP_INVOICES_INTERFACE:

AP_INVOICE_LINES_INTERFACE:

Step 4: Submit Standard Program.

Once the data is inserted into the Interface table, submit the “Payables Open Interface Import” standard import program to import the Interface data and create the Payables Invoices.

l_request_id := FND_REQUEST.SUBMIT_REQUEST     ( application =>  application_short_name
                                               , program     => 'APXIIMPT' 
                                               , description => NULL
                                               , start_time  => SYSDATE
                                               , sub_request => FALSE
                                               , argument1   => org_id
                                               , argument2   => p_source
                                               , argument3   => NULL
                                               , argument4   => NULL
                                               , argument5   => NULL
                                               , argument6   => NULL
                                               , argument7   => NULL
                                               , argument8   => NULL
                                               , argument9   => NULL
                                               , argument10  => NULL -- Debug Flag
                                               , argument11  => NULL
                                               , argument12  => NULL
                                               , argument13  => NULL --g_user_id
                                               , argument14  => NULL --g_login_id

Step 5: Error Handling in Interface tables.

When data is being migrated from Interface tables to the base tables in the above step – some of the data in the Interface tables may get into error and will not be used to create the Invoices. These records can be found in the AP_INTERFACE_REJECTIONS table.

The join between the AP_Interface_Rejections and the two Interface tables is: 

select air.reject_lookup_code, air.* 
from ap_interface_rejections air 
    ,ap_invoices_interface ait
where air.parent_id = ait.invoice_id 
and air.parent_table = 'AP_INVOICES_INTERFACE'

select air.reject_lookup_code, air.* 
from ap_interface_rejections air 
    ,ap_invoice_lines_interface ail
where air.parent_id = ail.invoice_line_id 
and air.parent_table = 'AP_INVOICE_LINES_INTERFACE'

Step 6: Verify the created Invoices

Login into Oracle Applications and navigate to Payables Superuser to query the created Invoices from the front end application and in the following base tables:

select * from ap_invoices_all

select * from ap_invoice_lines_all