Milestone based billing in OM-AR or PA - Help needed

Question

Hello,
need your valuable suggestion to identify the best approach, including modules, for the following business scenario with Minimum Customization.
Business A directly receives orders/ contracts from customers. Business A does not manufacture any product. Instead they cut POs to different suppliers (against the items in the order) and the suppliers in-turn directly ships the material to customers. Business A directly invoice customers and also pay the suppliers.
Key points to note:
- Oracle E-Biz 11.5.10.2
- Customer billing will be milestone based e.g. 20% down payment at order booking, 40% prior to shipment and 40% upon material delivery etc of the total Order value.
- There may be one billing milestone for material acceptance by the customer
Possible solution approaches:
==================
We were thinking about OM, PO, INV (virtual), AR, AP etc with standard Drop Ship process but as we know, milestone based billing cannot be done thru normal OM-AR process.
If we use PA then another approach can be to disable interface transaction from OM to AR and then use customization:
i) In PA billing extension called by Generate Draft Invoice (GDI) process to look at eligible orders (in OM) for billing with appropriate amount
OR
ii) Create an interface to raise billing events in PA (using Event API) by looking at at eligible orders (in OM) for billing with appropriate amount.
However, using PA additionally along with OM will have following disadvantages:
a) Good amount of customizations for needed integrations
b) PA/ Projects will be added as an additional module without much benefit to the above mentioned business model.
Can we use AR in a different way here by disabiling the OM-AR interface transaction but using the OM details for multiple AR invoices thru some short customization. Or for that matter any other approach outside normal OM-AR process.
Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
Best Begards

Answer 1

Hello,
need your valuable suggestion to identify the best approach, including modules, for the following business scenario with Minimum Customization.
Business A directly receives orders/ contracts from customers. Business A does not manufacture any product. Instead they cut POs to different suppliers (against the items in the order) and the suppliers in-turn directly ships the material to customers. Business A directly invoice customers and also pay the suppliers.
Key points to note:
- Oracle E-Biz 11.5.10.2
- Customer billing will be milestone based e.g. 20% down payment at order booking, 40% prior to shipment and 40% upon material delivery etc of the total Order value.
- There may be one billing milestone for material acceptance by the customer
Possible solution approaches:
==================
We were thinking about OM, PO, INV (virtual), AR, AP etc with standard Drop Ship process but as we know, milestone based billing cannot be done thru normal OM-AR process.
If we use PA then another approach can be to disable interface transaction from OM to AR and then use customization:
i) In PA billing extension called by Generate Draft Invoice (GDI) process to look at eligible orders (in OM) for billing with appropriate amount
OR
ii) Create an interface to raise billing events in PA (using Event API) by looking at at eligible orders (in OM) for billing with appropriate amount.
However, using PA additionally along with OM will have following disadvantages:
a) Good amount of customizations for needed integrations
b) PA/ Projects will be added as an additional module without much benefit to the above mentioned business model.
Can we use AR in a different way here by disabiling the OM-AR interface transaction but using the OM details for multiple AR invoices thru some short customization. Or for that matter any other approach outside normal OM-AR process.
Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.
Best Begards