System for associating financial transaction data with user's project data

• US 8,204,804 B2
• Filed: 05/20/2011
• Issued: 06/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 12/07/2007
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JP Morgan Chase & Co)
• Original Assignee: JP Morgan Chase Bank, N.A. (JP Morgan Chase & Co)
• Inventors: Keld, Marcia
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart, Matthew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Goyea, Olusegun
• Application Number:
  US13/111,998
• Publication Number:
  US 20110218893A1
• Time in Patent Office: 396 Days
• Field of Search: 705/5, 705/10, 705/16, 705/19, 705/31, 705/23, 705/26, 705/41, 705/42, 705/39, 705/67, 705/36.R, 705/66, 705/75, 235/379, 707/999.01, 707/999.03
• US Class Current: 705/30
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/00 Payment architectures, schemes or protocols apparatus for performing or posting payment transactions G07F7/08, G07F19/00; electronic cash registers G07G1/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/02 involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/105 involving programming of a portable memory device, e.g. IC cards, "electronic purses"
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/108 Remote banking, e.g. home banking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/14 specially adapted for billing systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/20 Point-of-sale [POS] network systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3674 involving authentication
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/02 Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance credit or loans G06Q40/03
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/10 Tax strategies
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/123 Tax preparation or submission

Abstract

This invention relates to an expense reporting system for viewing and manipulating a user'"'"'s financial transaction data and a method for associating financial transaction data with a user'"'"'s project data. The system includes a user'"'"'s financial transaction data hosted in a data storage unit, addressable on a network, and accessible by a remote user on a user interface unit having a user input means and a display; and an expense reporting module having a graphical user interface (GUI) that allows a user to define project category data and associate representations of the user'"'"'s financial data with the user-defined project category data.

Claims

1. An expense reporting system for viewing and manipulating a user'"'"'s financial transaction data, comprising:

a processor connected to a data storage unit;

the data storage unit for hosting a user'"'"'s financial transaction data, addressable by a network, and accessible by a remote user on a user interface unit having a user input means and a display;

an expense reporting module having a graphical user interface (GUI), the expense reporting module comprising;

a transaction retrieval component operable to access the user'"'"'s financial transaction data and generate representations thereof viewable by a user on the user interface unit display;

a category generation engine operable to generate user-defined project category data and representations thereof viewable to a user on the user interface unit display;

a transaction categorization engine operable to associate selected ones of the user'"'"'s financial transaction data representations with one or more of the user-defined project category data representations, wherein the transaction categorization engine is further operable to associate a percentage or portion of the user'"'"'s financial transaction data represented by one of the selected ones of the user'"'"'s financial transaction representations with one or more of the user-defined project category data representations;

a GUI generation engine operable to express a graphical arrangement of the selected ones of the user'"'"'s financial transaction representations associated with the one or more user-defined project category data representations on the user interface unit display;

a data record generation engine operable to convert the graphical arrangement into a data record, wherein the data record is in a form suitable for at least one of review, storage, modification analysis, or exportation; and

a data record manipulation component for enabling a user to at least one of;

review a data record, modify a data record, store a data record, analyze a data record, and export a data record, wherein the data record manipulation component at least enables the user to manually designate a fraction of a single transaction to be associated or disassociated with a selected one of the user-defined project category data representations.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the user'"'"'s financial transaction data includes any one or more of:

credit card transaction data, purchase data, product data, product quantity data, purchase date data, purchase price data, vendor name data, vendor part number data, product name data, stock keeping unit (SKU) number data, tax data, discount data, receipt number data, universal product code data, barcode data, fee data, interest rate data, interest data, balance data, debit card data, check data, line of credit access card data, line of credit transaction card data, and balance transfer data.

3. The system of claim 1, further comprising a code generation component operable to generate a user-defined code identifier and a code association component operable to link user-defined project category data or representation thereof with a user-defined code identifier.

4. The system of claim 3, further comprising a bar code generation component for generating a bar code representing the user-defined code identifier.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the bar code is readable at a point of service.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the transaction categorization engine is further operable to automatically associate a user'"'"'s financial transaction data linked to the user-defined code identifier with user-defined product category data linked to a corresponding user-defined code identifier.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein the GUI generation engine is further operable to express a graphical arrangement of representations of the user-defined project category data linked to the user-defined code identifier and associated with representations of a user'"'"'s financial transaction data linked to the user-defined code identifier.

8. The system of claim 1, further comprising a data record manipulation component operable to generate a receipt including data from the data record.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the transaction categorization engine is further operable to dis-associate selected ones of the user'"'"'s financial transaction representations associated with one or more of the user-defined project category representations.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface unit is a personal device operable to be wirelessly connected to a network.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the personal device is a smart phone.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the financial transaction data is entered into the personal device via the user input means.

13. The system of claim 10, further comprising a financial institution capable of providing financial services,

wherein the personal device is operable to wirelessly transmit the user'"'"'s financial transaction data to the financial institution.

14. The system of claim 13, further comprising a point of sale terminal capable of processing transactions.

15. The system of claim 14, further comprising a merchant database operated by a merchant, for at least one of storing data relating to a transaction, modifying data relating to a transaction, and transmitting data relating to a transaction.

16. The system of claim 15, wherein the point of sale terminal is operable to wirelessly transmit the user'"'"'s financial transaction data from the merchant database to the personal wireless device.

17. The system of claim 15, wherein the point of sale terminal is operable to wirelessly transmit the user'"'"'s financial transaction data directly from the merchant database to the financial institution.

18. The system of claim 14, wherein the point of sale terminal is capable of transmitting line-item financial transaction data to the financial institution in real time.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein the point of sale terminal accesses an intermediary database to obtain the line-item financial transaction data for transmission in real time.