Use the Relationship subtab of the Account Overview page to define, view, and update relationships among existing accounts to control payment and commitment application. You can create relationships between any customer accounts and indicate that the relationship is either one-way or reciprocal.

You must also indicate if the relationship is a bill-to or ship-to relationship, or both. When you specify a customer account for billing, you enable the relationship in Receivables and establish a one-way, or parent-child, relationship, unless you indicate that the relationship is reciprocal.

When you specify a relationship for one account, Receivables automatically sets up the relationship for the related account. For example, if you check the Bill To and Ship To check boxes for the parent account, the check boxes are automatically checked for the related account.

When you apply receipts to an invoice in a one-way relationship, the parent account can apply receipts to the invoices in the related account, but receipts in the related account cannot be applied to the parent account's invoices. When applying invoices to commitments, an account can only apply invoices to commitments that it owns or to commitments of a parent customer account to which it is related.

Reciprocal account relationships allow parties to pay each other's debit items and enter invoices against each other's commitments.

If you want to let a party pay for another party's transactions, you do not have to define relationships for each of these. You can simply set the system option Allow Payment of Unrelated Invoices to Yes. See: Defining Receivables System Options.

You can define an unlimited number of customer account relationships.

In Order Management, related customers share agreements, commitments, invoice-to and ship-to addresses, and contacts.

Oracle Order Management provides a Setup Parameter, Customer Relationships, that you can use to determine how to process customer account relationships when entering orders. If you check the Customer Relationships check box, then you can choose agreements, commitments, invoice-to and ship-to addresses, and contacts of a related customer. If you clear the check box, then relationships are not used, and therefore you can only select agreements, commitments, invoice-to and ship-to addresses, and contacts of the sold-to customer.

Prerequisites

• Define Accounts

To update a relationship:

1. Navigate to the Relationship subtab of the Account Overview page.

   All active relationships of the account are displayed in the Account Relationships region.

2. In the Account Relationships region, click Update.

3. Select (or deselect) the relationship types, Bill To or Ship To, and status, Active or Inactive, as appropriate.

To create a relationship:

1. In the Account Relationships region on the Relationship subtab of the Account Overview page, click Create Account Relationship.

2. Search and select the related account (account to which you want to relate).

3. Select the relevant operating unit.

4. Select one or more relationship types.

   Note: Unless you indicate that the relationship is reciprocal (by selecting the Reciprocal relationship type), selecting the Bill To or Ship To relationship types establishes a one-way, or parent-child, relationship.