Applying Holds

There are three types of holds you can use to prevent payment of an invoice:

Payables automatically applies certain holds to exception invoices during Invoice Validation. You cannot manually apply these system holds.

For example, if the sum of an invoice's distribution amounts does not equal the Invoice Amount, Payables will apply a Distribution Variance hold to the invoice during Invoice Validation.

Applying a Hold to an Invoice

Prerequisite

To apply a hold to an invoice:

  1. Find the invoice in the Invoices window. See: Finding Invoices.

  2. Select the invoice and choose the Holds tab. Apply a hold by selecting a Hold Name from the list of values. You can select from all Invoice Validations defined with the type Invoice Hold Reason. You can apply as many holds to an invoice as you require. Payables displays a full audit trail of all current and released invoice holds in this window.

  3. Save your work.

Supporting Engineering and Construction Subcontractor Payment Management

Engineering and Construction firms have unique requirements regarding subcontractor management, subcontractor payment, and customer billing. It is a common practice in the Engineering and Construction industry to hire a Subcontractor by a General contractor to perform specific portions of work as part of the overall construction project. Improvements in Payment management of Subcontractor are considered to be a top priority to the Engineering and Construction industry in recent years, considering Subcontractor role in successful completion of the project. To synergize the efforts of Subcontractor in overall success of project it is very important to do timely payments to place appropriate controls in the Payment process.

Payables Department must have efficient and effective controls on payments. Payables department must ensure that suppliers are paid only when they are supposed to be paid as per the terms defined. Till then the suppliers should be held for any payment.

The Business Process related to Engineering and Construction usually includes the Pay when Paid terms and other deliverable required from the Subcontractor Pay When Paid is a payment term common in the Engineering and Construction Industry where subcontractors are not paid until the customer pays the general contractor.

PO Deliverable are documents required to be submitted or renewed by the subcontractor. If this is not done as per the terms, the payments are held for the supplier.

For details on the Business process, refer to Oracle Projects User Guide.

Payables supports automatic Payment Holds and Releases in following scenarios:

You define the Hold and Reasons on the Holds tab on the Invoices Workbench window. Two new types of Invoice Hold Names, Pay when paid scenario and PO Deliverable, and two new Invoice Release reasons, Project Manager release and Automatic Release, are included.

This lets you hold the payment if pay when paid term is enabled or if Deliverable is not received from tbe subcontractor

Pay When Paid Scenario

To support pay when paid scenario, you must first enable these terms in the Purchase Order. Whenever invoices are validated (online or through the Concurrent Process), if the invoice is matched to Purchase order or receipt, and any of the matched PO has Pay When Paid marked as Yes, the invoice is put on hold with hold reason as Pay when Paid hold. You can release the Pay When Paid Hold:

Refer to the Oracle Projects User Guide for more details.

To support payment control with regard to PO deliverable, whenever invoices are validated (online or through the Concurrent Process), if the PO Deliverable are not received or renewed as per the terms and set up, the invoices are put on PO Deliverable Hold. The hold is released when the PO Deliverable are received.

PO Deliverable Hold can be released in the following ways:

Refer to Oracle Projects and Oracle Procurement User Guides for more details.

Applying a Hold to a Scheduled Payment

Prerequisite

To apply a hold to a scheduled payment:

  1. Find the invoice in the Invoices window. See: Finding Invoices.

  2. Select the invoice and choose the Scheduled Payments tab. To hold a scheduled payment, check Hold. By checking the Hold check box, you will not be able to pay the scheduled payment until you remove the hold by checking the check box again.

    If you want to partially pay an invoice that has only one scheduled payment, you can choose Split to break the scheduled payment in two. This way you can place one of the lines on hold, while leaving the other free for payment. You can create as many scheduled payments as you require as long as the sum of the Gross Amounts for all equals the Invoice Amount.

    For example, the supplier sends you an invoice for two desks and delivers only one. You can partially pay the invoice by splitting the scheduled payment in two and applying a hold to one scheduled payment. You can release the hold after delivery, making the scheduled payment available for payment.

  3. Save your work.

Applying Supplier Site Holds

Prerequisite

To apply supplier site holds:

Prevent payment of multiple supplier invoices by applying a hold to the supplier site rather than on each individual invoice. There are several types of supplier related holds (also known as vendor holds) that you enable for a supplier site. Payables also provides these options at the Supplier level, but Payables only uses these values to provide defaults for new supplier sites that you enter. The options you enable at the Supplier Site control Payables processing:

APPLYING HOLDS RESTRICTIONS:

PAYMENT BATCH SELECTED INVOICES: You cannot apply holds to an invoice you have selected for payment in a payment batch.

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