In Release 12 SLA, the account that goes to GL is built by SLA rules using the hundreds of transaction attributes provided by the product teams, so does the accounting flexfield (AFF) on the transaction doesn’t matter any more?
On the surface the AFF seems no longer important, or atleast not as important as it use to be, however with some retraining of the user of what AFF on the transaction means, it can be a way to capture non accounting related information that doesn’t already exist.
Sound like a Descriptive Flexfield to you? Yes, it is but the difference is the AFF is more prominent on the UI, its available in searches and standard reports.
Wow that’s great you say, small (big) caveat, the AFF is still the AFF, ie the structure and values are shared by the Chart of Accounts. You can get around this by creating segment security rules to overload the value problem. Other issue that I mentioned above, having people understand when the AFF is really the AFF or when the AFF is a structure to hold additional transaction attributes.
Anne,
a great idea here, but really questionable. Er… many usual (for Oracle Financials) things are changed if we consider AFF on transaction as “another DFF”. All seeded SLA rules then should be rewritten. Moreover, it may lead to a huge COA with values not belonging to accounting at all… may be some time is needed to grasp the idea that what you see in transaction AFF is possibly not you’ll see in accounting for this transaction. And if we remember about Transaction Methods Builder…
By: Anton on 21 Feb 08
at 8:58 pm
Hi Anton, yes its not an easy road to do this, the intention of SLA is that accounting be separated from transaction. In R12 it was not really an option to make it fully free and independent due to the exisiting customers expectations of what the product does. I hope in future releases that the separation is distinct and we can move away from this quasi meaning.
As for the life of SLA, its hard to say, will it die anytime soon no, but will it live on forever thats doubtful too.
By: AnneW on 21 Feb 08
at 10:54 pm