GNM_RCS_Credit_Notes_TS

• 1. .Introduction

     1. Purpose

The document GNM_RCS_Other_Payments_and_Expenses_FS.docx is the functional specification that describes what business functions RCS supports in relation to credit notes, and other payments and expenses.

This document is one of a set of technical specifications that provide details of how those functions are implemented in RCS.

• 1. Scope

This document focusses on the entry of credit notes in RCS. Separate documents deal with all aspects of other payments and expenses.

This document is intended as a high-level technical document outlining how the relevant business functions are implemented in terms of software modules.

Importantly, this document does not aim to provide the level of detail that would be required in a programming specification in areas such as program structure, detailed business rules, data integrity, validation, locking considerations, data security, and calls to/from other software modules, performance considerations, and so forth.

For details of program logic and coding, the reader should refer to the program files themselves.

• 1. .Credit notes

Credit notes are recorded in Oracle AP to reverse payment instructions. There is no automated synchronisation between Oracle AP and RCS in relation to credit notes and so the credit notes are manually recorded on RCS to provide a clear record of a supplier’s account with GNM Editorial.

The Credit notes screen is accessed from this menu option: Finance → Credit notes

The Oracle Form that opens is called rcs_ecla_040_pc.fmb

The Credit notes screen opens blank, and works in a very similar way to the Other payments & expenses screen. It is used to enter the details of one or more new credit notes; or an existing credit note can be searched for to review or amend it.

A Credit note can be linked back to a Contract, Commission or Other payment and expense by its unique reference number.

The data required for a Credit note is very similar to that required for Other payments and expenses, and as such both are stored in the same database table: EXPENSE_CLAIMS.

Because all the details of a credit note are held on one line the centre section of the screen scrolls right to left revealing more fields, as shown below (note the position of the horizontal scrollbar and the prompts above the fields in the centre of the screen):

• 1. Entering new credit notes

Users enter the details of new credit notes in the above screen.

The original design was very similar to that of the Other payments and expenses screen, to maintain consistency across the system. The resulting design minimizes keystrokes when entering credit notes. This is facilitated by (a) using field defaults wherever possible, (b) automatically launching LOVs on entry to fields (where applicable) and (c) having all the credit note details on one line so that the user can see the line above at all times and use the copy record and copy fields functions where applicable.

When a credit note is first saved it is allocated a unique 6-character cRedit reference number (RRN). This reference is prefixed with an “R” with the remaining characters generated from a database sequence ECLA_ID. The reference is generated in the same way as many others in the system and the detail of this process is described in the core technical documentation.

• 1. Finding a credit note

If the user needs to find a particular credit note they can do so by searching for its unique reference number, or by querying all credit notes for a specific payee and scrolling through the results to find the one they are looking for.

• 1. Search by RRN

The user can enter an RRN in the search box at the top of the screen and then press the Find “…RRN” button to have the details of that credit note returned.

• 1. Search by Payee

By pressing the Find “…payee” button the user is presented with a list of payees against whom credit notes have been recorded. When they choose a payee from the list all of their credit notes are listed in the screen, and they can scroll through them in the usual way.

• 1. Credit note status

The status of a credit note can be displayed at any time by pressing the “Status…” button. The resulting popup window identifies who entered and last updated the credit note. Credit notes are not approved in RCS so there is no approval data. An example is shown below:

• 1. Visibility

All Editorial users and Accounts users have access to the credit notes screen. Syndication users do not.

RCS administrators and Accounts users can see all credit notes, whereas other users can only see credit notes for the cost centres they deal with.

Accounts users can view the credit notes but they cannot update them.

End of Document