US 4,933,842 AGranted

Automated investment fund accounting system

AssigneeTesseract Corporation

InventorsGary L. Durbin, Martha C. Johnson, Scott A. Willey, Michael J. Hemmert, Karen V. Beaman

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Abstract

A computerized investment plan accounting system manages data for investment plans with multiple participants and multiple investment funds. When a transaction is entered, one side of the transaction (either units or dollars) may be flagged as pended. When the unit value for the fund is determined and stored, the pended side is calculated, stored, dated, and flagged as fixed. Investment fund balances are accumulated by posting the transactions to investment fund accounts. Individual participant fund balances are determined by accumulating transaction data in a multi-dimensional matrix. The participant fund balances are combined for all participants, and the combined totals are compared to the investment fund balances.

Claims13

Dependent claims

A method of processing data on a general purpose digital computer for a plurality of investment funds and a plurality of participants, each of the investment funds having a time-variant unit value, the method comprising the following steps:

(a) recording a transaction by storing externally-supplied information, including information identifying one of the participants, information identifying at least one of the investment funds, a transaction effective date, a transaction type, and a first amount value;
(b) updating a fund balance file having a plurality of accounts by crediting said first amount value to a holding account for the identified investment fund;
(c) storing an externally-supplied conversion factor for the identified investment fund;
(d) calculating a second amount value for the recorded transaction using said first amount value and said conversion factor;
(e) storing said second amount value with the recorded transaction;
(f) updating the fund balance file by crediting said second amount value to a first fund account for the identified fund and by transferring the first amount value from the holding account to a second fund account for the identified fund;
(g) repeating steps (a) through (f) to process a plurality of transactions for a plurality of participants affecting a plurality of funds;
(h) generating participant fund balances for each of said participants and for each of said investment funds by accumulating the first and second amount values from the recorded translations;
(i) generating cumulative fund balances for each of said investment funds by accumulating said generated participant fund balances over all participants;
and
(j) periodically comparing the generated cumulative fund balances to the fund balance file accounts.

8 more elements

A method of processing an investment fund transaction on a general purpose digital computer, the method comprising the following steps:

(a) defining at least two transaction amount data fields for storing data values representing the transaction, said transaction amount data fields comprising a dollar amount data field and a unit amount data field;
(b) identifying a fund affected by the transaction;
(c) recording the transaction by:
(i) storing an externally-supplied first amount value in a first one of said transaction amount data fields;
(ii) storing an externally-supplied transaction effective date for indicating when the transaction is effective;
(iii) storing a first status flag for indicating that said first transaction amount data field has a fixed value;
(iv) storing a first valuation date for indicating when said first amount value was stored;
and
(v) storing a second status flag for indicating that said second transaction amount data field has a pended value;
(d) updating a fund balance file having a plurality of accounts by crediting said first amount value to a holding account for the identified fund when said first status flag indicates that said first amount data field has a fixed value and said second status flag indicates that the second amount status field has a pended value and said first valuation date is within an externally-supplied processing date range;
(e) storing an externally-supplied unit value indicating a ratio of dollars to units for the identified fund and storing a reliability date range indicating when said stored unit value is reliable;
(f) calculating a second amount value using said first amount value and said unit value if said transaction effective date is within said reliability date range;
(g) unpending the transaction by:
(i) storing said second amount value in a second one of said at least two transaction amount data fields;
(ii) updating the second status flag to indicate that said second transaction amount data field has a fixed value;
and
(iii) storing a second valuation date for indicating when said second amount value was stored;
(h) updating the fund balance file by crediting said second amount value to a first fund account for the identified fund and by transferring said first fixed value from the holding account to a second fund account for the identified fund when the first status flag indicates that said first transaction amount data field has a fixed value and the second status flag indicates that the second transaction amount data field has a fixed value and the second valuation date is within an externally-supplied processing date range and the first valuation date is prior to the processing date range;
(i) repeating steps (a) through (h) to process a plurality of transactions for a plurality of participants affecting a plurality of funds;
(j) generating participant fund balances for each of said participants and for each of said funds by accumulating the values stored in said transaction amount data fields;
(k) generating cumulative fund balances for each of said funds by accumulating said generated participant fund balances;
and
(l) comparing the generated cumulative fund balances to the fund balance file accounts.

20 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.