Methods systems and computer program products for generating financial statement complying with accounting standard
AssigneeIntuit Inc.
InventorPatanjali Bhatt
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Requirements, principles or guidelines of an accounting standard such as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are transformed or codified into rules that specify how form, content and/or style of a certain portion of a financial statement, such as a header, should be configured while complying with the accounting standard. A rule engine compares attributes related to a financial statement and rules to determine which rule applies, and a selected rule specifies a header configuration. Relevant data received or retrieved from a source is used to generate or populate the header such that the header is automatically generated while complying with the accounting standard.
Claims29
A computer-implemented method for determining how a header or footer of an electronic financial statement that is being prepared should be configured for compliance with an accounting standard, the method comprising:
- before preparation of the electronic financial statement of the entity and on behalf of the entity, a first computer, by a conversion engine, generating respective rules by receiving text of requirements or guidelines of a specific accounting standard and transforming respective text into respective rules, and storing respective generated rules to a database;
- and
- during preparation of the electronic financial statement of the entity on behalf of the entity, the first computer, by a compare engine, determining, content of at least one pre-determined attribute of the electronic financial statement comprising numerical data describing finances of the entity for which the electronic financial statement is being prepared, accessing the database comprising the plurality of generated rules, comparing the content of the at least one pre-determined attribute and respective criteria of the plurality of rules, selecting a generated rule based at least in part upon the comparison, and
- determining a configuration of the header or footer of the electronic financial statement specified by the selected generated rule;
- the first computer receiving data for the header or footer;
- and
- the first computer automatically populating or generating the header or footer according to the determined configuration with the received data for the header or footer without input of a person preparing the electronic financial statement on behalf of the entity such that the header or footer data and form of the electronic financial statement being prepared comply with the specific accounting standard based at least in part upon the electronic financial statement content.
The method of 1, wherein the conversion engine is automated such that text of the requirements or guidelines of the specific accounting standard are fed into the conversion engine without manual entry by a host of the first computer, and wherein the content of at least one pre-determined attribute of the electronic financial statement is received by the compare engine from an electronic source without requiring the person preparing the electronic financial statement of the entity on behalf of the entity to enter data of the content of the at least one pre-determined attribute.
A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable storage medium embodying one or more instructions executable by a computer to perform a process for determining how a header or footer of an electronic financial statement that is being prepared should be configured for compliance with an accounting standard, the process comprising:
- before preparation of the electronic financial statement of the entity and on behalf of the entity, a first computer, by a conversion engine, generating respective rules by receiving text of requirements or guidelines of a specific accounting standard and transforming respective text into respective rules, and storing respective generated rules to a database;
- and during preparation of the electronic financial statement of the entity on behalf of the entity, the first computer, by a compare engine, determining content of at least one pre-determined attribute of the electronic financial statement comprising numerical data describing finances of the entity for which the electronic financial statement is being prepared, accessing the database comprising the plurality of generated rules, comparing the content of the at least one pre-determined attribute and respective criteria of the plurality of generated rules, selecting a generated rule based at least in part upon the comparison, determining a configuration of the header or footer of the electronic financial statement specified by the selected generated rule;
- the first computer receiving data for the header or footer;
- and the first computer automatically populating or generating the header or footer according to the determined configuration with the received data for the header or footer without input by a person preparing the electronic financial statement on behalf of the entity such that the header or footer data and form comply with the specific accounting standard based at least in part upon the electronic financial statement content.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.