System and method for duplicate detection

• US 8,793,191 B2
• Filed: 11/01/2006
• Issued: 07/29/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/01/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Original Assignee: Bank of America Corp.
• Inventors: Abernethy, George Miller, Hiler, Melinda, Williams, Geoffrey Reed, McMann, Dave Wellington, Poinier, Steve David
• Primary Examiner(s): Hamilton, Lalita M
• Assistant Examiner(s): Chang, Edward
• Application Number:
  US11/555,444
• Publication Number:
  US 20080103790A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,827 Days
• Field of Search: 705/35, 705/45
• US Class Current: 705/45
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/042 characterized in that the payment protocol involves at least one cheque
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/4016 involving fraud or risk level assessment in transaction processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/018 Certifying business or products
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes

Abstract

A duplicate detection system is provided for analyzing and processing documents received at one or more capture sites. A physical document may be electronically captured at a capture site and subsequently transmitted to a regional or central processing system. The regional or central processing system may receive capture documents from multiple capture sites. The processing system may analyze the captured documents to identify and flag false-positives prior to performing duplicate detection. Duplicate detection may be performed in accordance with predefined rules associated with false-positive flags. Once duplicate detection is complete, suspected duplicates may undergo manual review while non-duplicates are released for posting or dispatching.

Claims

1. A method for processing financial transactions, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a document processing system having at least one processor, a document;

determining, by the document processing system, whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, wherein said determination is based on characteristics of the document and one or more predefined rules for identifying potential false-positive duplicate items, and wherein said determination is not based on a comparison of the document to one or more other documents;

when the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, flagging the document by the document processing system as a potential false-positive duplicate item, wherein flagging the document indicates a manner in which an image of the document is to be analyzed by a duplicate detector, and wherein flagging the document includes selecting a false-positive flag type from a plurality of flag types based on one or more characteristics of the document; and

providing the document to the duplicate detector after determining whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, wherein duplicate detection performed by the duplicate detector differs based on whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein flagging the document includes setting a processing flag associated with the document, wherein the processing flag dictates the manner in which the image of the document is analyzed by the duplicate detector.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the processing flag corresponds to a pass-through flag.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of formatting the document into a format compatible with the duplicate detector.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

comparing, by the duplicate detector, the document with at least one other document to determine if the document is a duplicate of the at least one other document; and

identifying, by the duplicate detector, the document as a duplicate when the document is determined to be a duplicate of the at least one other document.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item includes determining whether the document corresponds to at least one of a rebate check or a returned check.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item is based on a previous determination that the document was received from an electronic capture site and not from a duplicate detector.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item comprises:

identifying one or more specific terms within the document; and

determining that the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item based on the identification of the specific terms within the document.

5. A method for detecting duplicate documents, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a duplicate detector system, a financial document;

determining, by the duplicate detector system, that the document has been modified to include a false-positive flag indicating that the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item;

in response to determining that the document has been modified and flagged as a potential false-positive duplicate item, determining, by the duplicate detector system, a manner in which to evaluate whether the document is a duplicate based on a type of the false-positive flag, wherein a first type of false positive flag corresponds to a first evaluation method and a second type of false positive flag corresponds to a second evaluation method different from the first evaluation method, and determining, by the duplicate detector system, whether the document is a duplicate by evaluating at least one information item stored in the document in accordance with the determined manner, wherein a false-positive is different from a duplicate; and

in response to determining that the document is not flagged as a potential false-positive duplicate item, determining, by the duplicate detector system, whether the document is a duplicate in a second manner, where the second manner is different from the determined manner and includes evaluating at least one other information item stored in the document.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the type of the false-positive flag includes at least one of a bypass flag, a micr line flag and an item sequence number flag.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the type of the false-positive flag is an item sequence number flag and wherein determining whether the document is a duplicate includes determining whether the item sequence number of the received document matches a second item sequence number of another document.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein the step of determining whether the document is a duplicate includes comparing the document with one or more other documents retrieved from a document repository.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the received document originated from a first capture site and the one or more other documents originated from a second capture site.

10. A document processing system, the system comprising:

a reformatter system,

a duplicate detection system; and

a suspected duplicate review system,

wherein the reformatter system is configured to receive a document and determine whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, wherein determining whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item comprises determining whether the document contains one or more specific terms, and wherein the reformatter system is further configured to modify the document by setting a flag in the document in response to determining that the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item,

wherein the duplicate detection system is configured to determine whether the document corresponds to a duplicate document after the reformatter system has determined whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, wherein the duplicate detection system is configured to determine whether the document corresponds to a duplicate document by comparing at least one information item stored in the document with information items stored in one or more other documents,

wherein duplicate detection performed by the duplicate detection system differs based on whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item, and

wherein the suspected duplicate review system is configured to assign the document to a workstation for review in response to a determination by the duplicate detection system that the document corresponds to a duplicate document.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the flag dictates a manner in which the duplicate detection system is configured to determine whether the document corresponds to a duplicate document.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein determining whether the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item includes determining whether the document corresponds to at least one of a rebate check or a returned check.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein determining whether the document corresponds to a potential false-positive duplicate item is based on a previous determination that the document was received from an electronic capture site and not from a duplicate detector.

18. The system of claim 10, wherein determining whether the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item comprises identifying one or more specific words within the document indicating that the document is a rebate check.

19. The system of claim 10, wherein determining whether the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item comprises identifying one or more specific words within the document indicating that the document is a returned check.

20. A method for detecting duplicate documents, the method comprising the steps of:

receiving, by a duplicate detector system having at least one processor, a financial document;

determining, by the duplicate detector system, that the document has been modified to include a false-positive flag indicating that the document is a potential false-positive duplicate item;

in response to determining that the document has been modified and flagged as a potential false-positive duplicate item, determining, by the duplicate detector system, a manner in which to evaluate whether the document is a duplicate based on a type of the false-positive flag, wherein a first type of false positive flag corresponds to a first evaluation method and a second type of false positive flag corresponds to a second evaluation method different from the first evaluation method, and wherein the type of the false-positive flag includes at least one of a bypass flag, a micr line flag and an item sequence number flag; and

determining, by the duplicate detector system, whether the document is a duplicate by evaluating at least one information item stored in the document in accordance with the determined manner, wherein a false-positive is different from a duplicate.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the type of the false-positive flag is an item sequence number flag and wherein determining whether the document is a duplicate includes determining whether the item sequence number of the received document matches a second item sequence number of another document.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the step of determining whether the document is a duplicate includes comparing the document with one or more other documents retrieved from a document repository.