Distributed electronic billing system with gateway interfacing biller and service center

• US 6,304,857 B1
• Filed: 06/08/1998
• Issued: 10/16/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/08/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Jakstadt, Eric G., Saliba, Bassam A., Keith, Jeffrey L., Speelpenning, Bert, Heindel, David G., Buiten, Todd Alan
• Primary Examiner(s): Trammell, James P.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Elisca, Pierre E.
• Application Number:
  US09/093,959
• Time in Patent Office: 1,226 Days
• Field of Search: 707/506, 705/34, 705/30, 705/40, 705/27, 713/153
• US Class Current: 705/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

An electronic billing system provides a set of tools for a biller to create and design a customized billing statement. The system includes a statement designer that enables the biller to create a template for the billing statement. Once the statement is designed, the biller provides the statement format and billing data to a third party billing service center, which generates the electronic billing statements in the biller-designed format and electronically distributes the billing statements to consumers. To assist the biller in creating statement templates, the biller integration system maintains industry schema tables that are tailored to particular industries. The tables provide a default set of predefined billing categories for a given industry that the biller might wish to use in its template. The biller integration system and service center are each equipped with a gateway to facilitate the exchange of the statement template and billing data. Each gateway has a parcel manager to reliably transfer parcels and track the parcels as they go from computer to computer. Through this parcel handling and monitoring system, the biller integration system keeps the biller informed as to the location and status of the statement templates, the billing data, any forthcoming payments, and so forth.

Claims

1. A system for creating an electronic billing statement comprising:

biller integration systems resident at multiple billers, each biller integration system enabling an associated biller to create a statement template for an electronically-renderable customized billing statement that visually presents billing data in a customized arrangement determined by the associated biller;

a service center system to prepare and electronically distribute the electronic billing statements on behalf of the billers, the service center system preparing the customized billing statements from the statement template and the billing data received from the biller integration systems; and

a gateway system interfacing the biller integration systems and the service center system to facilitate transfer of the statement templates and the billing data from the biller integration systems to the service center and to monitor various transfer states of the statement templates and the billing data as they are transferred, wherein the gateway system includes;

an interface handler to handle a request to create a parcel that is particularized to contain and carry a particular type of data that was requested, the particular type of data being selected from the group consisting of consumer information data, payment data, batch statement data, and statement template data; and

a parcel manager to create the parcel that is requested via the interface handler.

2. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said each biller integration system comprises a statement designer which enables the associated biller to embed and organize data fields within the statement template and to associate billing data with the data fields.

3. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said each biller integration system has one or more industry schema tables that contains predefined industry-specific billing categories from which the associated biller can select during creation of a statement template.

4. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said each biller integration system comprises a translator to convert the billing data from the associated biller'"'"'s existing billing system to a format accepted by the biller integration system.

5. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the gateway system comprises a gateway resident at said each biller integration system and a gateway at the service center.

6. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said each biller integration system has a management console that supports a user interface (UI), the management console interfacing with the gateway system to manage transfer of the statement templates and the billing data to the service center.

7. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein said each biller integration system has a management console that supports a user interface (UI), the management console interfacing with the gateway system to present the transfer states of the statement templates and the billing data on the UI so that the associated biller can track the statement templates and the billing data as they are transferred to the service center.

8. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the request to create the parcel originates at one of the biller integration systems for transmittal to the service center system.

9. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the interface handler is an object that is called via an API.

10. A system as recited in claim 9, wherein the object is a component object model implementation.

11. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the particular type of data is batch statement data.

12. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the request to create the parcel originates at the service center system for transmittal to one of the biller integration systems.

13. A system as recited in claim 1, wherein the gateway system further comprises:

a biller gateway system resident at each said biller integration system and including;

an biller interface handler to handle a request to create a parcel that is particularized to contain and carry to the service center system said particular type of data that was requested; and

a biller parcel manager to create the parcel that is requested via the biller interface handler; and

a service center gateway system resident at the service center system and including;

a service center interface handler to handle a request to create a parcel that is particularized to contain and carry to one of the biller integration systems said particular type of data that was requested; and

a service center parcel manager to create the parcel that is requested via the service center interface handler.

14. A biller integration system, which interfaces with an existing billing system of a biller, comprising:

a translator to convert billing data from the biller'"'"'s existing billing system to a particular format;

a statement designer to create a statement template for visually presenting the billing information in a customized arrangement that is determined by a biller; and

a gateway to facilitate transfer of the statement template and the billing data to a billing service center and to monitor status of the statement templates and the billing data as they are transferred, the gateway comprising;

a set of one or more interface handlers to handle requests for creating parcels, each said parcel being particularized to contain and carry to the service center system a particular type of data that was requested, the particular type of data being selected from the group consisting of consumer information data, payment data, batch statement data, and said statement template data;

a parcel manager to create the parcels requested via the set of interface handlers; and

a transfer service layer to interface the parcel manager with an underlying transport mechanism to physically transport the parcels to the billing service center.

15. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, further comprising a management console that supports a user interface (UI), the management console interfacing with the gateway to manage transfer of the statement templates and the billing data to the service center.

16. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, further comprising a management console that supports a user interface (UI), the management console interfacing with the gateway to present the status of the statement templates and the billing data on the UI as they are transferred.

17. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, wherein the statement designer offers one or more industry schema tables that contain predefined industry-specific billing categories for use in designing the statement template.

18. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, further comprising a database having one or more industry schema tables stored thereon, each industry table containing predefined industry-specific billing categories for storing the billing data converted by the translator.

19. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, wherein the translator, the statement designer, and the gateway are embodied as software modules stored on a computer-readable medium.

20. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, wherein each said request to create each said parcel originates at one of the biller integration systems for transmittal to the service center system.

21. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, wherein each said interface handler is an object that is called via an API.

22. A biller integration system as recited in claim 21, wherein the object is a component object model (COM) implementation.

23. A biller integration system as recited in claim 14, wherein the particular type of data is batch statement data.

24. In an electronic billing system, a gateway system to support billing applications requiring transmission of data, comprising:

a set of one or more interface handlers to interface with the billing applications and to handle a request by one of the billing applications for creating a parcel to carry the data in a transmission over an underlying transport mechanism, wherein;

the request is for the parcel to be particularized to contain and carry a particular type of data; and

the particular type of data is selected from the group consisting of consumer information data, payment data, batch statement data, and statement template data;

a parcel manager, accessible by the interface handlers, to create the particularized type of parcel that is requested by one of the billing applications; and

a transfer service layer to provide an interface between the parcel manager and the underlying transport mechanism that physically transmits the particularized type of parcel that is requested by one of the billing applications.

25. In an electronic billing system in which a biller submits billing data to a service center and the service center generates billing statements from the billing data and electronically distributes the billing statements to consumers on behalf of the biller, a method comprising the following steps:

defining a statement template for visually presenting the billing data;

transmitting, from the service center to a batch statement interface handler at the biller, a request to create a billing data parcel that is particularized to contain and carry the billing data;

transmitting, from the service center to a statement template interface handler at the biller, a request to create a statement template parcel that is particularized to contain and carry statement template data;

creating, at the biller, the billings data parcel;

creating, at the biller, the statement template parcel;

transferring, by separate transmissions from the biller, the billing data parcel and the statement template parcel to the service center;

monitoring a status of each of the billing data parcel and the statement template parcel as they are transferred to the service center;

generating multiple bulletins, at the service center, regarding the status of each of the billing data parcel and the statement template parcel as the status changes; and

sending the bulletins occasionally from the service center to the biller to update the biller as to a current status of the each of the billing data parcel and the statement template parcel.

26. A method as recited in claim 25, further comprising the step of displaying the status in a user interface.

27. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium to perform the steps in the method as recited in claim 25.