System for managing gas expenditures

• US 7,650,300 B2
• Filed: 10/03/2007
• Issued: 01/19/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Reynolds and Reynolds Company
• Original Assignee: Jamshyd Darvish, John R. Darvish
• Inventors: Darvish, John R., Darvish, Jamshyd
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart; Matthew
• Assistant Examiner(s): CRAWLEY, TALIA F
• Application Number:
  US11/906,677
• Publication Number:
  US 20080133386A1
• Time in Patent Office: 839 Days
• Field of Search: 429/12, 705/14, 705/30
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• 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
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/128 Check-book balancing, updating or printing arrangements

Abstract

The present invention is a system for providing businesses with comprehensive gas book management capabilities, inclusive of a process for authorizing and tracking gas book expenditures, as well as software for accounting, reconciling and reporting. An overseer runs the software and enters pertinent Request data into a database. The software prints two hard copies of the gas Purchase Order each bearing a unique auto-generated Purchase Order number. One copy is given to the requestor, and one is filed. When purchasing gas, the Requestor exchanges their Purchase Order with a receipt for gas. The requestor returns this receipt to the overseer, who enters pertinent Receipt data into the database. This allows the business to periodically reconcile the database against charge statements received from credit card issuers or gas stations, better manage gas usage, and identify fraud, excessive gas spending, and charge mistakes.

Claims

1. A method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor as purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchases, comprising the steps of:

providing a web-enabled computer server having gas-purchase accounting, reconciling, and reporting software embodied on a computer-readable medium, and a computer database, all maintained by a third party application service provider;

providing a remote computer workstation at a client automobile dealership or fleet business in communication with said first web-enabled computer server;

requiring an employee seeking to purchase gas for a client-owned vehicle to complete a purchase request form specifying at least an identity of the employee seeking to purchase gas, a reason for purchasing gas, an amount of gas requested, and a vehicle identification for which said gas is to be purchased;

inputting data from completed purchase request form into said computer database using said software from said remote computer workstation;

auto-generating at said web-enabled computer server a unique Purchase Order number for each inputted purchase request form and appending said Purchase Order number to the inputted data along with a time-stamp comprising date and time of entry;

printing two copies of a Purchase Order both bearing the same unique auto-generated Purchase Order number, time stamp, and vehicle identification, said Purchase Order representing authorization for purchase of said amount of gas requested in exchange for payment;

filing the first copy of said Purchase Order;

giving the second copy of said Purchase Order to said employee seeking to purchase gas for submission as a binding offer to purchase gas at a gas station;

pumping said gas upon acceptance of the offer by said gas station;

exchanging said second copy of said Purchase Order with said gas station in return for a gas station receipt marked with the unique Purchase Order number of the Purchase Order;

returning the gas station receipt to the client automobile dealership or fleet business;

inputting data from said gas station receipt, including corresponding Purchase Order number and amount of gas pumped, into said computer database using said software from said computer workstation;

comparing for each unique Purchase Order number the inputted data from said gas station receipt with the corresponding inputted data from said purchase request form;

designating each Purchase Order as closed when said amount of gas requested equals the amount of gas pumped;

performing a periodic reconciliation of closed Purchase Orders that have not previously been reconciled and thereby detecting fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by said employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchase by querying and displaying closed unreconciled Purchase Orders in said computer database from said computer workstation, said periodic reconciliation further including a step of comparing said closed unreconciled Purchase Orders to gas station or credit company data and indicating non-equivalencies to detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures, said comparing being performed by said software on said server.

2. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 1, wherein the step of designating each Purchase Order as closed further comprises inputting a closed status into said computer database using said software from said computer workstation upon return of the corresponding gas station receipt when the Purchase Order amount of gas requested equals the amount of gas pumped per said receipt.

3. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 1, further comprising the step of said gas station returning Purchase Orders to the dealership in batches, and the step of performing a periodic reconciliation of closed Purchase Orders further comprises comparing said closed unreconciled Purchase Orders in said computer database with the returned batch Purchase Orders from said gas station.

4. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 1, wherein each Purchase Order includes date &

time, customer'"'"'s last name (if applicable), reason for getting gas, stock# of the vehicle, amount of gas needed (dollar amount or fill-up), department, person who authorized the request (if applicable) and comments.

5. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 1, further comprising the step of assigning an employee to act as an overseer, and said overseer performs said step of inputting data from a Purchase Order request form into said computer database using said software from a computer workstation, and said overseer performs said step of inputting data from said gas station receipt into said computer database using said software from a computer workstation.

6. A computer system for allowing automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchases, comprising:

a web-enabled computer server maintained by a third party application service provider on behalf of its client that houses gas-purchase accounting, reconciling, and reporting software and a computer database, wherein said software comprises,

a data entry module that allows an employee of a client to enter data from a completed Purchase Order request form, data from a returned gas station receipt, and data from Purchase Orders returned by gas stations;

a Purchase Order number module that automatically generates a unique Purchase Order number and appends said Purchase Order number along with date and time of entry and a user ID of said employee to the data entered into said web database;

a status module that allows an overseer to indicate within said database that a given Purchase Order is closed after fulfillment when an amount of gas authorized in said Purchase Order equals an amount of gas pumped;

an individual Purchase Order closure module that allows said overseer to compare inputted data from a completed Purchase Order request form with inputted data from a corresponding returned gas station receipt and to close individual Purchase Orders when said inputted data reconciless;

a batch Purchase Order reconciliation module that allows said overseer to perform a periodic reconciliation of closed Purchase Orders and thereby detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by said employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchase by querying and displaying closed Purchase Orders in said computer database from said computer workstation, comparing said closed unreconciled Purchase Orders to gas station or credit company data, and indicating non-equivalencies to detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures;

a remote client computer workstation in communication with said web-enabled computer server through the internet for accessing said software and entering data into said database.

7. A method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchases, comprising:

a first step of providing a web-enabled computer server having software for accounting, reconciling, and reporting gas purchases and a computer database, and providing a purchaser computer workstation in communication with said first web-enabled computer server;

a second step of completing a Gas Purchase Order request form-with data indicating identity of requester, customer, a purpose for said gas purchase, a vehicle ID for which gas is being purchased, and an amount of gas to be purchased;

a third step of submitting said completed Gas Purchase Order request form to an overseer for entry of said data into said database from said remote computer workstation;

a fourth step of printing a requestor copy and a control copy of a Gas Purchase Order, both of said requester copy and control copy bearing the same automatically-generated Purchase Order number, said Purchase Order representing authorization for purchase of said amount of gas requested in exchange for payment;

a fifth step of manually filing the control copy of said Gas Purchase Order;

a sixth step of presenting said requestor copy to a gas station as an authorized offer to purchase gas;

a seventh step of pumping gas and exchanging said requestor copy for a gas station receipt bearing said Purchase Order number that corresponds to the exchanged requestor copy;

an eighth step of submitting said gas station receipt to an overseer for entry into said database using said software from said computer workstation;

a ninth step of reconciling each Purchase Order by comparing inputted data from said gas station receipt with the corresponding inputted data from said Gas Purchase Order request form entered in said database, and designating each Purchase Order closed when the inputted data from said gas station receipt concurs with the corresponding inputted data from said Gas Purchase Order request form;

a tenth step of performing a periodic reconciliation of closed Purchase Orders and thereby detecting fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures by said employees, gas stations and credit companies involved in transacting said gas purchase by querying and displaying closed Purchase Orders in said computer database from said computer workstation, comparing said closed Purchase Orders to batch transaction data, and indicating non-equivalencies to detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures to detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures.

8. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 7, wherein said gas station collects the requestor copies of Purchase Orders in batches until time to collect payment, and then periodically submits said collected requestor copies of Purchase Orders back to said automobile dealership or fleet business in batch for payment;

and

said tenth step of performing a periodic reconciliation further comprises comparing said collected batch requestor copies of Purchase Orders to detect fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures.

9. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 7, wherein said second step further comprises obtaining a manager'"'"'s signature on said Gas Purchase Order request form.

10. The method for automobile dealerships and fleet businesses to monitor gas purchases to prevent fraud, mistake and excess gas expenditures according to claim 7, wherein the amount of gas needed may comprise a dollar amount or fill-up.