Automated audit process
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
- accessing an invoice received from a vendor of an enterprise;
identifying an item and a quantity for the item listed on the invoice;
determining a base date and an invoice price associated with the item;
selecting, from among multiple prices stored for the item and the vendor in a storage medium, a lowest price that is valid for the identified quantity of the item on the associated base date;
designating the lowest price as a best system price that applies on the base date;
comparing the best system price with the invoice price; and
flagging, by one or more computers, the invoice as an exception when the invoice price of the item exceeds the best system price by a predefined threshold.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
A process for increasing profits of a business engaged in the purchase of large numbers of products and/or products of volatile pricing from numerous vendors that operates to identify pricing errors, preferably typically before payment, by automatically reviewing all invoices typically in the order they are received to determine a best system price for each line item of each invoice by reference to pricing factors such as volume discount, seasonal pricing, price protection, commodity pricing, competition pricing, and cash discount recorded in memory for the subject item and reference to payment history data, accounts payable data and invoice data. From the pricing factors and associated data, a best system price is determined and compared to the invoice price for the item so that pricing errors are automatically uncovered and, if appropriate, flagged to identify the same as an exception for warning or notification.
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Citations
22 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
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accessing an invoice received from a vendor of an enterprise; identifying an item and a quantity for the item listed on the invoice; determining a base date and an invoice price associated with the item; selecting, from among multiple prices stored for the item and the vendor in a storage medium, a lowest price that is valid for the identified quantity of the item on the associated base date; designating the lowest price as a best system price that applies on the base date; comparing the best system price with the invoice price; and flagging, by one or more computers, the invoice as an exception when the invoice price of the item exceeds the best system price by a predefined threshold. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 22)
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9. A system comprising:
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one or more computers; and a computer-readable medium coupled to the one or more computers having instructions stored thereon which, when executed by the one or more computers, cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising; accessing an invoice received from a vendor of an enterprise, identifying an item and a quantity for the item listed on the invoice, determining a base date and an invoice price associated with the item, selecting, from among multiple prices stored for the item and the vendor in a storage medium, a lowest price that is valid for the identified quantity of the item on the associated base date, designating the lowest price as a best system price that applies on the base date, comparing the best system price with the invoice price, and flagging the invoice as an exception when the invoice price of the item exceeds the best system price by a predefined threshold. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with a computer program comprising instructions that, when executed, operate to cause a computer to perform operations comprising:
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accessing an invoice received from a vendor of an enterprise; identifying an item and a quantity for the item listed on the invoice; determining a base date and an invoice price associated with the item; selecting, from among multiple prices stored for the item and the vendor in a storage medium, a lowest price that is valid for the identified quantity of the item on the associated base date; designating the lowest price as a best system price that applies on the base date; comparing the best system price with the invoice price; and flagging the invoice as an exception when the invoice price of the item exceeds the best system price by a predefined threshold. - View Dependent Claims (17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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Specification