Budgetary ledger

• US 7,599,865 B2
• Filed: 12/30/2003
• Issued: 10/06/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 12/30/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SAP SE
• Original Assignee: SAP AG (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Hahn, Wolfgang, Godeby, Frank
• Primary Examiner(s): Zeender; F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Obaid; Fateh M
• Application Number:
  US10/747,143
• Publication Number:
  US 20050144079A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,107 Days
• Field of Search: 705/24, 705/30
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/209 Specified transaction journal output feature, e.g. printed receipt or voice output
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• 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

A system and method for maintaining budget related transactions in a financial management system. A financial management system may include a general ledger to maintain account balances and a budgetary ledger to maintain account balances only for budget related transactions. The budgetary ledger may generate a budgetary ledger document, which contains budget related transactions. The budgetary ledger may further include a core to enable generation of the budgetary ledger document, and an extension to define rules associated with generation of the budgetary ledger document. The budgetary ledger may then post the budgetary ledger document to the general ledger.

Claims

1. A computerized funds management system, comprising:

a budgetary ledger system to receive a transaction document and to maintain a budget related transaction by generating a budgetary ledger document for entry in a general ledger system, the general ledger system posting the budgetary ledger document to a general ledger, the transaction document containing transaction data, the transaction data used by general ledger to maintain account balances, the budgetary ledger system including;

a core containing a transaction processor, a merger unit to sum up matching accounts identified by at least one account derivation unit, and an iteration unit, and

an interchangeable extension set containing a determiner and an account derivation unit, the determiner and the account derivation unit comprising a first set of accounting reporting requirements that is substitutable with a different determiner and a different account derivation unit comprising a second set of accounting reporting requirements different from the first set of accounting requirements, the first and second sets of the accounting reporting requirements using the same core and interchangeable by changing a setting in the system while the system is running wherein;

the transaction processor extracts predetermined transaction data requiring reporting to the general ledger system from the transaction document after receiving the transaction document;

the determiner compares the extracted transaction data for each transaction to a list of triggering conditions for each collection of accounts associated with a higher-level business process to identify at least one collection of accounts associated with each transaction;

for each identified collection of accounts in the list, the iteration unit iteratively sends the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data associated with the transaction to the account derivation unit;

the account derivation unit identifies an account in the collection of accounts associated with the transaction based on the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data using predetermined accounting rules; and

the account derivation unit generates at least a line for recording the transaction in the identified account.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the first set of accounting requirements comprise United States accounting reporting requirements and the second set of accounting requirements comprise Spanish accounting reporting requirements.

3. A computer-implemented method of using a budgetary ledger system, comprising:

receiving a transaction document containing transaction data at a budgetary ledger system;

generating, from the transaction document, a budgetary ledger document comprising at least a line for recording a transaction in an identified account for entry in a general ledger in a general ledger system; and

posting the budgetary ledger document to the general ledger, the general ledger using the transaction data to maintain account balances, the budgetary ledger system including;

a core containing a transaction processor, a merger unit to sum up matching accounts identified by at least one account derivation unit, and an iteration unit, and

an interchangeable extension set containing a determiner and an account derivation unit, the determiner and the account derivation unit comprising a first set of accounting reporting requirements that is substitutable with a different determiner and a different account derivation unit comprising a second set of accounting reporting requirements different from the first set of accounting requirements, the first and second sets of the accounting reporting requirements using the same core and interchangeable by changing a setting in the system while the system is running wherein;

the transaction processor extracts predetermined transaction data requiring reporting to the general ledger system from the transaction document after receiving the transaction document;

the determiner compares the extracted transaction data for each transaction to a list of triggering conditions for each collection of accounts associated with a higher-level business process to identify at least one collection of accounts associated with each transaction;

for each identified collection of accounts in the list, the iteration unit iteratively sends the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data associated with the transaction to the account derivation unit;

the account derivation unit identifies the account in the collection of accounts associated with the transaction based on the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data using predetermined accounting rules; and

the account derivation unit generates the at least a line for recording the transaction in the identified account.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the first set of accounting requirements comprise United States accounting reporting requirements and the second set of accounting requirements comprise Spanish accounting reporting requirements.

5. A computer readable medium storing program instructions that, when executed by a processing system, cause the system to:

receive a transaction document containing transaction data at a budgetary ledger system;

generate a budgetary ledger document comprising at least a line for recording a transaction in an identified account for entry in a general ledger system from the transaction document; and

post the budgetary ledger document to a general ledger, the general ledger using the transaction data to maintain account balances, the budgetary ledger system including;

a core containing a transaction processor, a merger unit to sum up matching accounts identified by at least one account derivation unit, and an iteration unit, and

an interchangeable extension set containing a determiner and an account derivation unit, the determiner and the account derivation unit comprising a first set of accounting reporting requirements that is substitutable with a different determiner and a different account derivation unit comprising a second set of accounting reporting requirements different from the first set of accounting requirements, the first and second sets of the accounting reporting requirements using the same core and interchangeable by changing a setting in the system while the system is running wherein;

the transaction processor extracts predetermined transaction data requiring reporting to the general ledger system from the transaction document after receiving the transaction document;

the determiner compares the extracted transaction data for each transaction to a list of triggering conditions for each collection of accounts associated with a higher-level business process to identify at least one collection of accounts associated with each transaction;

for each identified collection of accounts in the list, the iteration unit iteratively sends the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data associated with the transaction to the account derivation unit;

the account derivation unit identifies the account in the collection of accounts associated with the transaction based on the name of the collection of accounts and the extracted transaction data using predetermined accounting rules; and

the account derivation unit generates the at least a line for recording the transaction in the identified account.

6. The computer readable medium of claim 5, wherein the first set of accounting requirements comprise United States accounting reporting requirements and the second set of accounting requirements comprise Spanish accounting reporting requirements.