System and methods for financing merchant business needs

• US 9,786,005 B1
• Filed: 09/19/2014
• Issued: 10/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 05/26/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Square Inc (Block, Inc. (f/k/a Square, Inc.))
• Inventors: Poursartip, Ariana, Scott, John Bryan, Teh, Kevin
• Primary Examiner(s): Gart, Matthew
• Assistant Examiner(s): Kyereme-Tuah, Akosua
• Application Number:
  US14/491,963
• Time in Patent Office: 1,117 Days
• Field of Search: None
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/03 Credit; Loans; Processing thereof

Abstract

A payment system can determine when a business need for a merchant is expected to occur for a particular time period. The payment system can also determine whether a merchant is eligible for a cash advance for a particular amount, along with a fee for the cash advance. Once a determination is made that the merchant is eligible for the cash advance, the payment system can send the merchant a notification describing the expected business need for the particular time period along with an offer for the cash advance. The merchant can accept the offer for the cash advance by sending an acceptance to the payment system. Upon accepting the offer, the merchant is provided the cash advance for the particular amount, for example, in the form of an electronic deposit in a financial account of the merchant.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, over a first period of time, by one or more processors of a payment system, from a point-of-sale (POS) computing device of a merchant, transaction data for a plurality of first financial transactions corresponding to purchases by a plurality of customers of a plurality of first items from an inventory of the merchant, the transaction data including payment data to enable the one or more processors to process payments for each first financial transaction, the transaction data further including an itemized listing of the first items and other items purchased from the merchant for each first financial transaction;

maintaining, by the one or more processors, based on the received transaction data, a data structure of the inventory of the merchant, the data structure including information about items available for purchase from the merchant, including a quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant;

determining, by the one or more processors, a current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant by subtracting from the data structure the first items purchased from the merchant as indicated in the received transaction data;

utilizing, by the one or more processors, one or more application programming interfaces to access one or more social media resources to obtain social media data that describes a popularity of the merchant;

determining, by the one or more processors, based on the obtained social media data indicating that the merchant is gaining popularity, that the merchant will be receiving more customers

determining, by the one or more processors, from the data structure, a historical quantity of the first item sold during a prior time period corresponding to an upcoming time period;

based on the historical quantity determined from the data structure, the current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory determined from the data structure, and further based on determining from the social media data that the merchant will be receiving more customers, determining, by the one or more processors, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period;

determining, by the one or more processors, based at least partially on the transaction data received from the POS merchant computing device over the first period of time, a cash advance amount for enabling the merchant to purchase at least a portion of the quantity of the first item for replenishing the first item in the inventory;

sending, by the one or more processors, a notification to the POS merchant computing device of the merchant to cause a merchant application on the POS computing device to display an inventory interface concurrently with a transaction interface, the inventory interface presenting a message indicating the quantity of the first item for replenishing the inventory and further presenting an offer for the cash advance, wherein the inventory interface includes at least one control for accepting the cash advance, wherein transaction interface on the POS computing device is used to conduct the first financial transactions between the merchant and the customers of the merchant;

receiving, by the one or more processors, via the at least one control included in the inventory interface presented on the POS computing device, an acceptance of the offer for the cash advance from the POS computing device of the merchant;

providing, by the one or more processors, the cash advance to a financial account of the merchant, wherein the financial account of the merchant is maintained by a financial institution that is a separate entity from the payment system;

processing, by the one or more processors, at least one second financial transaction conducted between the merchant and at least one customer of the merchant using the POS computing device of the merchant;

determining, by the one or more processors, that the merchant has not repaid the cash advance and a fee for the cash advance; and

apportioning, by the one or more processors, a respective portion of funds from the at least one second financial transaction to a separate financial account of the payment system.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the transaction data indicates, for a respective first financial transaction, a respective quantity of the first item that was purchased during the respective first financial transaction, the method further comprising:

in response to receiving the transaction data for the respective first financial transaction, updating in the data structure, by the one or more processors, the quantity of the first item maintained in the inventory based on the respective quantity of the first item that was purchased during the individual first financial transaction.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises:

determining, at least partially from the data structure, based at least partially on the historical quantity for the prior time period, a quantity needed to satisfy demand for the first item during the upcoming time period; and

determining, based on the current quantity of the first item in the inventory indicated by the data structure, that the current quantity of the first item in the inventory does not satisfy the quantity needed to satisfy the demand.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

receiving, by the one or more processors of the payment system, transaction data from a plurality of other merchants, wherein at least some of the other merchants are in a same merchant category as the merchant,

wherein determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises determining the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase based in part on determining, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item needed by the other merchants that are in the same merchant category as the merchant.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the amount of the cash advance is based at least in part on determining, from the received transaction data, an amount collected by the merchant through the first financial transactions that were conducted by the merchant through the payment system over the first period of time.

6. A payment system comprising:

one or more processors; and

memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the payment system to perform operations comprising;

receiving, over a first period of time, from a point-of-sale (POS) computing device of a merchant, transaction data for a plurality of first financial transactions corresponding to purchases by a plurality of customers of a plurality of first items from an inventory of the merchant, the transaction data including payment data used by the one or more processors to process payments for each first financial transaction, the transaction data further including an itemized listing of the first items and other items purchased from the merchant for each first financial transaction;

maintaining, based on the received transaction data, a data structure of the inventory of the merchant, the data structure including information about items available for purchase from the merchant, including a quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant;

determining a current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant by subtracting from the data structure the first items purchased from the merchant as indicated in the received transaction data;

utilizing one or more application programming interfaces (APIs) to access one or more social media resources to obtain social media data that describes a popularity of the merchant;

determining based on the obtained social media data indicating that the merchant is gaining popularity, that the merchant will be receiving more customers;

determining from the data structure, a historical quantity of the first item sold during a prior time period corresponding to an upcoming time period;

based on the historical quantity determined from the data structure, the current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory determined from the data structure, and further based on determining from the social media data that the merchant will be receiving more customers, determining for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period;

determining, based in part on the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory, a business expense that is expected to occur for the merchant for the upcoming time period;

determining, based on the business expense and based at least partially on the transaction data received from the POS merchant computing device over the first period of time, a cash advance amount for enabling the merchant to purchase at least a portion of the quantity of the first item for replenishing the first item in the inventory;

sending a notification to the POS merchant computing device of the merchant to cause a merchant application on the POS computing device to display an inventory interface concurrently with a transaction interface, the inventory interface presenting a message indicating the quantity of the first item for replenishing the inventory and further presenting an offer for the cash advance, wherein the inventory interface includes at least one control for accepting the cash advance, wherein the transaction interface on the POS computing device is used to conduct the first financial transactions between the merchant and the customers of the merchant;

receiving via the at least one control included in the inventory interface presented on the POS computing device, an acceptance of the offer for the cash advance from the POS computing device of the merchant; and

providing the cash advance to a financial account of the merchant, wherein the financial account of the merchant is maintained by a financial institution that is a separate entity from the payment system.

7. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the inventory interface further comprises:

a control for declining the offer for the cash advance from the POS computing device of the merchant; and

a control for enabling the merchant to request a different amount for the cash advance.

8. The payment system of claim 7, wherein the operations of providing the cash advance to the financial account of the merchant further comprise:

automatically providing, through the payment system, an electronic deposit in particular amount of the cash advance to the financial account of the merchant with the financial institution that is the separate entity from the payment system.

9. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the operation of processing the plurality of financial transactions between the merchant and the plurality of customers further comprises operations of:

in response to processing a financial transaction between the merchant and a respective customer for a respective first item, updating a current quantity of the first item in the data structure for the inventory associated with the merchant based in part on a quantity of the first item purchased in the financial transaction.

10. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the operation of determining, based in part on the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory, the business expense that is expected to occur for the merchant during the upcoming time period further comprises operations of:

training a predictive model associated with the merchant using data describing the plurality of financial transactions between the merchant the plurality of customers, the predictive model being trained to predict a time at which the merchant is likely to run out of the first item; and

determining that the business expense is expected to occur during the upcoming time period based on an output from the predictive model.

11. The payment system of claim 6, wherein:

the operations further comprise receiving, by the payment system, transaction data from a plurality of other merchants, wherein at least some of the other merchants are in a same merchant category as the merchant; and

the operation of determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises determining the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase based in part on determining, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item needed by the other merchants that are in the same merchant category as the merchant.

12. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the operation of determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises operations of:

determining, from the data structure, the current quantity of the first item in the inventory;

determining, based on the historical quantity of the first item sold during the prior time period, a predicted demand for the first item during the upcoming time period; and

determining a difference between the current quantity of the first item and the predicted demand for the first item during the upcoming time period.

13. The payment system of claim 6, the operations further comprising training a classifier using training data that describes, for various merchants, respective payment history, respective type of business, and respective gross payment volume over a particular time period;

and

determining the amount for the cash advance to offer to the merchant based at least partially on an output of the trained classifier determined based on the merchant'"'"'s payment history, type of business, and gross payment volume.

14. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the social media data obtained using the one or more APIs from the one or more social media resources describing the popularity of the merchant includes one or more of:

data describing a number of check-ins at the merchant'"'"'s location, a number of reviews for the merchant, an average review rating for the merchant, or a number of entities that have identified the merchant as a favorite.

15. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the business expense that is expected to occur during the upcoming time period is further determined based in part on at least one of:

a corresponding lead time for receiving additional quantities of the first item, a weather forecast, a season, a holiday, or one or more industry trends.

16. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the amount of the cash advance is determined based in part on at least one of:

an evaluation of an amount collected by the merchant through previous financial transactions that were conducted by the merchant through the payment system over a specified period of time, an amount needed to satisfy the business expense that is expected to occur, or both.

17. The payment system of claim 6, wherein the operations further comprise:

processing at least one subsequent financial transaction conducted between the merchant and at least one customer of the merchant using the POS computing device of the merchant;

determining that the merchant has not repaid the cash advance and a fee for the cash advance; and

apportioning a respective portion of funds from the at least one subsequent financial transaction to a separate financial account of the payment system.

18. A computer-implemented method of providing an inventory notification and an offer for a cash advance to a merchant, the method comprising:

sending, over a first period of time, to a payment system, by a point-of-sale (POS) computing device of a merchant, transaction data for a plurality of first financial transactions corresponding to purchases by a plurality of customers of a plurality of first items from an inventory of the merchant, the transaction data including payment data to enable the payment system to process payments for each first financial transaction, the transaction data further including an itemized listing of the first items and other items purchased from the merchant for each first financial transaction, wherein the payment system maintains, based on the received transaction data, a data structure of the inventory of the merchant, including a quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant;

receiving, by POS computing device of the merchant, from the payment system, the inventory notification and the offer for the cash advance, wherein the inventory notification includes a quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory, the quantity determined based on;

a historical quantity of the first item sold by the merchant during a prior time period corresponding to an upcoming time period,

a current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory determined from the data structure, and

a prediction determined from social media data that the merchant will be receiving more customers for the upcoming time period;

displaying, on a display of the POS computing device, the inventory notification and the offer for the cash advance, wherein a merchant application on the POS computing device configures the POS computing device to display an inventory interface concurrently with a transaction interface, the inventory interface presenting the inventory notification indicating the quantity of the first item for replenishing the inventory and further presenting the offer for the cash advance, wherein the inventory interface includes at least one control for accepting the cash advance, wherein the transaction interface presented on the display of the POS computing device is used to conduct the first financial transactions between the merchant and the customers of the merchant;

receiving, by the POS computing device, selection of the at least one control included in the inventory interface to indicate an acceptance of the offer for the cash advance;

sending, by the POS computing device, to the payment system, data describing the acceptance of the offer for the cash advance;

receiving, by the POS computing device, from the payment system, an indication that the cash advance from the payment system has been sent to a financial account of the merchant;

processing by the POS computing device, at least one second financial transaction conducted by the merchant with at least one customer;

wherein, if the merchant has not repaid the cash advance and a fee for the cash advance, a portion of funds from the at least one second financial transaction is apportioned to a separate financial account of the payment system.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the inventory interface that presents the offer for the cash advance further includes a control for declining the offer and a control for requesting a different amount for the cash advance.

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory is further determined based in part on determining, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item needed by other merchants that are in a same merchant category as the merchant.

21. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, wherein an amount of the cash advance is determined based at least in part on an evaluation of an amount collected by the merchant through the first financial transactions that were conducted by the merchant and processed through the payment system.

22. The computer-implemented method of claim 18, the inventory interface presented further comprising a selectable link for accessing terms of the cash advance, the terms including that a portion of each transaction conducted by the merchant using the payment service is withheld by the payment service for repayment for the cash advance and a fee for the cash advance.