Overview
This guide explains Reference Data Sets (RDS) in Oracle Fusion Cloud — what they are, why they were introduced, and how to configure them across business units for Receivables, Payables, and Assets. It follows a practical five-step setup walkthrough with a video demo.
Reference Data Sets are a foundational Fusion implementation concept. If you want to go deeper into how Financials modules are configured end to end — including Receivables, Payables, and business unit setup — the Oracle Fusion Financials Training covers all of this with live guided labs. You can start with a free sample session.
A full video walkthrough of this setup is also available: Reference Data Sets in Oracle Fusion Cloud.
What Are Reference Data Sets?
Oracle Fusion Cloud is a suite of enterprise applications used by organisations to manage business functions like finance, supply chain, and procurement. Large organisations are typically divided into multiple business units — each business unit handles a specific function, such as managing accounts payable or accounts receivable for a particular region or department.
When multiple business units exist within the same organisation, a question arises: should they all share the same configuration data, or should each business unit have its own separate set? For example, should all business units use the same payment terms, or should some business units have their own unique payment terms that others cannot access?
Reference Data Sets (RDS) is the feature in Oracle Fusion Cloud that answers this question. It gives organisations control over whether a data element — such as a payment term or a depreciation method — is shared across all business units or restricted to specific ones.
Why Reference Data Sets Were Introduced
Before Oracle Fusion Cloud, many organisations used Oracle eBusiness Suite (EBS), an older enterprise platform. In EBS, data elements like payment terms, accounting rules, and depreciation methods were automatically shared across all business units and asset books. There was no option to keep them separate.
Oracle Fusion Cloud changed this by introducing Reference Data Sets. Instead of everything being shared by default with no flexibility, Fusion lets you choose — for each supported data element — whether it should be accessible across all business units or only within specific ones. For official documentation on this feature, refer to the Oracle Financials Cloud documentation.
How Sharing and Partitioning Works
The RDS feature controls data at the data element level. A data element is a specific type of configuration record. Examples include Receivables Payment Terms, Payables Payment Terms, and Depreciation Methods.
Here is a practical example using Receivables Payment Terms:
- A payment term assigned to the Common reference data set is available to every business unit in the system.
- A payment term assigned to a specific reference data set — such as one named AMD1 — is only available to business units that have been assigned that same AMD1 reference data set.
When a user creates a receivables invoice for a particular business unit and opens the payment terms field, they will only see payment terms that belong to the reference data set assigned to that business unit, plus any terms from the Common set. Payment terms from other reference data sets will not appear in the list at all.
It is also important to note that Reference Data Sets can only be applied to the data elements listed in the Manage Business Unit Set Assignment page. Not every data element in Oracle Fusion supports partitioning — only the ones on this specific page can be configured this way.
The Three Types of Reference Data Sets
Oracle Fusion Cloud has three types of Reference Data Sets:
Common — Data elements assigned to the Common reference data set are available to all business units, regardless of which reference data set is assigned to those business units. When you look at the Manage Business Unit Set Assignment page, you will notice that the Common reference data set is assigned to most data elements by default. This means most data in the system is shared unless you specifically change it.
Enterprise — Data elements assigned to the Enterprise reference data set are only available to business units that have been specifically assigned the Enterprise reference data set for that data element.
Custom — Custom reference data sets work in the same way as Enterprise sets. The only difference is that the Enterprise set is provided by Oracle out of the box, while Custom reference data sets are created by users to match their specific business requirements. You can create as many custom reference data sets as needed.
Setting Up Reference Data Sets: Step by Step
The video demo walks through the complete setup process in five steps.
Step 1 – Decide which data elements to partition Go to the Manage Business Unit Set Assignment page to see the full list of data elements that support sharing or partitioning. Review the list and decide which elements need to be partitioned. In the demo example, Receivables Payment Terms is the element chosen for partitioning.
Step 2 – Create Reference Data Sets Navigate to the task Manage Reference Data Sets. Click Search to see all existing reference data sets in the system. Create new reference data sets as required — in the demo, two custom sets named AMD1 and AMD2 are created.
Step 3 – Assign Reference Data Sets to Business Units Go back to the Manage Business Unit Set Assignment page. Select the data element you want to partition — for example, Receivables Payment Terms — and assign the appropriate reference data set to each business unit. In the demo, the business unit is assigned the AMD1 reference data set.
Step 4 – Assign Reference Data Sets to Data Elements Go to the task Manage Receivables Payment Terms. For each payment term you create, set the Reference Data Set field to the appropriate set. In the demo, one payment term is created for AMD1 and another for AMD2.
Step 5 – Verify the Partitioning Create a receivables invoice for the business unit. Open the payment terms field on the invoice. You should only see the payment terms belonging to the reference data set assigned to that business unit (AMD1 in the demo) along with any Common set terms. The AMD2 payment term does not appear because AMD2 is not assigned to this business unit.
Reference Data Sets for Payables and Assets
Reference Data Sets are used in other modules as well, with some differences in behaviour.
For Payables, the only data element available for partitioning through business units is Payables Payment Terms. However, Payables Payment Terms work more flexibly than Receivables: you can assign multiple reference data sets to a single payables payment term. This means one payment term can be accessible to several specific business units at once. For a deeper look at how Payables is configured in Oracle Fusion, see the Oracle Fusion Payables Payment Process Guide.
For the Assets module, Reference Data Sets do not work at the business unit level. The Assets module works with asset books instead. When you open an asset book in the Manage Asset Books task, you will find a reference data set assignment section where you can configure how data elements like Depreciation Methods are shared across asset books. Depreciation Methods are typically assigned the Common reference data set by default. To understand how assets integrate with Payables in Oracle Fusion, see the FA Payables to Assets Flow guide.
Summary
Reference Data Sets in Oracle Fusion Cloud give organisations the ability to control how configuration data is shared or partitioned across business units and asset books. The setup follows five steps: decide what to partition, create the reference data sets, assign sets to business units, assign sets to individual data elements, and verify the result. Most data elements default to the Common set and are shared across all business units unless a specific reference data set is deliberately created and assigned.
