U.S. PATENT NUMBER 6,052,672
Data processing system for complex pricing and transactional analysis
- Effective Filing Date: August 1, 1997
- Patent Issue Date: April 18, 2000
A computer application that maps transactions to service codes and then rebundles these to billable service codes. The billable services can then be priced and/or costed. Prices and costs can be related at the account, client, department, and other levels, in order to provide both standard pricing and exception pricing from several different levels of a virtual hierarchy.
Some applications perform pricing against values found whilst scanning various log files and transaction records.
The technique of first mapping such data to a discrete set of pre-defined service codes, and then pricing the amalgamated totals is the financial equivalent of going from an analog signal to a digital signal in telecommunications. Once volumes are stored against service codes, complex pricing becomes greatly simplified (e.g. volume discounts that can span multiple accounts when determining discount thresholds). Standard pricing is important for everyday accounts. But for special accounts, the ability to provide exception prices (e.g. discounted from standard) can provide a competitive advantage over rivals and competitors.
Applications that require transaction analysis in order to perform pricing, costing and billing. Notably, members U.S. Banks of the Association of Financial Professionals (formerly the Treasury Management Association) and members of the Internet Protocol Detail Record Organization (www.ipdr.org).