Operating Units and Multiple Organizations

Operating units are another type of organization classification. You use operating units to partition data for a subledger application such as Oracle Payables, Oracle Receivables, or Oracle General Ledger. When an enterprise utilizes more than one operating unit, it is said to have a “multiple organization installation.”

The implementation of multiple organizations in Oracle Projects supports multinational enterprises and enterprises with complex organizational structures.

This section explains how operating units enable Oracle Projects to charge to multiple organizations in a single installation. A multiple organization installation enables you to:

• Ensure secure data access for each operating unit
• Integrate with other Oracle Applications that support multi-organization processing

Note: If you plan to use reporting currencies with Oracle Projects, see information about reporting currencies in the Oracle Financials Implementation Guide and the Oracle General Ledger Implementation Guide.

About Multiple Organization Installations

A multiple organization installation in Oracle Projects works like this:

• A single operating unit (the project operating unit) owns each project and project template.
• Project numbers and project template numbers are unique across all operating units in a single installation.
• Customers are shared across operating units, while customer sites are associated with a specific operating unit.
• Individual operating units own customer agreements.
• You can charge, transfer, or allocate expenditures to any project as long as the expenditure operating unit and project operating unit is eligible for cross-charge. See: Cross Charge, Oracle Project Costing User Guide
• You enter and process costs in the same expenditure operating unit.
• You account for costs in the expenditure operating unit.
• You can view the Expenditure Items window in either project or cross-project mode:
  • In project mode, the window displays expenditures for a project in the project operating unit.
  • In cross-project mode, the window displays expenditures incurred in the expenditure operating unit.
• The project operating unit processes revenue and invoices for transactions from any expenditure operating units.
  • The project operating unit calculates draft revenue and draft invoice amounts using its bill rates, project billing rate overrides, or project labor multipliers.
  • The project operating unit generates revenue and invoices for project billing.
  • The project operating unit creates accounting for revenue in Oracle Subledger Accounting.The project operating unit interfaces invoices to Oracle Receivables.
• Transfers and splits generate transactions in the same operating unit as the original transaction, although the transfer may be to any chargeable project.
• The project operating unit submits reports that can be printed for a single project or a range of projects on project-related transactions across expenditure operating units.
• The project operating unit submits and stores project summary amounts. Project Status Inquiry performs queries on projects within the project operating unit.
• Reports for employees or organizations list all transactions entered within the operating unit from which the report is submitted.
• Each asset is capitalized from a single capital project to an Oracle Assets corporate book that is associated with the project operating unit’s ledger.

Understanding the Resource Operating Unit

For security and forecasting reasons, each resource in Oracle Projects is associated with an operating unit. This operating unit is initially defaulted from the organization operating unit. The operating unit of the resource is active for the duration of an assignment. It drives forecasting based on the transfer price defined for the operating unit if the resource is assigned on a project under a different operating unit, in other words, a borrowed resource.

Oracle Project Resource Management updates the resource operating unit whenever there are changes to the employee assignment or the default operating unit originally set up for the employee. Oracle Projects tracks these changes for record-keeping purposes and allows date-specific operating unit defaults for the resource.

Related Topics

Adding Operating Units

Providing Data Access Across Business Groups

Cross Charge, Oracle Project Costing User Guide

Multiple Organizations in Oracle Applications

Using Accounting Setup Manager, Oracle Financials Implementation Guide