System and method for processing a transaction document including one or more financial transaction entries

• US 9,916,606 B2
• Filed: 04/16/2012
• Issued: 03/13/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 04/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Castle Bookkeeping Wizard Pty Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Castle Bookkeeping Wizard Pty Ltd.
• Inventors: Stroh, Tim
• Primary Examiner(s): Crawley, Talia F
• Application Number:
  US13/447,505
• Publication Number:
  US 20120265655A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,157 Days
• Field of Search: 705 30, 705 40, 358468
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A system for processing a transaction document including one or more financial transaction entries, including a record generation subsystem having data processing means configured to a) receive or generate a complete character string characterizing the financial transaction entries displayed on the document; b) analyze each complete character string to identify known transaction identifiers used in financial transactions; c) analyze each complete character string to identify transaction data strings associated with each identified transaction character string; and d) store transaction data, including the transaction character strings and associated transaction data strings, for each single financial transaction in a database.

Claims

1. A financial transaction entry processing system comprising:

a record generation subsystem having;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to;

(a) receive or generate at least one character string characterizing one or more financial transaction entries in a transaction document or a data file, wherein the transaction document is one of;

an optical character recognized document known to have at least one error, an optical character recognized document unknown to have any errors, and a transaction document associated with a physical document, such that;

(i) if the transaction document is received and if said transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a digital image of the physical document is available;

(A) for each of at least one orientation of the available digital image of the physical document associated with said transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the at least one orientation in association with said transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said orientation and a quantity of character strings recognized for said orientation, and

(ii) if the transaction document is received and if said transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a plurality of digital images of the physical document are available;

(A) for each of the plurality of available digital images of the physical document associated with said transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the digital images in association with said transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said digital image and a quantity of character strings recognized for said digital image;

(b) thereafter, analyze each character string of the transaction document or the data file to identify one or more transaction identifiers used in financial transactions, each of the one or more transaction identifiers being one of;

a Preferred Character String and an Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(c) analyze each character string of the transaction document or the data file to identify transaction data strings associated with each of the one or more identified transaction identifiers, each of the transaction data strings being one of;

the Preferred Character String and the Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(d) perform at least one of verifying or correcting the one or more transaction identifiers and transaction data strings by automatically applying at least one of stored correction rules or authentication rules; and

(e) store transaction data, including the one or more transaction identifiers and associated transaction data strings, for each financial transaction in a database.

2. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein when executed by the at least one processor, the plurality of instructions cause the at least one processor to perform optical character recognition on the transaction document to generate the at least one character string.

3. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein when executed by the at least one processor, the plurality of instructions cause the at least one processor to:

analyze each character string of the transaction document or the data file to determine if the transaction document represents more than one transaction, and

if the transaction document represents more than one transaction, breaking the at least one character string of the transaction document into individual transaction substrings each corresponding to a single financial transaction.

4. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein when executed by the at least one processor, the plurality of instructions cause the at least one processor to analyze a layout of one or more of the financial transaction entries and related information displayed on the transaction document to identify known patterns of common financial documents.

5. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein the transaction document is an account statement.

6. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein when executed by the at least one processor, the plurality of instructions cause the at least one processor to augment the stored transaction data with supplementary transaction data from supplementary data sources.

7. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 6, wherein the supplementary transaction data includes any one or more of:

one or more parties engaged in a transaction, and the nature or type of the transaction.

8. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 6, wherein the supplementary data sources include publicly accessible databases.

9. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein one or more of the transaction documents are physical documents.

10. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 9, wherein the record generation subsystem includes a document digitization module configured to digitize the physical documents.

11. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 1, wherein one or more of the transaction documents are electronic documents having a known digital document format.

12. A financial transaction entry processing comprising:

a record generation subsystem having;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to;

(a) receive or generate at least one character string characterizing one or more financial transaction entries in a first transaction document or a first data file, wherein the first transaction document is one of;

an optical character recognized document known to have at least one error, an optical character recognized document unknown to have any errors, and a transaction document associated with a physical document, such that;

(i) if the first transaction document is received and if said first transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a digital image of the physical document is available;

(A) for each of at least one orientation of the available digital image of the physical document associated with said first transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the at least one orientation in association with said first transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said orientation and a quantity of character strings recognized for said orientation, and

(ii) if the first transaction document is received and if said first transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a plurality of digital images of the physical document are available;

(A) for each of the plurality of available digital images of the physical document associated with said first transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the digital images in association with said first transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said digital image and a quantity of character strings recognized for said digital image;

(b) analyze each character string to identify one or more transaction identifiers used in financial transactions, each of the one or more transaction identifiers being one of;

a Preferred Character String and an Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(c) thereafter, analyze each character string of the first transaction document or the first data file to identify transaction data strings associated with each of the one or more identified transaction identifiers, each of the transaction data strings being one of;

the Preferred Character String and the Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(d) perform at least one of verifying or correcting the one or more transaction identifiers and transaction data strings by automatically applying at least one of stored correction rules or authentication rules;

(e) store transaction data, including the one or more transaction identifiers and associated transaction data strings, for each financial transaction in a database; and

(f) augment the one or more transaction identifiers and associated transaction data strings with supplementary data by accessing at least one of previously stored transaction data or one or more external databases.

13. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 12, which includes a reconciliation subsystem having at least one processor, and at least one memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to reconcile the stored transaction data from the first transaction document or the first data file with the stored transaction data from one or more other transaction documents or data files, wherein the stored transaction data from the one or more other transaction documents or data files has been obtained via executing (a) to (d) on the one or more other transaction documents or data files.

14. The financial transaction entry processing system according to claim 13, wherein the previously stored transaction data used in (e) includes the stored transaction data from the one or more other transaction documents or data files.

15. A financial transaction entry processing system comprising:

a record generation subsystem having;

at least one processor; and

at least one memory device which stores a plurality of instructions, which when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to;

(a) receive or generate at least one character string characterizing one or more financial transaction entries in a transaction document or a data file, wherein the transaction document is one of;

an optical character recognized document known to have at least one error, an optical character recognized document unknown to have any errors, and a transaction document associated with a physical document, such that;

(i) if the transaction document is received and if said transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a digital image of the physical document is available;

(A) for each of at least one orientation of the available digital image of the physical document associated with said transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the at least one orientation in association with said transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said orientation and a quantity of character strings recognized for said orientation, and

(ii) if the transaction document is received and if said transaction document is associated with the physical document and if a plurality of digital images of the physical document are available;

(A) for each of the plurality of available digital images of the physical document associated with said transaction document, execute an optical character recognition process, and

(B) designate one of the digital images in association with said transaction document, said designation being based on a quantity of characters recognized for said digital image and a quantity of character strings recognized for said digital image;

(b) thereafter, analyze each character string of the transaction document or the data file to identify one or more transaction identifiers used in financial transactions, each of the one or more transaction identifiers being one of;

a Preferred Character String and an Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(c) thereafter, analyze each character string of the transaction document or the data file to identify transaction data strings associated with each of the one or more identified transaction identifiers, each of the transaction data strings being one of;

the Preferred Character String and the Associated Preferred Character String Data;

(d) store transaction data, including the one or more transaction identifiers and associated transaction data strings, for each financial transaction in a database;

(e) perform at least one of verifying or correcting the one or more transaction identifiers and transaction data strings by automatically applying at least one of stored correction rules or authentication rules; and

(f) categorize the one or more transaction identifiers and transaction data strings by carrying out a categorization process including a sequence of categorization decisions and actions which involve comparison of the one or more transaction identifiers and transaction data strings to at least one of previously stored transaction data or one or more external databases.