Integrated financial processing system and method for facilitating an incentive program

• US 7,904,332 B1
• Filed: 09/22/2003
• Issued: 03/08/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 01/10/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Deere & Company
• Original Assignee: Deere & Company
• Inventors: Unruh, Greg Alan, Unruh, Timothy Dale, DaLuga, Daniel Michael, Pinter, Chad Joseph, Britton, Jason Olaf, Shay, Roby Christian, Kahle, David Michael, McBurney, Matthew Lowell, Oliver, Sheila Denise Jesse, Merkley, John Eugene Jr.
• Primary Examiner(s): Abdi; Kambiz
• Assistant Examiner(s): Monfeldt; Sarah M
• Application Number:
  US10/667,851
• Time in Patent Office: 2,724 Days
• Field of Search: 705/1, 705/7
• US Class Current: 705/14.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0207 Discounts or incentives, e.g. coupons or rebates
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0208 Trade or exchange of goods or services in exchange for incentives or rewards
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0213 Consumer transaction fees
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0215 Including financial accounts
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/02 Agriculture; Fishing; Forestry; Mining

Abstract

A library of available incentive programs is established for an agricultural product. Input is accepted from an agricultural producer or a crop planner to facilitate tailoring the library of incentive programs to the requirements (e.g., needs, objectives, and resources) of a particular producer. The library of available incentive programs is searched based upon the accepted input to select a tailored list of candidate incentive programs from the library. Information on the tailored candidate incentive programs is made accessible to the agricultural producer. The agricultural producer may select a preferential incentive program between or among the candidate incentive programs. Further, the producer may readily seek financing via electronic communications to purchase or otherwise conduct a transaction under the preferential incentive program. If the producer applies for a financial product for financing the transaction under the preferential incentive program, the previously gathered input (e.g., background data on the particular producer) is transferred to a financial screening process to reduce duplicative reentry of data and to reduce or eliminate potential clerical errors.

Claims

1. A method for facilitating an incentive program via an electronic data processing system, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a library as a comprehensive list of available incentive programs, for agricultural input products targeted to producers of agricultural products, the library stored in a data storage device associated with the data processing system;

selecting, by a particular retailer with a retail level of access to the data processing system, the available incentive programs from the library of incentive programs through the discretion of the particular retailer servicing a particular producer based on retailer preferences comprising a geographic region that the retailer services, historic sales, and a supplier relationship with one or more suppliers of the incentive programs, the retailer level of access being different from a producer level of access to the data processing system by the producers, the particular retailer controlling the level of access of the producers to the data processing system to support limiting accessible information to the producers to the selected available incentive programs;

receiving crop planning data of the particular producer at the data processing system via an interface, the crop planning data comprising background data on the particular producer or the producer'"'"'s operations;

searching the library or its selected, available incentive programs based upon the received crop planning data to select a tailored list of candidate incentive programs from the established library of available incentive programs;

making information accessible on or limited to the available candidate incentive programs in the tailored list to the particular producer via the interface;

supporting selection of a preferential one of the candidate incentive programs via the interface; and

transferring the crop planning data and incentive program data on the preferential one from a program manager for the incentive programs to a financial screening process of a financial screening system of the data processing system to reduce or eliminate duplicative reentry of the background data applicable to the incentive programs and the financial screening process associated with financing of the products via electronic communications, where an application data capture module populates an application for the financial product based on the gathered background data.

2. The method according to claim 1 wherein each one of the available incentive programs is selected from the group of programs consisting of a financing program, an equipment financing program, a promotional program, a sales discount program, a rebate program, a purchasing program, a leasing program, and a transactional program associated with a transaction in an agricultural input product.

3. The method according to claim 1 wherein the crop planning data comprises one or more of the following:

a crop plan, background producer data, demographic data, a list of applicable agronomic inputs and corresponding quantities, a list of agricultural input products and corresponding quantities, a chemical treatment plan or regimen, a growing practices plan or regimen, a seed identifier, a seed quantity, and insecticide identifier, an insecticide quantity, a pesticide identifier, a pesticide quantity, a fungicide identifier, a fungicide quantity, a fertilizer identifier, and a fertilizer quantity.

4. The method according to claim 1 further comprising providing financing for a monetary difference between a funded amount of the preferential incentive program and a total requisite amount of a crop plan for a particular producer for a particular growing season.

5. The method according to claim 1 wherein the searching further comprises:

searching for a match of program identifiers between crop planning data and program data of the available incentive program to identify candidate incentive programs.

6. The method according to claim 1 wherein the searching further comprises translating the crop planning data having at least a brand name into a generic name for comparison to program data associated with corresponding available incentive programs.

7. The method according to claim 1 wherein making information accessible comprises electronically sending data to the particular producer via a communications network.

8. The method according to claim 1 where making information accessible comprises providing the producer with access to specifications of the candidate incentive programs through a retailer interface.

9. The method according to claim 1 wherein the preferential one of the available programs is associated with one or more corresponding financial products for which a financial application is electronically accessible.

10. The method according to claim 1 wherein the transferring comprises formatting at least one of the crop planning data and the incentive program data into an standard file format capable of interpretation by the financial screening process.

27. The system according to claim 1 wherein the searching further comprises returning the tailored list of the candidate incentive programs and potentially relevant incentive programs even if a submitted crop plan or query fails to satisfy a minimum purchase or minimum transaction requirement.

28. The method according to claim 1 further comprising the particular retailer limiting the incentive programs to certain providers among the suppliers.

31. The method according to claim 1 wherein the transferring comprises transferring, within the data processing system, the crop planning data and the incentive program data on the preferential one from the program manager to, the financial screening process of, the financial screening system after successful authentication of a user identifier and a corresponding password.

11. A method for facilitating an incentive program via an electronic data processing system, the method comprising the steps of:

establishing a library as a comprehensive list of available incentive programs, for agricultural input products targeted to producers of agricultural products, the library stored in a data storage device associated with the data processing system;

selecting, by a particular retailer with a retail level of access to the data processing system, the available incentive programs from the library of incentive programs through the discretion of the particular retailer servicing a producer based on retailer preferences comprising a geographic region that the retailer services, historic sales, and a supplier relationship with one or more suppliers of the incentive programs, the retailer level of access being different from a producer level of access to the data processing system by the producers, the particular retailer controlling the level of access of the producers to the data processing system to support limiting accessible information to the producers to the selected available incentive programs;

gathering background data on at least one of the producer and operations of the producer via an interface for communication to the data processing system;

searching the library of available incentive programs based upon the gathered background data on the particular producer or the producer'"'"'s operations to select a tailored list of available incentive programs from the established library;

making information accessible on or limited to the available incentive programs in the tailored list to the producer via the interface;

supporting selection of a preferential one of the available incentive programs via the interface; and

transferring the gathered background data and selected incentive program data from a program manager for the incentive programs to a financial screening process of a financial screening system of the data processing system to reduce or eliminate duplicative reentry of the background data applicable to the incentive programs and the financial screening process associated with financing the products via electronic communications, where an application data capture module populates an application for the financial product based on the gathered background data.

12. The method according to claim 11 wherein each one of the available incentive programs is selected from the group of programs consisting of a financing program, an equipment financing program, a promotional program, a sales discount program, a rebate program, a purchasing program, a leasing program, and a transactional program associated with a transaction in an agricultural input product.

13. The method according to claim 11 wherein the background data comprises one or more of the following:

background producer data, demographic data, information on the producer or the producer'"'"'s operations, historical information on the producer'"'"'s purchase of agricultural input products, biographical data on the producer, demographic data on the producer, historical financial information on the producer, and a transactional history of the producer with respect to agricultural equipment.

14. The method according to claim 11 further comprising providing financing for a monetary difference between a funded amount of the preferential incentive program and a total requisite amount of a crop plan for a particular producer for a particular growing season.

15. The method according to claim 11 wherein the searching further comprises:

searching for a match of program identifiers between background data and program data of the available incentive program to identify candidate incentive programs.

16. The method according to claim 11 wherein the searching further comprises translating the background data having at least a brand name into a generic name for comparison to program data associated with corresponding available incentive programs.

17. The method according to claim 11 wherein making information accessible comprises electronically sending data to the particular producer via a communications network.

18. The method according to claim 11 where making information accessible comprises providing the producer with access to specifications of the candidate incentive programs through a retailer interface.

19. The method according to claim 11 wherein the preferential one of the available programs is associated with one or more corresponding financial products for which a financial application is electronically accessible.

20. The method according to claim 11 wherein the transferring comprises formatting at least one of the background data and the incentive program data into a standard file format capable of interpretation by the financial screening process.

29. The method according to claim 11 further comprising the particular retainer limiting the incentive programs to certain providers among the suppliers.

32. The method according to claim 11 wherein the transferring comprises transferring, within the data processing system, the gathered background data and the selected incentive program data from the program manager to, the financial screening process of, the financial screening system, after successful authentication of a user identifier and a corresponding password.

21. A data processing system for facilitating an incentive program, the system comprising:

a program management module for establishing a library of available incentive programs for a producer and for gathering background data on at least one of the producers and operations of the producer, for agricultural input products targeted to producers of agricultural products, the library stored in a data storage device associated with the data processing system, the available incentive programs selected, by a retailer with a retail level of access, from a comprehensive list of incentive programs through the discretion of a particular retailer servicing the producer based on retailer preferences comprising a geographic region that the retailer services, historic sales, or a supplier relationship with one or more suppliers of the incentive programs, the retailer level of access being different from a producer level of access to the data processing system by the producers, the particular retailer controlling the level of access of the producers to the data processing system to support limiting accessible information to the producers to the selected available incentive programs;

a search engine for searching the library of available incentive programs based upon the gathered background data on the particular producer or the producer'"'"'s operations to select a candidate list of candidate incentive programs from the library of available incentive programs;

a selector for supporting selection of preferential one of the candidate incentive programs for a financial application; and

a transferring agent for transferring the gathered background information and selected preferential incentive program from a program manager for the incentive programs to a financial screening process of a financial screening system of the data processing system to reduce or eliminate duplicative reentry of the background data applicable to the incentive programs and the financial screening process associated with financing the products, where an application data capture module populates an application for the financial product based on the gathered background data.

22. The system according to claim 21 further comprising a first data storage device for storing the gathered background data and selected program data associated with the preferential one;

the transferring agent sending at least one of selected program data and background data from the first data storage device to a financial screening system.

23. The system according to claim 21 further comprising a user administration module for administering the available incentive programs and financing activities for one or more users by allowing a retailer to define any of the following:

a user profile for a user of the financial processing system, a retailer profile, and a producer profile.

24. The system according to claim 21 further comprising a security module for providing the producer with access to one or more resources of the system after receiving a producer identifier, a corresponding producer identifier password, a retailer identifier, and a corresponding retailer identifier password.

25. The system according to claim 21 wherein the program manager comprises a crop planning interface for supporting the transfer of crop planning data, originated by a crop planner, to the program management module.

26. The system according to claim 25 wherein the crop planning data may include one or more of the following:

a crop plan, background producer data, demographic data, a list of applicable agronomic inputs and corresponding quantities, a list of agricultural input products and corresponding quantities, a chemical treatment plan or regimen, a growing practices plan or regimen, a seed identifier, a seed quantity, an insecticide identifier, an insecticide quantity, a pesticide identifier, a fertilizer identifier, and a fertilizer quantity.

30. The system according to claim 21 further comprising the particular retailer limiting the incentive programs to certain providers among the suppliers.

33. The system according to claim 21 wherein the transferring agent is arranged to transfer, within the data processing system, the gathered background information and selected preferential incentive program from the program manager to, the financial screening process of, the financial screening system after successful authentication of a user identifier and a corresponding password.