In different countries a number of companies prefer to accept goods formally before being invoiced by the supplier. To record and view customer acceptance, Oracle Order Management integrates with Accounts Receivables and Costing. The customer can accept the goods in any or in combination of the following ways:
Pre-Billing Acceptance (goods are accepted before Invoicing) - Implicit or Explicit
Post-Billing Acceptance (goods are accepted after Invoicing) - Implicit or Explicit
In Pre-Billing Customer Acceptance, once the goods are accepted, invoicing is carried out. In Post-Billing Acceptance, the revenue recognition process is deferred and linked to customers accepting the shipped goods. Only full acceptance is recorded; partial acceptance is not recorded. Post-billing acceptance is not supported for lines with deferred accounting rules.
Implicit Customer Acceptance
The field Acceptance Days on the Sales Order line (folder enabled on the Others tab), enables you to see the time limits specified on customer acceptance. This is set up in Receivables (Revenue Management) in the deferral reason definitions. For more information on setting up deferral reasons and Expire Activities, please refer to the Oracle Receivables User Guide.
Implicit Customer Acceptance
Implicit Acceptance of Pre-Billing and Post-Billing is checked using the Implicit Acceptance request set. This request set verifies the expiration of implicit acceptances.
Explicit Customer Acceptance
The Actions item Fulfillment Acceptance enables you to accept the goods explicitly. This is available in the Sales Orders Lines window and on selecting this option, the Order Details window of the Order Information Portal opens.
Explicit Acceptance is recorded in Order Information Portal, using which you can search and accept/reject multiple lines at a time.
Once you select Accept or Reject, the Acceptance Status on the line in OIP changes to Accepted or Rejected. You need to specify an Acceptance Date, signature and other fields for the acceptance to be recorded in OIP. The order status in the Sales Order window also changes to Closed. The Sales Orders window has two other dates - Earliest Acceptable Date and Latest Acceptable Date - that are related to Scheduling and not to the Customer Acceptance functionality. Acceptance details like Acceptance Date, Acceptance Comments etc., are allowed for update only before the line is closed and are available for users who have the privilege (function security) to perform explicit acceptance.
Note: The acceptance date can be before the fulfillment date, however, it cannot be prior to the actual shipment date. If the actual shipment date is not available, then the application validates the acceptance date against the fulfillment date and does not allow the acceptance date to be prior to the fulfillment date.
Though Customer Acceptance is available at both levels - header and line, the Sales Orders line (Others tab) contains the following Customer Acceptance related fields (folder enabled):
Specify an Acceptance Name in the field, this is also known as Deferral Reason and has been defined in Receivables, Revenue Management. If a number of days that the acceptance will expire in, has been defined in Receivables, then the Acceptance Number of Days will display the value. Similarly, the Acceptance Expire Event will display from the Receivables field. These will be populated in case of Implicit Acceptance.
Customer Acceptance for Promotional Goods
When the original item has promotional goods associated with it, both need to be individually accepted by the customer. The customer may accept one and reject the other.
Customer Acceptance for ATO/PTO/CTO Items
In the case of ATO models:
Model Lines are eligible for acceptance when the configured items have been fulfilled. The options lines are not enabled for customer acceptance.
When acceptance of a model line is recorded, the acceptance detail is copied for each child under that model.
In the case of PTO models:
Customer Acceptance is only available at the top model line only.
Top model lines are eligible for acceptance when all of the children lines requiring acceptance are at 'Pending Fulfillment Acceptance' status.
When acceptance is recorded for a top model line, the information is copied to all of the children including Included Items.
For kits (PTO items):
Acceptance only at the top model. All included items will be accepted when top model line is accepted.
Acceptance is available at the PTO item.
When acceptance is recorded for the PTO item, the information is copied to all of the included items in the kit.
Please note that in case of Sales Agreements, if the goods are rejected or treated as scrap, an RMA (Return Material Authorization) needs to be created. The sales agreement quantity and amount are always adjusted during pre-billing acceptance or rejection.