AUTOMATED TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM AND APPROACH

• US 20090150304A1
• Filed: 02/16/2009
• Published: 06/11/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/10/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: US Bank National Association (US Bancorp)
• Original Assignee: US Bank National Association (US Bancorp)
• Inventors: Hahn-Carlson, Dean W., Langer, Richard G., Xie, Weiwen, Armstrong, Kevin M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,069,054 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/400
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/083 Shipping
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/018 Certifying business or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0283 Price estimation or determination
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions

Abstract

Transaction management for contract and contract-related approaches is facilitated. According to an example embodiment of the present invention, a transaction management computer is programmed to automatically set contract terms for a transaction based on business rules previously established between parties to a transaction. In one implementation, the transaction management node automatically derives a contract term including a pricing-related term for a transaction between a buyer and seller using contract information therefor. In one instance, previously-agreed-upon price approaches, such as fixed pricing, seller-controlled pricing, quantity-related tiered pricing and pricing management schemes are stored and used by the transaction management node to automatically derive the prices. With these approaches, pricing disputes that can occur after a transaction has been processed are reduced and/or eliminated.

Claims

1. A computer-based data processing method comprising:

storing data for subsequent processing by an integrated, electronic supply chain processing computer engine, including storing

respective sets of business rules of disparate and separately-operating entity participants for implementing transactions therebetween, and

respective sets of contract data corresponding to contract terms useful for executing multiple transactions involving the disparate and separately-operating entity participants, each set of contract data including previously-negotiated parameters corresponding to prospective transactions,

in an integrated, electronic supply chain processing computer engine, performing the following steps for each active transaction involving at least two of the disparate and separately-operating entity participants and pertaining to one of the sets of contract data,

retrieving a set of the business rules for at least one of the participants,

selecting previously-negotiated parameters and a price-impacting variable parameter for the active transaction based upon the contract data,

based upon the retrieved set of business rules, selecting and executing one of a plurality of algorithms to derive a new price term, using the selected parameters and price-impacting variable as variable inputs to the algorithm, and

setting a price for the active transaction based upon the derived price term.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of selecting and executing one of a plurality of algorithms includes selecting an algorithm that operates, at a single computer processor, on data including different sets of rule data respectively corresponding to disparate and separately-operating entity participants for the active transaction.

3. The method of claim 1, further including auditing the set price against business rules for one of the participants.

4. A system comprising:

a data storage circuit for retrieving and storing data for subsequent processing by an integrated, electronic supply chain processing computer engine, including retrieving and storing

respective sets of first data corresponding to disparate and separately-operating entity participants, and

respective sets of second data corresponding to contract terms useful for executing multiple active transactions involving the disparate and separately-operating entity participants, and

a plurality of algorithms, each of the plurality of algorithms operating on

first data, from the sets of the first data, corresponding to at least two of the disparate and separately-operating entity participants, and

second data, from the sets of the second data, including

previously-negotiated parameters corresponding to prospective transactions, each prospective transaction involving said at least two of the disparate and separately-operating entity participants, and

variable parameters that impact prices for the multiple transactions; and

a computer-based data processor, configured for performing the following steps for each prospective transaction,

selecting one of the plurality of algorithms,

from an applicable set of previously-negotiated parameters, selecting previously-negotiated parameters for execution by the selected one of the plurality of algorithms,

retrieving current transaction data that corresponds to a parameter in the set of variable parameters on which the selected one of the plurality of algorithms operates,

executing the selected one of the plurality of algorithms with the selected previously-negotiated parameters and with retrieved active transaction data to automatically derive a new term,

assessing for validation said one of the prospective transactions for the current transaction with the new term at least partly defining a price for the current transaction and,

in the event that said one of the prospective transactions is validated for the current transaction, generating payment data based on the price, and

in the event that said one of the prospective transactions is not validated for the current transaction, generating exception data that identifies a reason that the prospective transaction is not to be validated.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the computer-based data processor is a single computer processor circuit configured for selecting one of the plurality of algorithms by selecting an algorithm that operates on first data including different sets of rule data respectively corresponding to disparate and separately-operating entity participants for the current transaction.