Systems and Methods for Expense Management

• US 20140105510A1
• Filed: 10/16/2012
• Published: 04/17/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Original Assignee: American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. (American Express Company)
• Inventors: Chelst, Azriel, Mangeney, Estelle, Pham, Lee
• Granted Patent: US 9,208,528 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/218
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/125 Finance or payroll

Abstract

Systems, methods, and articles of manufacture for expense management are disclosed. A user may submit receipts for one or more transactions into an expense management system. The expense management system may extract information from the receipts and match the extracted information to one or more of a plurality of Records of Charge (ROCs). The expense management system may match the extracted information to a ROC based on vendor name, location, time stamp, and the like. The expense management system may further assign a ROC to an expense category. The expense management system may assign a ROC to an expense category based on a standard industrial classification (SIC) code of a merchant, a category assigned to a different ROC, and a location associated with the ROC. An expense report for all submitted receipts may be generated.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computer-based system for expense reporting, an image of a receipt;

retrieving, by the computer-based system, a record of charge (ROC) associated with a transaction account in response to the receiving; and

matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC based upon information acquired from the image of the receipt.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to a category of expense.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to a category of expense based upon at least one of:

a standard industrial classification (SIC) code of a merchant, a category assigned to a different ROC, and a location associated with the ROC.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC based upon at least one of:

a merchant identifier acquired from the image, an transaction identifier acquired from the image, a time stamp acquired from the image, and a total amount of a transaction acquired from the image.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the computer-based system, a plurality of images of a plurality of receipts;

retrieving, by the computer-based system, a plurality of records of charge (ROC) associated with a transaction account in response to the receiving; and

matching, by the computer-based system, one of the plurality of images to one of the plurality of ROCs, based upon information acquired from each of the plurality of images.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising submitting, by the computer-based system, the matched image and ROC to an expense management system.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising performing, by the computer-based system, an optical character recognition process in association with the image of the receipt.

8. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computer-based system for expense reporting, a record of charge (ROC);

requesting, by the computer-based system, an image of a receipt associated with the ROC in response to the receiving the ROC; and

matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC in response to the receiving the image of the receipt.

9. The method of claim 8, further matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC in response to receiving the image of the receipt within a period of time after transmitting an alert for the requesting.

10. The method of claim 8, further comprising receiving, by the computer-based system, an image of encoded data printed on the receipt separate from the image of the receipt.

11. The method of claim 8 further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to a category of expense.

12. The method of claim 8, further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to a category of expense based upon at least one of:

a standard industrial classification (SIC) code of a merchant, a category assigned to a different ROC, and a location associated with the ROC.

13. The method of claim 8, further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to at least one of:

a client and a project.

14. The method of claim 8, further comprising submitting, by the computer-based system, the matched image and ROC to an expense management system.

15. A method comprising:

receiving, by a computer-based system for expense reporting, a record of charge (ROC);

requesting, by the computer-based system, an image of a receipt associated with the ROC;

receiving, by the computer-based system, an instruction to delay matching the image of the receipt to the ROC; and

matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC in response to the receiving the image of the receipt and based upon information acquired from the image of the receipt.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the instruction to delay matching comprises inaction by a customer in response to an alert for the requesting.

17. The method of claim 15, further comprising matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC in response to receiving the image of the receipt after a period of time has elapsed and based upon information acquired from the image of the receipt.

18. The method of claim 15, further comprising matching, by the computer-based system, the image of the receipt to the ROC based upon at least one of:

a merchant identifier acquired from the image, an transaction identifier acquired from the image, a time stamp acquired from the image, and a total amount of a transaction acquired from the image.

19. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

receiving, by the computer-based system, a plurality of images of a plurality of receipts;

retrieving, by the computer-based system, a plurality of records of charge (ROC) associated with a transaction account in response to the receiving; and

matching, by the computer-based system, each of the plurality of images to each of the plurality of ROCs based upon information acquired from each of the plurality of images.

20. The method of claim 15, further comprising assigning, by the computer-based system, the ROC to a category of expense.