Travel expense automation

• US 9,704,110 B2
• Filed: 04/25/2014
• Issued: 07/11/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 08/03/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Serko Limited
• Original Assignee: Serko Limited
• Inventors: Shaw, Robert James, Grafton, Darrin
• Primary Examiner(s): Wilder, Hunter
• Application Number:
  US14/261,977
• Publication Number:
  US 20140236782A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,173 Days
• Field of Search: 705 5, 705 6, 705 718, 705 16, 705 30, 705 34, 705 44
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/025 Coordination of plural reservations, e.g. plural trip segments, transportation combined with accommodation
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3224 Transactions dependent on location of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3278 RFID or NFC payments by means of M-devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/40 Authorisation, e.g. identification of payer or payee, verification of customer or shop credentials; Review and approval of payers, e.g. check credit lines or negative lists
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/12 Accounting

Abstract

A method of monitoring the expenses of a traveller during the progress of an itinerary utilises NFC for carrying out the financial transactions associated with the itinerary and updates a corporate ERP or similar financial database with the financial transactions as they occur allowing rapid allocation to cost centres. The itinerary may be laid out in terms of itinerary events, each of which may be tracked by an NFC connection with an NFC device at an expected location and date for the itinerary event.

Claims

1. A portable electronic device carryable by a traveler, comprising:

a processor;

an interactive user interface device;

data storage, having stored therein;

programming code that operates the portable electronic device upon execution by the processor, and

a copy of an itinerary of the traveler held in a remote ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning system), the copy of the itinerary containing itinerary events, predicted itinerary expenses of itinerary events and expense cost centers for itinerary events, the portable electronic device being operationally configured to monitor itinerary events in the copy of the traveler'"'"'s itinerary;

a data communications interface that communicates with the remote ERP; and

a NFC (Near Field Communication) interface configured to detect the presence of a payment initiating NFC device when the portable electronic device is at or near a location specified for an itinerary event at or near a specified time of that itinerary event,

wherein, during operational execution of the programming code, the portable electronic device;

connects, via the NFC interface, to a detected payment initiating NFC device to initiate a transaction for the predicted itinerary expense, receives information from the detected payment initiating NFC device relating to the actual itinerary transaction amount;

if the actual itinerary transaction amount substantially matches the predicted itinerary expense, the portable electronic device allocates the actual itinerary transaction amount to a cost center specified for that itinerary event;

if the actual itinerary transaction amount does not substantially match the predicted itinerary expense, the portable electronic device queries the traveler, via the interactive user interface device, to confirm an actual itinerary expense and cost center for the itinerary event;

receives, via the interactive user interface device, a confirmation of the actual itinerary expense and cost center for the itinerary event;

thereupon authorizes ;

via the NFC interface, the transaction with the detected payment initiating NFC device; and

transmits, via the data communications interface, details of the actual itinerary transaction amount and the allocated cost center to the remote ERP storing the traveler'"'"'s itinerary.

2. The portable electronic device as claimed in claim 1, wherein, where the actual itinerary amount does not substantially match the predicted itinerary expense, the portable electronic device queries the traveler, via the interactive user interface device, for the cost center for any amount which was not predicted.

3. The portable electronic device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the interactive user interface device generates an interface with which the traveler manually controls activation of an itinerary event to allow the detection of an NFC device.

4. A method of confirming the cost of an itinerary event of a traveler carried out by a portable electronic NFC (Near Field Communication) equipped device, the NFC-equipped device including a processor device and onboard data storage storing program code that operates the processor device of the NFC-equipped device and a copy of an itinerary of the traveler held by a remote ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning system), the itinerary having itinerary events, predicted itinerary expenses and expense cost centers, the program code being configured operationally cause the NFC-equipped device to monitor itinerary events and to detect, via a NFC interface connected to the processor device, the presence of a payment initiating NFC device when the NFC-equipped device is at or near the location specified for an itinerary event at or near the specified time of that itinerary event wherein the NFC-equipped device, the method comprising:

connecting, via the NFC interface, to a detected payment initiating NFC device to initiate a transaction for the predicted itinerary expense;

receiving, via the NFC interface, information from the detected payment initiating NFC device relating to an actual itinerary transaction amount;

in the event that the actual itinerary transaction amount substantially matches the predicted itinerary expense, allocating the actual itinerary transaction amount to a cost center specified for that itinerary event;

in the event that the actual itinerary transaction amount does not match the predicted itinerary expense, querying the traveler, via an interactive user interface device, to confirm the actual itinerary expense and cost center for the itinerary event;

receiving from the traveler, via the user interface, confirmation of the actual itinerary expense and cost center for the itinerary event;

thereupon authorizing, via the NFC interface, the transaction with the detected payment initiating NFC device; and

transmitting from the NFC-equipped device, via a data communications interface, details of the actual transaction amount and the allocated cost center to the remote ERP storing the traveler'"'"'s itinerary.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, further comprising:

if the actual itinerary amount does not substantially match the predicted itinerary expense, querying the traveler, via the interactive user interface device, for the cost center for any amount which was not predicted.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4,

wherein the interactive user interface device generates an interface to manually control activation of an itinerary event, and

wherein, upon receiving an action from the traveler to manually activate the itinerary event, the NFC interface operates to detect for an NFC device within range of the NFC interface.