AU2002100991B4 - Bank account records balancing method and system - Google Patents

Description

AUSTRALIA

Patents Act 1990 STEPHEN JAMES SULLIVAN COMPLETE SPECIFICATION INNOVATION PATENT Invention Title: Bank Account Records Balancing Method and System The following statement is a full description of this invention including the best method of performing it known to us:- Title Bank Account Records Balancing Method and System Field of the invention The invention concerns a method and computer system for balancing bank account records with appropriate accounting records. The invention also concerns a bank statement used to facilitate the balancing of bank account records with appropriate accounting records.

Background Art Customers of companies, such as utility suppliers, sometimes pay their invoices directly into the bank account of the company, such as cash payments made at a bank branch or using the service offered by other agencies such as Australia Post, chemists and newsagents. The bank or the agency then forwards a summary of the deposits to the utility supplier, who then credits each deposit amount to the appropriate customer account. These credits are recorded on the company accounting system on the assumption that the money has been deposited into their account.

Customers also pay invoices at branch offices of a company. These branch offices then deposit the payments as one total payment at their local bank. The individual credits are then recorded on the company accounting system.

Summary of the Invention According to a first aspect, the invention is a method of balancing bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, the method comprising the steps of: recording deposit information, including a unique identifier, for a deposit into a bank account; communicating information on the deposit, including the unique identifier, to the bank account holder in a bank statement; and cross-matching deposits in the bank statement and credits in accounting records, using the unique identifier, to automatically identify any deposit that does not have a corresponding credit in the accounting records, or a credit that does not have a corresponding deposit in the bank statement.

The bank account holder may be a business or government entity such as a utility supplier.

The unique identifier may be a receipt number or may be a combination key, such as a combination of the date of receipt and batch number. The combination key may also be a combination of any one of an entity code, a country code, a customer code, a currency code and a date/time stamp. The later combination would be advantageous for implementation in e-commerce.

Cross-matching may be performed on further categories of deposit information, such as date of deposit and deposit amount.

The method may further comprise the generating of a report to display the results of the cross-matching, to be used by the bank account holder.

The method may further comprise the communicating information on the deposit to the bank administering the bank account if the deposit was not made directly with that bank. The step of recording deposit information, may include recording deposit information at a deposit agency or branch of the bank account holder initially receiving the deposit, and then recording the deposit information at a bank receiving the deposit.

The bank statement may be communicated to the bank account holder in electronic form.

According to a second aspect, the invention is a computer system for facilitating the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, the computer system providing: a customer deposit data store to accept and store deposit information, including a unique identifier, for a deposit into a bank account; processing means to create a bank statement containing details of the deposit, including the unique identifier; a bank account data store to accept and store information contained within a bank statement; and a customer account data store to accept and store a credit made to a customer account; a processor operated by the bank account holder to automatically crossmatch credits recorded in the customer account data store and deposits recorded in the bank account data store, using the unique identifier, to automatically identify any deposit that does not have a corresponding credit in the customer account data store, or a credit that does not have a corresponding deposit in the bank account data store.

The bank account holder may be a business or government entity such as a utility supplier.

If the deposit was not made directly with a bank, the customer deposit data store may be created at both a deposit agency or office branch of the bank account holder that initially accepts the deposit, and also with a bank that then receives the deposit.

According to a third aspect, the invention is a bank statement used to facilitate the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, where a deposit recorded on the bank statement is assigned and marked with an identifier which is unique to the bank account holder and corresponds to an identifier assigned to a credit made in the accounting records of the bank account holder.

The bank account holder may be a business or government entity such as a utility supplier.

It is an advantage of at least one aspect of the invention to allow a bank account holder to balance individual deposits on their bank statement with individual credits made in their accounting records. In balancing their bank account, a bank account holder is able to identify any deposit or credit that does not have a corresponding balancing record. A credit or deposit that has been captured correctly in either the bank account records or accounting records is also identified.

It is a further advantage of at least on embodiment of the present invention to aid the passage of the unique identifier in both the accounting and the bank records to streamline the system of processing payments towards invoices by all customers, including commercial and non-commercial entities, and individuals.

It is yet a further advantage of the invention that it can be applied to the Internet, and the use of an appropriate key enables non-credit card payents to be made towards an invoice.

Brief Description of the Drawings Fig. 1 is a flow chart of the balancing method; Fig. 3. is an example report that identifies those deposits or credits not having a corresponding balancing record.

Best Modes for Carrying Out the Invention The example concerns balancing a bank statement of a utility company with its credits to individual customer accounts.

Referring first to Fig. 1, a customer makes a payment in favour of a utility company 10 at a bank branch acting as agents for the payments, an Australian Post Office or a branch office of the utility company. This is usually in order to settle a bill. The bank branch, Australia Post or branch office then processes the payment 12, recording information including: Date of Receipt Receipt Number Batch Number Lodgement No Payment Type Amount Received Date Banked Deposit Number Entity Code Location Code Bank ID Code Bank Account Number If the payment was not made at a bank branch, the payment is deposited into the company's bank account. Part, or all of this information is captured by the bank administering the utility company's bank account. Part of this information, such as the Date of Receipt, Receipt No and the Amount Received is included in a bank statement for the bank account receiving the deposits 14. This bank statement is then sent to the utility company owning the bank account 16. The bank statement could be communicated in or converted to electronic form.

Software utilised by the utility company cross-matches the Receipt Numbers included in the bank statement, to those already processed by the utility company and recorded as a credit in its accounting system 18. The software identifies Receipt Numbers, that represent deposit, that have not been processed by the accounting system and credits made in the accounting records without a corresponding deposit. Cross-matching may also check the

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date and amount corresponding to each Receipt Number to ensure that this information has been captured correctly in the utility company's bank statement or accounting system. The result of the cross-match is detailed in a report produced by the software Fig. 2 shows an example bank statement 30 containing the information captured from each individual deposit. For example, transaction 32 is a record of a deposit of $60.00 made on 1 November 2002, and was given a Receipt Number of 1111. The customer accounting transaction record 40 contains the information on each individual credit made to customer accounts. For example, transaction 42 is a corresponding record for the deposit 32. It shows that on 23 November 2002, the utility company credited the customer account $60.00 as a result of the deposit 32.

The bank statement 30 and the customer account transaction record are cross-matched by the computer to identify that transaction 34 with receipt Number 4444 has not been credited to a customer account and that deposit 44 with Receipt Number 8888 does not have a corresponding deposit transaction.

The cross-matching of Receipt Numbers can be performed by the following query: SELECT [Accounting Information]. [Date of Receipt], [Accounting Information]. [Receipt No], [Accounting Information]. [Batch No], [Accounting Information].[Lodgement No], [Accounting Information].[Payment Type], [Accounting Information].[Amount Received], [Accounting Information].[Location Code], [Accounting Information].[Bank Account No], [Bank details].[Receipt No] FROM [Bank Details] LEFT JOIN [Accounting Information] ON [Accounting Information].[Receipt No]=[Bank Details]. [Receipt No] WHERE ([Accounting Information].[Receipt No] Is Null)

AND&

SELECT [Accounting Information].[Date of Receipt], [Accounting Information].[Receipt No], [Accounting Information].[Batch No], [Accounting Information]. [Lodgement No], [Accounting Information]. [Payment Type], [Accounting Information]. [Amount Received], [Accounting Information]. [Location Code], [Accounting Information].[Bank Account No], [Bank details].[Receipt No] FROM [Accounting Information] LEFT JOIN [Bank Details] ON [Accounting Information].[Receipt No]= [Bank Details].[Receipt No] WHERE ([Bank Details].[Receipt No] Is Null) The cross-matching query can be expanded to also identify that the amount of the deposit 38 has been captured incorrectly in the customer account transaction record 46.

The result of the query can be presented in the form of a report 50 as shown in Fig. 3.

It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that numerous variations and/or modifications may be made to the invention as shown in the specific embodiments without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention as broadly described. For example, the invention may be applied to the Internet which would act as an electronic method for receiving payments. In this case, the unique identifier could include a combination of: an entity code which in Australia could be an ABN by default, or otherwise a number assigned by the bank; a two letter country code, such as those utlised in web addresses (i.e AU for Australia); a three letter international currency code AUD for Australian dollars); an international time stamp such as standard time (Greenwich) to record the time the product or service is invoiced. In an Australian application Eastern Standard Time (Sydney) could be used; and a customer code, which could be identified through an entity code such as an ABN concatenated with the letter to indicate that this is the purchaser or an e-mail address for an individual.

Optionally the code may include a further time stamps to indicate record the time the payment is made.

The present embodiments are, therefore, to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive.

Claims (4)

1. A method of balancing bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, the method comprising the steps of: recording deposit information, including a unique identifier, for a deposit into a bank account; communicating information on the deposit, including the unique identifier, to the bank account holder in a bank statement; and cross-matching deposits in the bank statement and credits in accounting records, using the unique identifier, to automatically identify any deposit that does not have a corresponding credit in the accounting records, or a credit that does not have a corresponding deposit in the bank statement.

2. A computer system for facilitating the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, the computer system providing: a customer deposit data store to accept and store deposit information, including a unique identifier, for a deposit into a bank account; processing means to create a bank statement containing details of the deposit, including the unique identifier; a bank account data store to accept and store information contained within a bank statement; and a customer account data store to accept and store a credit made to a customer account; a processor operated by the bank account holder to automatically cross- match credits recorded in the customer account data store and deposits recorded in the bank account data store, using the unique identifier, to automatically identify any deposit that does not have a corresponding credit in the customer account data store, or a credit that does not have a corresponding deposit in the bank account data store.

3. A bank statement used to facilitate the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records of the bank account holder, where a deposit recorded on the bank statement is assigned and marked with an identifier which is unique to the bank account holder and corresponds to an identifier assigned to a credit made in the accounting records of the bank account holder.

4. A method of balancing bank account records with proprietary accounting records according to claim 1, or a computing system for facilitating the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records according to claim 2, or a bank statement used to facilitate the balancing of bank account records with proprietary accounting records according to claim 3 where the bank account holder is a utility supplier. A bank statement as substantially herein described with reference to the drawings. Dated this second day of March 2004 Stephen James Sullivan Patent Attorneys for the Applicant: F B RICE CO I