Oracle P-Card

PCARD

It is a type of commercial credit card, used by organizations for payment of goods and services. This tool streamlines accounts payable processes, typically replacing paper checks as the payment method for low dollar purchases.

Similar to an individuals personal credit card, an employee will purchase goods with the credit card in their name.  Unlike ones personal credit card the program is based on the organizations credit, not the individuals.  The organization assumes the liability for payment.  Each month the cardholder will reconcile the expenses either in the P-Card providers program or their companies ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning System, i.e. Oracle, PeopleSoft) system.

Procurement Card Pros & Cons

Advantages/Pros:

• Procurement cards reduce the cycle time of purchasing transactions
• Procurement cards can improve supplier relations as suppliers receive payment within 2-5 days
• Procurement cards can reduce the number of supplier invoices, which could lead to a reduction in expenses on accounts payable personnel
• With proper controls, procurement cards can restrict maverick buying as well as buying non-authorized categories of goods and services
• Procurement card programs foster a feeling of empowerment among employees

Disadvantages/Cons:

• Procurement card use exposes the organization to the potential for undetected credit card fraud and identity theft, which can result in lost money
• Procurement cards generally don’t provide the same level of budget visibility as an ERP system does
• Multiple ways of placing orders (e.g., Pcard, eProcurement, ERP, requisitions, etc.) can confuse requisitioners who may not know the proper method for each type of purchase
• Procurement card spend data may not be integrated with other purchase data, resulting in incomplete information when conducting spend analysis

P-Card in EBS

Within Oracle Applications, the Procurement Card Process to pay the supplier without compromising data security. This functionality can be used by any organization willing to pay the expenses of purchased goods from suppliers as well as service used by the individuals for company purpose.

Apart from that, the usage of P-card can be extended to pay suppliers that are currently in the process of self-billing. This process is new to oracle iExpense module but have great creditability and performance to its usage.

The card transaction files are received from the card issuer and then uploading into specified location of oracle server. Next upload these data into oracle interface table AP_EXPNESE_FEED_LINES_ALL. Then run the following oracle program from payables responsibility to generate the invoice. Once loaded, Oracle standard program will validate the transactions and generate distribution lines. Depending on the setup, users can verify the transactions as well as approve and invoice will be imported into AP through standard process which will execute sequentially as below:

1. Procurement card Transaction Validation Program
2. Procurement card Transaction Verification Program
3. Procurement Card Transactions Approval Process
4. Create Procurement card Issuer Invoice
5. Payables Open Interface Import

In After successful execution of Procurement card Transaction Verification Program user can only change the distribution account and can validate the specific transactions. System have the provision to send notification for verification of transaction to the respective employee-manager hierarchy. The invoices are generated in payables with source as Procurement card .The payment can be made through Oracle standard payment process either with check or electronic payment.

Within Oracle ERP technology the functionality to store the sensitive information in system is compliant to PCI-DSS. This process is technically known as Encryption Process. Oracle standard single key encryption algorithm is used to store the sensitive data like credit card number, bank account number.