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US 11,568,497 B2Granted
Automated expense report systems and methods
AssigneeCertify, Inc.
InventorsAlan Neveu, Robert Neveu
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
According to another aspect, a computer system is provided. The computer system includes a memory; at least one processor in data communication with the memory; and a reporting component executable by the at least processor and configured to execute a user interface component configured to receive schedule information, the schedule information including a company-wide schedule specifying an expense report generation date and at least one reminder; store the schedule information in a data store; send the at least one reminder to a plurality of users prior to the expense report generation date; and generate, on the expense report generation date, a plurality of expense reports respectively corresponding to the plurality of users.
Claims20
A validation and verification system comprising:
- a memory;
- at least one processor in data communication with the memory;
- and
- a merging component executable by the at least one processor and configured to:
- receive expense report information data from a plurality of data sources, the plurality of data sources including at least data from:
- a receipt parsing component, user entered information, or a partner information source;
- wherein the expense report information data includes a first data set associated with a first receipt received from a first data source and a second data set associated with the first receipt received from a second data source;
- identify a first element of a plurality of elements in the first data set, the first element being descriptive of a first characteristic of a transaction generated by the receipt parsing component, wherein the receipt parsing component identifies a string of characters from optical character recognition (OCR) executed on a receipt that matches a character pattern and metacharacters specified by at least one regular expression of a plurality of regular expressions;
- identify a second element of a plurality of elements in the second data set, the second element being descriptive of the first characteristic of the transaction from another of the plurality of data sources;
- identify a respective expense element type and data source of each of the first and second elements;
- identify a conflict between the first element and the second element;
- determine a presence of at least one additional element within each of the first and second data sets;
- dynamically assign a first weight to the first element based at least on the respective expense element type and the respective data source, wherein assigning the first weight includes an act of adjusting the first weight responsive to determine the presence of the at least one additional element within the first set of data;
- dynamically assign a second weight to the second element based at least on the respective expense element type and the respective data source, wherein assigning the second weight includes an act of adjusting the second weight responsive to determining the presence of the at least one additional element within the second set of data;
- compare the first weight to the second weight to validate conflicting data from the first and second source;
- select, based at least on the comparison of the first and second weights, one of the first element and the second element as a validated data source;
- and
- generate a unified and validated data set for the first receipt including the selected one of the first and second elements.
15 more elements
A method for automatically merging expense report information using a computer system, the method comprising:
- receiving, by a merging component executed by at least one processor, expense report information from a plurality of data sources, the plurality of data sources including at least data from:
- a receipt parsing component, user entered information, or a partner information source, wherein the expense report information includes a first data set received from a first data source and a second data set received from a second data source;
- identifying, by the merging component, a first element of a plurality of elements in the first data set, the first element being descriptive of a first characteristic of a transaction generated by the receipt parsing component, wherein the receipt parsing component identifies a string of characters from optical character recognition (OCR) executed on a receipt that matches a character pattern and metacharacters specified by at least one regular expression of a plurality of regular expressions;
- identifying, by the merging component, a second element of a plurality of elements in the second data set, the second element being descriptive of the first characteristic of the transaction from another of the plurality of data sources;
- identifying, by the merging component, a respective element type and data source of each of the first and second elements;
- identifying, by the merging component, a conflict between the first element and the second element;
- determining, by the merging component, a presence of at least one additional element within each of the first and second data sets;
- dynamically assigning, by the merging component, a first weight to the first element based at least on the respective expense element type, the respective data source, and the presence of the at least one additional element within the first set of data;
- dynamically assigning, by the merging component, a second weight to the second element based at least on the respective expense element type, the respective data source, and the presence of the at least one additional element within the second set of data;
- comparing, by the merging component, the first weight to the second weight to validate conflicting data from the first and second source;
- selecting, by the merging component, based at least on the comparison of the first and second weights, one of the first element and the second element as a validated data source;
- and
- generating a set of expense report information including the selected one of the first and second elements from a unified and validated data set.
10 more elements
A non-transitory computer readable medium storing sequences of computer executable instructions to implement a method for automatically merging expense report information, the sequences of instructions including instructions to:
- receive expense report information data from a plurality of data sources, the plurality of data sources including at least data from:
- a receipt parsing component, user entered information, or a partner information source, wherein the expense report information data includes a first data set received from a first data source and a second data set received from a second data source;
- identify a first element of a plurality of elements the first element being descriptive of a first characteristic of a transaction generated by the receipt parsing component, wherein the receipt parsing component identifies a string of characters from optical character recognition (OCR) executed on a receipt that matches a character pattern and metacharacters specified by at least one regular expression of a plurality of regular expressions;
- identify a second element of a plurality of elements in the second data set, the second element being descriptive of the first characteristic of the transaction from another of the plurality of data sources;
- identify a respective expense element type and data source of each of the first and second elements;
- identify a conflict between the first element and the second element;
- determine a presence of at least one additional element within each of the first and second data sets;
- dynamically assign a first weight to the first element based at least on the respective expense element type, the respective data source, and the presence of the at least one additional element within the first set of data;
- dynamically assign a second weight to the second element based at least on the respective expense element type, the respective data source, and the presence of the at least one additional element within the second set of data;
- compare the first weight to the second weight to validate conflicting data from the first and second source;
- select, based at least on the comparison of the first and second weights, one of the first element and the second element as a validated data source;
- and
- generate a set of expense report information including the selected one of the first and second elements from a unified and validated data set.
10 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.