Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Finance
Reexamination Certificate
1998-10-28
2002-08-27
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 2163)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Finance
C705S030000, C705S032000, C705S03600T, C705S037000, C705S038000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06442533
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a financial transaction processing system, and in particular, to such a system that is capable of decomposing transactions into subtransactions and multi-processing subtransactions simultaneously.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Computerized data processing systems for processing financial transactions have become increasingly more complex as further strides toward automation have occurred. Such complexity has generated a number of related difficulties for the financial data processing industry. In particular, complex financial transaction processing systems may have subtle programming defects or errors that may go unnoticed for long periods of time before the extent of the problems thereby generated are fully recognized. For example, the number of positions allotted for the dating of transactions has recently been problematic, wherein the dates for the millennium starting at the year 2000 can be problematic for many financial transaction processing systems.
In addition, such complex financial transaction processing systems also are typically incapable of being fully audited. That is, it is common practice in the financial data processing industry to provide only partial auditability in that it is generally believed that the amount of data required to be stored for full auditability is so large as to not be cost effective.
Further, in many circumstances, the rate of transaction increase is becoming problematic in that progressively larger computers are required for processing financial transactions at an acceptable rate. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that such transaction processing system are not architected for use on multi-processing machines having a plurality of processors. Thus, the advantages of parallel-processing computers cannot be fully utilized by such systems.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to have a financial transaction processing system that alleviates the above difficulties, and that additionally, provides flexibility to adapt to the changing business needs of business enterprises so that the transactions processed and the respective reports generated may be modified easily according to business constraints and demands.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a financial transaction processing system that achieves substantial increases in auditability and processing efficiency. In particular, the present invention provides auditable trails or history in a number of different ways. For example, financial data within transactions is used in the present invention to update various control fields in different tables or files so that cross-checks of system financial integrity can be performed for assuring that, for example, cash fields, total units fields, and cost fields balance appropriately across system data tables provided by the present invention. Additionally, the present invention provides a full range of auditable history files for each system data table having information that is required during auditing.
The present invention also performs financial transaction processing using a novel computational paradigm. That is, the financial transaction processing system of the present invention has an architecture wherein financial transactions can be decomposed into corresponding collections of independent subtransactions, such that for each input transaction, the corresponding collection of subtransactions are performed by operations that are independent of one another. Thus, the subtransactions can be performed in any order, including in an overlapping fashion, such as may occur during multiprocessing of these subtransactions on a computer having multiple processors.
Further, note that each of the subtransaction is described by a relatively short (e.g., less than 8 characters) text string that can be straightforwardly interpreted as an operation (e.g., either plus or minus) together with a series of operands, in particular, a first operand having a value to be used in modifying a data table field (column) specified by a second operand. Such high level descriptions of subtransactions provide both compact conceptualization and a reduction in the total size of the executable code for the present invention. Accordingly, when one of the subtransactions is performed, not only is its corresponding operation performed on the operands but additionally, control fields such as those mentioned above are updated appropriately in various data tables for the present invention to enhance auditability of the financial data resulting from the transaction processing. Further, note that since the subtransactions are independent of one another and their executable code is relatively small, there is no need for lengthy and complex flow of control transaction processing modules. That is, the size of the code for the present invention may be up to 100 times smaller than many prior art transaction processing systems. Accordingly, this has a substantial positive impact on the efficiency of the present invention in that the swapping of program elements in and out of primary computer memory is substantially reduced.
In another aspect of the present invention, the financial transactions of a plurality of business enterprises can be processed in an interleaved manner. In particular, since the present invention is substantially data driven, including the descriptions of the transactions and their related subtransactions, the present invention can be easily modified to incorporate both different or updated versions of transact ions and associated data tables for an existing business enterprise (e.g., also denoted “licensee” hereinafter). Additionally, the transactions and related data tables for an entirely new or different business enterprise (licensee) may be straightforwardly incorporated into the present invention so that its transactions can be interleaved with the transactions of other business enterprises. Thus, transaction processing may be performed by the present invention for business enterprises having different transactions, different account record structures and differently organized general ledgers substantially without modifying the program elements of the transaction processing system.
For example, the present invention can be used to simultaneously process transactions for:
(1) a single software application such as an investment management or telecommunications billing system,
(2) multiple disparate software applications such as investment management, and telecommunications billing, paying agencies, etc., all with disparate definitions.
Accordingly, the present invention may be viewed as a software engine, or a user-definable transaction processing tool that can be adapted to a variety of industry specific software application needs without changing the actual program code. That is, by surrounding the present invention with application specific software for inputting transaction data to the multi-processing financial transaction processor of the present invention and retrieving data from the multi-processing financial transaction processor of the present invention, a particular business enterprise can have substantially all of its financial records in condition for auditing on a daily or weekly basis.
The present invention may be further characterized along the following dimensions: flexibility, auditability, multiprocessing, efficiency and size, these dimensions being discussed, in turn, hereinbelow.
Flexibility is achieved by permitting a business enterprise to define:
(1) a series of “reference” tables (also denoted “master tables”) that describe the appropriate management decision-making, accounting structure, and regulatory information for the specific application;
(2) a series of audit controls and system procedures that provide for complete control of all processing and prevent the overwriting of any original data;
(3) a series of institutional and customer reporting files, known as the “driven” tables; and
(4) the specific processing content of each individual transaction to be processe
Hafiz Tariq R.
Robinson-Boyce Akiba
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