KR20060102927A - Apparatus for combinating direct mail material - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a publicity mailing technology, and more particularly, to an apparatus for generating and printing mails for the same type and the same recipient requested from a plurality of clients.

The integrated mail generating and printing apparatus according to the present invention collects the sales data of merchants provided from clients (card company / bank), integrates them for each merchant, generates integrated sales data, and inserts and prints them in a designated DM form. Control as possible.

As described above, the mail generating and printing apparatus according to the present invention integrates the sales data provided from the affiliated card companies / banks of the affiliated stores and sends them to the affiliated business operators. Since there is no need to manage separately, convenience of management is enhanced, and the operator can check the sales status of the affiliated store at a glance.

Mail, consolidated, direct mail, merchant, sales

Description

Integrated mail generating and printing device {Apparatus for combinating direct mail material}

1 is a conceptual diagram showing the overall flow of the integrated mail sending according to the present invention.

Figure 2 is a block diagram schematically showing the configuration of the integrated mail generating and printing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 3 is an exemplary view showing the sales status according to the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

100: print information collection unit 200: print information database

300: integrated print data generation unit 310: alignment unit

320: collecting unit 330: generating unit

400: message generating unit 500: output control unit

510: printing control unit 520: sealing control unit

530: classification control unit 600: DM form database

700: DM File 800: Printing Press

900: Sealing and Sorter

The present invention relates to a publicity mailing technology, and more particularly, to an apparatus for generating and printing mails for the same type and the same recipient requested from a plurality of clients.

Many companies are now sending direct mail (DM) agencies to their customers in large quantities. Mail by DM is widely used. DM is a means of communication that literally delivers printed matters such as letters, postcards, invitations, catalogs, etc. in the form of mails or by means of mail to specific target persons for the purpose of the sender.

On the other hand, current card companies and banks usually pay according to a fixed payment cycle for sales generated at affiliated stores, and continuously manage and store sales data of all affiliated stores. Credit card companies / banks indicate the number and amount of monthly sales data stored in front of merchants for VAT reporting, and sends sales statistics to each affiliated store every three months. Merchants receive VATs sent by the card company / bank and store and manage them, and then delegate them to the tax office or tax office to report VAT.

Accordingly, the conventional affiliated store receives and manages mails for sales schedules separately from card companies / banks (for example, KB Card, KEB, LG Card, BC Card, and Shinhan Card), thereby causing inconvenience in management. . In addition, since operators receive separately the sales summary of the affiliated stores by card company / bank, it is not possible to check the sales status for monthly / quarterly. Accordingly, the applicant has sought a technical solution to solve the problems described above from the DM agent's point of view.

The present invention is derived from such a situation, it is an object of the present invention to improve the convenience of sales data management and sales status check at the merchant.

Integrated mail generating and printing apparatus according to an aspect of the present invention for achieving the above object is to collect the sales data of the merchants provided from the clients (card company / bank) and integrate them for each merchant to generate integrated sales data After that, it is inserted into a designated DM form and controlled to be printed.

According to this aspect of the present invention, since the mail generating and printing apparatus according to the present invention integrates sales data provided from affiliated card companies / banks of the affiliated store and sends them to the affiliated store operator, each card company / There is no need to manage the sales data sent by bank separately so that the convenience of management is enhanced, and the operator can check the sales status of the merchants at a glance.

The foregoing and further aspects of the present invention will become more apparent through the preferred embodiments described with reference to the accompanying drawings. Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail to enable those skilled in the art to easily understand and reproduce the present invention.

1 is a conceptual diagram showing the overall flow of the integrated mail sending according to the present invention. First of all, the merchant performs a card transaction after receiving a transaction approval from a card company using a device such as a Point of Sales (POS) terminal according to a normal procedure for the card transaction that occurs. Merchant sends the card transaction details to the card company, the card company manages the sales data according to the card transactions of each merchant. Card companies also provide quarterly revenue data to their DM agencies. At this time, the sales data may be provided to the DM agency by the recording medium. Revenue data according to another example may be provided over a network.

The DM agency collects the sales data provided by the card company, and divides the collected sales data by each merchant to generate a comprehensive sales data. The DM agency mails the consolidated sales data to each recipient.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram schematically illustrating a configuration of an integrated mail generating and printing device constructed in the DM agency of FIG. 1 according to an embodiment of the present invention. As shown, the integrated mail generating and printing apparatus according to the present invention includes a print information collecting unit 100 for collecting print information including a business number and sales data, and the print collected by the print information collecting unit 100. A print information database 200 for storing information, an integrated print data generation unit 300 for generating integrated print data for each business number stored in the print information database 200, and the integrated print data generation unit ( Message generation unit 400 for generating a mail message to be sent to each operator by inserting the integrated print material generated by 300 into the DM form, and to control the output of the mail message generated by the message generator 400 An output control unit 500 is included.

The print information collecting unit 100 collects print information including business number and sales data of each affiliated store provided from card companies / banks which are clients. The sales data, as is known, represents the transaction information required for VAT reporting, and includes the number of transactions of the merchants per month, the transaction amount, the merchant fee, and the deposit amount. The print information may further include mail receiving addresses of respective merchants as necessary. Alternatively, the mailing address may have been previously established as a customer database in conjunction with operator information for client merchants.

According to an example, the print information collecting unit 100 collects and prints print information from computer-readable recording media (for example, magnetic tapes) that record print information received from card companies / banks at a DM agency. It can be stored in the information database 200. According to another example, the print information collecting unit 100 may collect print information by logging in to a client and downloading print information through a web server (not shown in the drawing). It may be done.

The integrated print data generating unit 300 accesses the print information database 200 and integrates the print information matched by each operator number to generate the integrated print data. According to a characteristic aspect of the present invention, the integrated print data generating unit 300 includes an alignment unit 310, a collecting unit 320, and a generating unit 330.

The sorting unit 310 sorts the sales data included in the print information stored in the print information database 200 by the business number. For example, the sorting unit 310 sorts the sales data according to the business number ranking. In other words, the print information is sorted. The collecting unit 320 collects the print information sorted by the sorting unit 310 based on the business number and distinguishes it from the printing information of the other business number. That is, printing information provided from several card companies / banks is collected by the same business number. The generation unit 330 generates the print information collected by each business number by the collecting unit 320 as integrated print data. In other words, sales data provided to all merchants from all credit card companies / banks is generated as integrated data. In one embodiment, the alignment unit 310, the collection unit 320, the generation unit 330 are all implemented in software.

The message generating unit 400 inserts the integrated printed data generated by the integrated print data generating unit 300 into a DM form corresponding to the integrated sales data transmission among DM forms stored in the DM form database 600 and sends the mail to be sent. Create a message file. To this end, the message generator 400 may use a mail merge function provided by most word processors that are commercially available and widely spread. The message generator 400 merges the integrated print data generated by the integrated print data generator 300 into the DM form. According to an example, the message generating unit 400 may include a data file that includes business information (for example, at least one of a merchant name, a merchant number, and a business number) stored in the print information database 200. Merging a form letter file which is the integrated print material generated by the integrated print data generation unit 300 corresponding thereto may generate a mail message file and supply it to the output control unit 500.

In one embodiment, the mail messages to be sent are generated for each recipient (the merchant) and are then supplied to the output control unit 500 each time. However, the mail message is generated for every recipient and then converted into an output file in a batch, and after the output control file is generated, it may be supplied to the output control unit 500 in a state stored in the memory 700, and the present invention encompasses all of them. Is interpreted to be.

According to another characteristic aspect of the present invention, the output control unit 500 automatically controls the printing of the mail message generated by the message generating unit 400 and the printed mail sheet to be folded into the envelope It includes a sealing control unit 520 to control the.

In one embodiment, the output control unit 500 further outputs a control signal to the classifier for classifying the sealed mails according to the address (mail receiving address) information of the operator stored in the print information database 200 or the customer database. The classification control unit 530 further includes.

In one embodiment, the print information collecting unit 100, the integrated print data generating unit 300, the message generating unit 400, the output control unit 500 are all implemented in software on a single computer. The computer is connected with a printer 800, an integrated sealer and a sorter 900 by an external control device. The printer 800 is preferably a high speed printer, and basically has a sorting function for classifying and outputting the mail according to the type of mail message.

The integrated sealer and classifier 900 is a commercially provided equipment. The function of the equipment is to load some types of inlays into the paper input unit and to load the envelopes. Select one or more inlays, fold them automatically according to the specified folding type, insert them into the envelope, glue the envelope lids, seal them, and classify the sealed envelopes according to the specified rules and output them onto the conveyor belt. Such equipment is commercially available for the high end, and can be configured to connect individual modules to the low end, or to manually feed the previous output to the next machine.

The print controller 510 may be implemented by a conventional printer driver. The print control unit 510 controls the printing of the mail message generated by the message generating unit 400 by controlling the printer 800 of the output device, so that the mail message is printed. The mail message generated by the message generating unit 400 is converted into printing data by the printing control unit 510 of the output control unit 500, and the printing data is printed by the printer 800 operating at a high speed. An example schematically showing printed content is shown in FIG. 3. As shown, it can be seen that the sales status for all card companies related to the merchant is integrated.

The sealing controller 520 may merely process a start command for initiating a sealing operation of the sealer 900 in the output device. In one embodiment, the sealing control unit 520 may be provided in the interior of the sealer 900 equipment. The encapsulation control unit 520 controls the encapsulation machine 900 to automatically fold the printed mail sheet into the envelope and control the encapsulation. For reference, the printed mail sheets are folded by the automatic folding device of the sealer 900. There are several types of folding mail sheets, and the sealer 900 folds the mail sheets according to the type specified by the sealing controller 520. Folded mail sheets are put in an envelope. The sealer 900 then attaches the cover of the envelope. At this time, the envelope may be printed with the address and name postal code of the recipient (merchants) by a separate printer, or the same contents printed on the mail sheet in the transparent window of the envelope may be exposed to the outside.

The classification control unit 530 outputs a control signal to classify the sealed envelopes according to the address (postal address) information of the operator such as, for example, a postal code. The classification controller 530 may also be configured as software inside the computer, or may be mounted inside the sealer and the classifier. In this case, the data required for the classification may be obtained from the print information database 200 or the customer database or by uploading the processed data of the database to the sealer and the classifier 900. The invention is construed to cover such obvious variations.

The classification control unit 530 controls the mail items sealed in the sealer 900 to be classified according to the address information of the receiver. A plurality of buffers may be installed inside the sorter 900, and may be classified while temporarily storing the sorted buffer in the output mail buffer. In another embodiment, the mail messages are pre-categorized and printed in the printer 800, and the sorted outputs are fed into a plurality of inlets installed in the inlet of the sealer 900 by type, so that the sealer 900 is fixed. You can also work to output envelopes sorted in consecutive order.

In one embodiment, a conveyor belt is installed at the output end of the sealer and the sorter 900, and the sorter 900 outputs, for example, 30 or 50 sheets of envelopes that are sealed and output to the conveyor belt, for each address, The conveyor belt is driven by one unit every time the output of the classifier 900 becomes 30 or 50 sheets, for example, so that the operator can process it. The operator only needs to tie 30 or 50 envelopes into the mail bag at the exit of the conveyor belt.

As described above, since the mail generating and printing apparatus according to the present invention integrates sales data provided from affiliated card companies / banks of the affiliated store and sends them to the affiliated store operator, the merchant side sends each card company / bank as in the prior art. There is no need to manage the sales data separately, the convenience of management is enhanced, and also the operator can check the sales status of the merchant at a glance.

On the other hand, the present invention has been described with reference to the embodiments shown in the drawings, which are merely exemplary, and those skilled in the art will understand that various modifications and equivalent other embodiments are possible therefrom. Therefore, the true technical protection scope of the present invention should be defined only by the appended claims.

Claims (5)

Integrated mail generating and printing apparatus, characterized in that for generating the print control of the same type of prints to be sent to each operator in accordance with requests from a plurality of clients. The device of claim 1 wherein the device is: A print information collection unit for collecting print information including a business number and sales data; A print information database for storing print information collected by the print information collecting unit; An integrated print data generation unit for generating integrated print data for each business number stored in the print information database; A message generation unit for generating an e-mail message to be sent to each operator by inserting the integrated print material generated by the integrated print material generation unit into a DM form; An output control unit controlling an output of the mail message generated by the message generating unit; Integrated mail generating and printing device comprising a. The method of claim 2, wherein the integrated print data generation unit: A sorting unit for sorting the print information stored in the print information database by a business number, a collecting unit for collecting print information sorted by the sorting unit by a business number, and each business operator collected by the collecting unit. Integrated mail generating and printing device, characterized in that it comprises a generating unit for generating the print information by number as an integrated print data. The method of claim 2 or 3, wherein the output control unit: And a sealing control unit for controlling the printing of the mail message generated by the message generating unit, and a sealing control unit for controlling the folding of the printed mail sheet into an envelope automatically. The apparatus of claim 4, wherein the output control unit: And a classification control unit for outputting a control signal to a classifier for classifying the sealed mails according to the address information of the service provider.

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