Apparatuses, methods and systems for an employee reimbursement evaluator

• US 9,454,577 B1
• Filed: 10/15/2010
• Issued: 09/27/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Iqor US Inc. (IQOR Holdings Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: IQOR Holdings Incorporated IQOR US Incorporated
• Inventors: Kapoor, Vikas, Madhavarapu, Abhilash
• Primary Examiner(s): Saeed, Usmaan
• Assistant Examiner(s): Ohba, Mellissa M
• Application Number:
  US12/905,221
• Time in Patent Office: 2,174 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24561 Intermediate data storage techniques for performance improvement
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24564 Applying rules; Deductive queries
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

The APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR AN EMPLOYEE REIMBURSEMENT EVALUATOR (hereinafter “EREVAL”) implement efficient and scalable monitoring, regulation, and allocation of computational processing, data, labor, and/or the like resources within an enterprise. The EREVAL may facilitate the receipt, processing, evaluation and fulfillment of employee reimbursement requests. The EREVAL may be configured to receive an employee reimbursement request, extract request parameters, and evaluate whether or not the request can be fulfilled according to system rules, based on employee characteristics and/or employee-selected benefits, and/or the like. The EREVAL may further be configured to interact with and/or exploit global data exchanger and/or automated date extractor components to retrieve reimbursement requests from employee email records and/or to facilitate payment of authorized employee reimbursements.

Claims

1. An employee reimbursement administering processor-implemented method, comprising:

displaying on a computer display screen a list of selectable benefits for an employee, wherein the displayed benefits are dependent on the employee'"'"'s characteristics comprising an employee'"'"'s position with an employer;

evaluating at least one business benefits rule of the employer to determine the employee'"'"'s ability to select at least one displayed benefit;

receiving and storing employee selection of at least one benefit as benefits purse of that employee, wherein said benefits comprise medical, life and disability insurance, health care, education, retirement and technology allowances offered by the employer;

receiving a reimbursement request comprising at least an employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters;

querying a database using the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to obtain a data-structure-tracking syntax-configured string associated with an employee, wherein the syntax-configured string consists of a plurality of component parts delimited by syntax separators, and where each part of the string tracks a separate data structure;

utilizing the obtained data-structure tracking syntax-configured string, the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to generate a request to at least one business grammar rule database containing a plurality of business grammar rules for an enterprise in relation to employee benefits;

retrieving at least one descriptive business grammar configured string based on the employee identifier and extracting at least one token from the descriptive business grammar configured string;

querying the benefits rules database based on the at least one token and based on the generated request to retrieve at least one benefit rule of the employer with the employee identifier, wherein the retrieved at least one benefit rule indicates the allocation amounts provided by the employer for the benefits purse of the employee to a plurality of benefits;

applying the retrieved at least one benefit rule associated with the employee identifier to the plurality of reimbursement parameters in the reimbursement request to determine whether a reimbursement authorization is permitted by the employer based on at least one business rule of said employer for the received reimbursement request and an amount of the permitted reimbursement payable from the benefits purse of the employee;

instructing payment of a reimbursement based on the permitted reimbursement from the benefits purse of the employee associated with the employee identifier when the reimbursement authorization is permitted by the employer and the permitted reimbursement amount is determined based on the evaluated at least one benefit rule; and

reducing the benefits purse of the employee by the amount of the permitted reimbursement.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the reimbursement request comprises entries to a web form.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the reimbursement request comprises an email message.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the email message is addressed to a reimbursement request email address.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the email message is addressed to an email address associated with the employee identifier.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein the reimbursement parameters are provided within the body of the email message.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the reimbursement parameters are provided within a file attached to the email message.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the file comprises a scanned receipt.

9. The method of claim 7, further comprising:

parsing the reimbursement parameters from the file.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising:

performing optical character recognition on the file.

11. The method of claim 3, wherein the email message includes at least one reimbursement request indicator.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the reimbursement request indicator is included in the subject line of the email message.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein instructing payment of a reimbursement to an employee further comprises:

determining an amount of payment based on the reimbursement parameters and the at least one benefit rule.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the amount of payment is less than a requested amount.

15. The method of claim 13, wherein the amount of payment is equal to a requested amount.

16. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

evaluating completeness of the plurality of reimbursement parameters based on benefits rules; and

requesting entry of additional reimbursement parameters when the plurality of reimbursement parameters is not complete.

17. An employee reimbursement administering apparatus, comprising:

a memory;

a computer display screen;

a processor disposed in communication with said memory and configured to issue a plurality of processing instructions stored in the memory, wherein the processor issues instructions to;

display on a computer display screen a list of selectable benefits for an employee, wherein the displayed benefits are dependent on the employee'"'"'s characteristics comprising an employee'"'"'s position with an employer;

evaluate at least one business benefits rule of the employer to determine the employee'"'"'s ability to select at least one displayed benefit;

receive and store employee selection of at least one benefit as benefits purse of that employee, wherein said benefits comprise medical, life and disability insurance, health care, education, retirement and technology allowances offered by the employer;

receive a reimbursement request comprising at least an employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters;

query a database using the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to obtain a data-structure-tracking syntax-configured string associated with an employee, wherein the syntax-configured string consists of a plurality of component parts delimited by syntax separators, and where each part of the string tracks a separate data structure;

utilize the obtained data-structure tracking syntax-configured string, the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to generate a request to at least one business grammar rule database containing a plurality of business grammar rules for an enterprise in relation to employee benefits;

retrieving at least one descriptive business grammar configured string based on the employee identifier and extracting at least one token from the descriptive business grammar configured string;

querying the benefits rules database based on the at least one token and based on the generated request to retrieve at least one benefit rule of the employer with the employee identifier, wherein the retrieved at least one benefit rule indicates the allocation amounts provided by the employer for the benefits purse of the employee to a plurality of benefits;

apply the retrieved at least one benefit rule associated with the employee identifier to the plurality of reimbursement parameters in the reimbursement request to determine whether a reimbursement authorization is permitted for the received reimbursement request and an amount of the permitted by the employer based on at least one business rules of said employer reimbursement payable from the benefits purse of the employee;

instruct payment of a reimbursement based on the permitted reimbursement from the benefits purse of the employee associated with the employee identifier when the reimbursement authorization is permitted and the permitted reimbursement amount is determined based on the evaluated at least one benefit rule; and

reduce the benefits purse of the employee by the amount of the permitted reimbursement.

18. A non-transitory computer processor readable storage medium for employee reimbursement administration system, comprising:

a plurality of processing instructions stored in the medium and issuable by a processor to;

display on a computer display screen a list of selectable benefits for an employee, wherein the displayed benefits are dependent on the employee'"'"'s characteristics comprising an employee'"'"'s position with an employer;

evaluate at least one business benefits rule of the employer to determine the employee'"'"'s ability to select at least one displayed benefit;

receive and store employee selection of at least one benefit as benefits purse of that employee, wherein said benefits comprise medical, life and disability insurance, health care, education, retirement and technology allowances offered by the employer;

receive a reimbursement request comprising at least an employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters;

query a database using the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to obtain a data-structure-tracking syntax-configured string associated with an employee, wherein the syntax-configured string consists of a plurality of component parts delimited by syntax separators, and where each part of the string tracks a separate data structure;

utilize the obtained data-structure tracking syntax-configured string, the employee identifier and a plurality of reimbursement parameters to generate a request to at least one business grammar rule database containing a plurality of business grammar rules for an enterprise in relation to employee benefits;

retrieving at least one descriptive business grammar configured string based on the employee identifier and extracting at least one token from the descriptive business grammar configured string;

querying the benefits rules database based on the at least one token and based on the generated request to retrieve at least one benefit rule of the employer with the employee identifier, wherein the retrieved at least one benefit rule indicate the allocation amounts provided by the employer for the benefits purse of the employee to a plurality of benefits;

apply the retrieved at least one benefit rule associated with the employee identifier to the plurality of reimbursement parameters in the reimbursement request to determine whether a reimbursement authorization is permitted for the received reimbursement request and an amount of the permitted by the employer based on at least one business rules of said employer reimbursement payable from the benefits purse of the employee;

instruct payment of a reimbursement based on the permitted reimbursement from the benefits purse of the employee associated with the employee identifier when the reimbursement authorization is permitted and the permitted reimbursement amount is determined based on the evaluated at least one benefit rule; and

reduce the benefits purse of the employee by the amount of the permitted reimbursement.