Order-resource fulfillment and management system and approach

• US 20060015455A1
• Filed: 06/09/2005
• Published: 01/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Syncada LLC (US Bancorp)
• Original Assignee: Syncada LLC (US Bancorp)
• Inventors: Hahn-Carlson, Dean W., Suits, David A., Kanathur, Raghunandan N.
• Granted Patent: US 7,693,791 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/39
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

Historical data is used to manage and authorize payment for merchant offerings for transactions among a plurality of transaction parties. According to an example embodiment of the present invention, invoiced item quantities are processed using historical fulfilled and billed quantities of each item. If invoiced item quantities involved items that have been fulfilled but not billed, payment for the invoiced items is authorized. If some or all of the invoiced items have not been fulfilled or have been previously billed, payment authorization is withheld for at least the portion of unfulfilled or previously billed (and paid) invoiced items. With this approach, historical information relative to order fulfillment and payment status is used to automatically process invoices (e.g., audit the invoices for payment).

Claims

1. A transaction-processing system for managing payment resources for a plurality of transactions involving merchant offerings among parties including buyers and sellers, different ones of the plurality of transactions involving different sets of buyer and seller parties, the system comprising:

a data storage arrangement adapted, for each of the plurality of transactions, to store data characterizing historical fulfillment and billed quantities for ordered items of the transaction; and

a computer arrangement adapted, for each of the ordered items listed on an invoice for each of the plurality of transactions, to

associate the invoice with one of the plurality of transactions;

authorize payment for each ordered item listed on the invoice as a function of a billed quantity of the ordered item on the invoice and a difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and the historical billed quantity for the ordered item as indicated in the data stored in the data storage arrangement for the associated transaction, and

update historical billed quantities for the ordered item as characterized in the data stored in the data storage arrangement as a function of the billed quantity in the invoice.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to, in response to the billed quantity of the ordered item on the invoice being more than the difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and billed quantity information for the ordered item in the data storage arrangement, identifying the quantity of the particular ordered item on the invoice that exceeds the difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and billed quantity information as over-billed.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to authorize payment for a quantity of the particular ordered item on the invoice that does not exceed the difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and billed quantity information for the ordered item in the data storage arrangement.

4. The system of claim 3, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to communicate the quantity of over-billed items on the invoice to the seller party to which the over-billed items apply.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to receive information confirming fulfillment of a particular item for an order and to automatically update the historical fulfillment quantity data in the data storage arrangement for the particular item to reflect the confirmed fulfillment information.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to:

monitor changes made to selected data fields in the data storage arrangement; and

in response to a change in one of the selected data fields, update another related data field.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to automatically link related data fields for a particular transaction as a function of a transaction party to which the related data fields apply.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to compare information in each invoice with profile information stored in the databank to match the invoice with historical fulfillment and billed quantities and to use the matched historical fulfillment and billed quantities when authorizing payment for each ordered item listed on the invoice.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the data storage arrangement is adapted to store transaction-profile attributes for each transaction, the transaction-profile attributes including information for identifying order information for the transaction and at least one of a buyer and a seller involved with the transaction, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to authorize payment for each ordered item listed on the invoice as a function of the transaction-profile attributes.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to monitor changes in a transaction-profile attribute that indicates the fulfillment status of an order and, in response to changes in the fulfillment status of a particular order, update other transaction-profile attributes that relate to the fulfillment status for the particular order.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to update transaction-profile attributes including payment-related attributes in response to a particular order being fulfilled.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to facilitate payment for the particular order in response to an update to payment-related attributes for the particular order indicating that payment is appropriate.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to authorize payment for each ordered item listed on the invoice as a function of a billed quantity of the ordered item on the invoice and a difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and the historical billed quantity for the ordered item as indicated in the data stored in the data storage arrangement by comparing billed quantity information for the ordered item on the invoice with the historical fulfillment and billed quantity information for the ordered item as indicated in the data stored in the data storage arrangement.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the data storage arrangement is adapted, for each of the plurality of transactions, to store data characterizing a paid quantity for ordered items of the transaction and wherein the computer arrangement is adapted, in response to payment being authorized, to update the data characterizing the paid quantity for the ordered items in the data storage arrangement.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to audit and validate the stored data characterizing historical fulfillment quantities as a function of receipt data, thereby validating that received quantity resources have been added to the historical fulfillment quantities.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the data storage arrangement is adapted to store data characterizing historical fulfillment and billed quantities for ordered items of a the transaction on a line item by line item basis and wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to authorize said payment for and update said historical billed quantities on a line item by line item basis.

17. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to update historical fulfillment data in the data storage arrangement as a function of the time of delivery of an ordered item.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer arrangement is adapted to update historical fulfillment data in the data storage arrangement as a function of the condition of the ordered item upon delivery thereof.

19. A method for automatically managing payment resources for a plurality of transactions involving merchant offerings among parties including buyers and sellers, the method comprising, for each of the plurality of transactions:

associating invoice data with a particular one of the transactions as a function of data in the invoice and stored transaction-profile information; and

authorizing payment from a buyer to a seller for seller-invoiced item quantities as a function of

fulfilled quantity data indicating items that have been fulfilled by the seller for the transaction, and

historical billed status data for the item, the historical billed status data being indicative of a portion of the total item quantity that has been previously-billed.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein authorizing payment includes authorizing payment for at least a portion of the seller-invoiced item quantities that does not exceed a difference between the fulfilled quantity data and previously-billed item quantity.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein authorizing payment includes authorizing payment for at least a portion of the fulfilled quantity of the seller-invoiced item quantities that does not exceed an order total quantity for the item.

22. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

in response to authorizing payment for seller-invoiced item quantities, storing data indicating the quantity of the item for which payment was authorized.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

in response to receiving item quantity receipt data from a buyer for a particular transaction, associating the receipt data with a particular one of the transactions for seller-invoiced item quantities as a function of the transaction-profile information, and updating historical fulfillment data for the associated transaction indicating the quantity of the item indicated in the receipt data.

24. A method for managing payment resources for a plurality of transactions involving merchant offerings among parties including buyers and sellers, different ones of the plurality of transactions involving different sets of buyer and seller parties, the method comprising:

for each of the plurality of transactions, storing data characterizing historical fulfillment and billed quantities for ordered items of the transaction; and

for each of the ordered items listed on an invoice for each of the plurality of transactions,

associating the invoice with one of the plurality of transactions;

authorizing payment for each ordered item listed on the invoice as a function of a billed quantity of the ordered item on the invoice and a difference between the historical fulfillment quantity and the historical billed quantity for the ordered item as indicated in the data stored in the data storage arrangement for the associated transaction, and

updating historical billed quantities for the ordered item as characterized in the data stored in the data storage arrangement as a function of the billed quantity in the invoice.