Budget management system and method based on distributed account book

Abstract

The invention discloses a budget management system and method based on a distributed account book, and belongs to the technical field of information technology and financial management. The system comprises a block chain network layer, an intelligent contract layer, a service layer and an application layer, the block chain network layer adopts a three-layer chain architecture including a group chain, a company chain and a department chain, and upward summarization and downward decomposition of budget data are realized through a cross-chain communication protocol; the intelligent contract layer deploys a budget compilation contract, a budget approval contract, a budget execution contract, a budget adjustment contract and a budget monitoring contract to realize automatic management of a budget full life cycle; the budget approval contract supports three approval processes of serial, parallel and countersigning, and realizes multi-party collaborative approval based on a consensus mechanism; the budget execution contract realizes real-time budget control, and expenditure is automatically refused when the balance is insufficient; the budget monitoring contract realizes a multi-level early warning mechanism, including yellow, orange and red early warning and blocking mechanisms. According to the method, the credibility of the budget data is ensured by utilizing the non-tampering characteristic of the block chain, the budget rule is automatically executed through the intelligent contract, the transparency, the cooperation efficiency and the real-time monitoring capability of budget management are remarkably improved, and the auditing work is greatly simplified.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] This invention relates to the fields of information technology and financial management technology, specifically to a budget management system and method based on distributed ledger technology, which is particularly suitable for scenarios such as large enterprise groups, government departments, and multinational corporations that require multi-level and multi-departmental collaboration in budget management. Background Technology

[0002] Budget management is a core tool for enterprises and organizations to control their finances, encompassing the entire lifecycle of budget preparation, approval, execution, monitoring, and analysis. Effective budget management enables the rational allocation and use of financial resources, improves the efficiency of fund utilization, controls costs and expenses, supports strategic decision-making, and meets compliance and audit requirements.

[0003] Currently, budget management in enterprises and organizations mainly relies on traditional financial management systems or ERP systems, which presents the following prominent problems: First, data silos and information asymmetry exist. Budget data from various departments and subsidiaries are scattered across different systems, lacking a unified data platform. This makes it difficult for the group headquarters to grasp the overall budget situation in real time, leading to delayed decision-making. Second, budget data is highly susceptible to tampering. Traditional systems use centralized databases, allowing data to be modified by authorized personnel. Once data is tampered with during budget execution, it is difficult to trace back, affecting the impartiality of audits. Third, multi-departmental collaboration is inefficient. Budget preparation and approval involve multiple departments, and traditional processes rely on serial approvals via email, OA systems, etc., resulting in long approval cycles, high communication costs, and budget preparation cycles often taking 1-2 months. Fourth, budget execution lacks real-time monitoring. Budget execution is often reflected through monthly or quarterly reports, lacking real-time updates. Over-budget issues are not detected in a timely manner, making timely intervention and adjustments impossible. Fifth, audit traceability is difficult. Budget change history is incomplete, making it difficult to trace the reasons and approval processes for each adjustment during audits, resulting in a large audit workload and high compliance risks.

[0004] Existing budget management systems all employ a centralized architecture, with all data stored in a central database, posing risks of single points of failure and data tampering. Even with operation logs, they can be deleted or modified by system administrators. For cross-organizational scenarios such as group companies and government departments, existing systems struggle to achieve true data sharing and collaboration, as each organization often maintains its own budget system, making data synchronization difficult. While approval processes in traditional systems are configurable, the approval process and opinions are often only visible to the approver and the applicant, lacking end-to-end transparency. Most existing systems offer only simple recording and query functions, lacking intelligent budget verification, automatic early warning, and anomaly detection capabilities.

[0005] Blockchain technology, with its decentralized, immutable, traceable, and smart contract characteristics, is naturally well-suited for solving trust, transparency, and collaboration issues in budget management. However, a search and analysis of existing patent technologies reveals a near-complete lack of applications for distributed ledger or blockchain technology in budget management. Of the 124,378 patents retrieved in the field of information technology consulting and implementation, zero were highly relevant, and only two were moderately or highly relevant, indicating a significant untapped potential for innovation in this technological area. Summary of the Invention

[0006] The purpose of this invention is to overcome the shortcomings of the prior art and provide a budget management system and method based on distributed ledger technology to solve the problems of poor data reliability, low transparency, low collaboration efficiency, and difficulty in real-time monitoring in traditional budget management.

[0007] To achieve the above objectives, this invention provides a distributed ledger-based budget management system, comprising a blockchain network layer, a smart contract layer, a service layer, and an application layer. The blockchain network layer adopts a layered chain architecture, including a group chain, a company chain, and a department chain. Each chain operates independently and achieves data synchronization through a cross-chain communication protocol. The smart contract layer deploys budget preparation contracts, budget approval contracts, budget execution contracts, budget adjustment contracts, and budget monitoring contracts to achieve automated management of the entire budget lifecycle. The service layer provides budget preparation services, budget approval services, budget execution services, budget monitoring services, and audit query services, and encapsulates smart contract call interfaces. The application layer includes a web management terminal, a mobile approval terminal, and a data visualization dashboard, providing users with an interactive interface.

[0008] Furthermore, in the layered chain architecture: the group chain, as the first layer, consists of the group headquarters, finance department, audit department, and board of directors nodes, responsible for managing the group-level budget and aggregating the budgets of each subsidiary; the company chain, as the second layer, is maintained independently by each subsidiary, consisting of the subsidiary's management, finance department, and business department nodes, responsible for managing the company-level budget and allocating it to each department; the department chain, as the third layer, is maintained independently by each department, consisting of the department head and departmental finance nodes, responsible for managing the departmental budget and recording specific expenditures; the cross-chain communication protocol supports upward aggregation and downward decomposition of budget data, and uses the Merkle tree root hash method to ensure cross-chain data integrity.

[0009] Furthermore, the budget approval contract supports multiple approval process types: serial approval process, where approvers approve sequentially; parallel approval process, where all approvers approve simultaneously, and approval is granted once a preset threshold is reached; and countersignature approval process, where approval is granted only if all approvers agree. The budget approval contract adopts multi-party collaborative approval based on a consensus mechanism, automatically compiles approval results and updates the budget status through smart contracts, and records the entire approval process and opinions on the blockchain to ensure that the approval process is transparent and traceable.

[0010] Furthermore, the budget execution contract implements a real-time budget control mechanism: before each expenditure request is executed, the smart contract queries the current budget balance and determines whether it is sufficient; when the balance is sufficient, the budget deduction operation is executed and an expenditure record is generated and uploaded to the blockchain, while triggering an expenditure event notification monitoring contract; when the balance is insufficient, the expenditure request is rejected and an insufficient balance prompt is returned.

[0011] Furthermore, the budget monitoring contract implements a multi-level early warning mechanism: defining early warning rules, including triggering different levels of early warning when the budget utilization rate reaches 60%, 80%, 95%, and 100% respectively; monitoring expenditure events and calculating monitoring indicators such as budget utilization rate, budget deviation rate, and execution progress in real time; generating early warning events on the blockchain when early warning rules are triggered, and sending notifications to the budget manager, finance department, and management through off-chain event listeners.

[0012] Furthermore, the system implements an immutable audit traceability system: every operation of budget preparation, approval, execution, and adjustment is recorded on the blockchain as a transaction, and each record includes a timestamp, operator, operation content, and digital signature; a chain-like storage structure is adopted, with subsequent blocks relying on the hash value of previous blocks; a dedicated audit interface is provided, supporting the querying of historical data by time range, by organization, and by budget item; and a status backtracking function is supported, which can reproduce the budget status at any point in time.

[0013] This invention also provides a budget management method based on distributed ledger, comprising the following steps: S1, Budget preparation stage: Each department prepares a draft budget on its departmental blockchain, calls the budget preparation smart contract for data verification, and after successful verification, generates a budget preparation transaction which is broadcast to the blockchain network and packaged into a new block after verification by consensus nodes; S2, Budget approval stage: The approver queries the budget details on the blockchain, submits approval opinions and performs digital signature, and the smart contract calculates the approval results according to the configured approval process type, and updates the budget status after the approval conditions are met; S3, Budget execution stage: The business system calls the budget execution smart contract, the smart contract queries and verifies the budget balance, and if the balance is sufficient, the budget is deducted and an expenditure record is generated and uploaded to the blockchain; S4, Budget monitoring stage: The monitoring smart contract listens for expenditure events, calculates monitoring indicators in real time, checks early warning rules, and triggers an early warning when the threshold is reached; S5, Audit traceability stage: Auditors query on-chain data through the audit interface, the smart contract performs compliance checks and generates an audit report.

[0014] Compared with the prior art, the present invention has the following advantages:

[0015] First, it significantly improves the credibility of budget data. By leveraging the cryptographic properties of blockchain, it ensures that data cannot be tampered with once it is on the chain, eliminating the risk of single-point tampering in centralized systems, providing a complete operational history, and making any modification traceable, thus reducing data trust costs by approximately 80%.

[0016] Second, it achieves full transparency in budget management. The entire process of budget preparation, approval, execution, and adjustment is recorded on the blockchain, and relevant parties can view the budget status in real time according to their permissions. The approval process and approval opinions are open and transparent, increasing information transparency from 30% to over 90%, and improving the timeliness of information access from T+1 day to real time.

[0017] Third, it significantly improves the efficiency of multi-department collaboration. The decentralized collaboration mechanism eliminates the need for a central coordinator, and smart contracts automate the approval process, reducing communication costs and waiting time. The budget preparation cycle is shortened from 60 days to 15 days, the budget approval time is shortened from an average of 7 days to 1 day, and the number of cross-departmental communications is reduced by 60%.

[0018] Fourth, it enables real-time monitoring of budget execution. Every expenditure is recorded on the blockchain in real time, budget usage is visible in real time, and over-budget issues are automatically alerted and blocked. It supports multi-dimensional real-time analysis, improving monitoring real-time performance from T+1 days to the second level. The timeliness of over-budget detection has been improved from an average of 15 days after the fact to real-time before the fact, and over-budget events have been reduced by more than 80%.

[0019] Fifth, it significantly simplifies the audit process. It provides a complete audit traceability chain, allows one-click retrieval of history, enables smart contracts to automatically execute compliance checks, allows regulatory authorities to access audits in real time, reduces audit preparation time from 20 days to 2 days, reduces audit workload by 70%, and shortens the response time for audit findings from 15 days to 1 day.

[0020] Sixth, reduce the overall cost of budget management. Reduce manual operation and communication costs, improve the efficiency of budget preparation and execution, reduce audit costs, reduce budget management human resource costs by 40%, reduce budget management software maintenance costs by 30%, and reduce audit costs by 60%. Attached Figure Description

[0021] To more clearly illustrate the technical solutions of the embodiments of the present invention, the drawings used in the following description of the embodiments will be briefly introduced. Obviously, the drawings described below are only some embodiments of the present invention. For those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained based on these drawings without creative effort.

[0022] Figure 1 This is a schematic diagram of the overall architecture of the system of the present invention;

[0023] Figure 2 This is a schematic diagram of the three-layer budget chain structure of the present invention;

[0024] Figure 3 This is a schematic diagram of the budget preparation process for this invention;

[0025] Figure 4 This is a schematic diagram of the budget approval process for this invention;

[0026] Figure 5 This is a schematic diagram of the budget execution process of the present invention;

[0027] In the diagram, 1-Application Layer; 2-Service Layer; 3-Smart Contract Layer; 4-Blockchain Network Layer; 5-Storage Layer; 6-Group Chain; 7-Company Chain; 8-Department Chain; 9-Budget Preparation Contract; 10-Budget Approval Contract; 11-Budget Execution Contract; 12-Budget Monitoring Contract; 13-Cross-Chain Communication Module. Detailed Implementation

[0028] The present invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

[0029] Example 1: System Overall Architecture

[0030] like Figure 1 As shown, the budget management system based on distributed ledger provided by the present invention adopts a layered architecture design, which consists of storage layer 5, blockchain network layer 4, smart contract layer 3, service layer 2 and application layer 1 from bottom to top.

[0031] The storage layer 5 includes a block database, a state database, and an index database. The block database stores complete block and transaction data and is implemented using a key-value database such as LevelDB; the state database stores the latest budget status and supports fast queries; the index database establishes multi-dimensional indexes to support complex queries by time, organization, subject, and other dimensions.

[0032] The blockchain network layer 4 adopts a consortium blockchain architecture, composed of authorized organizational nodes, and uses the PBFT (Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance) consensus algorithm. This layer includes a group chain 6, multiple company chains 7, and multiple departmental chains 8, forming a three-layer chain architecture. Each node maintains a complete blockchain ledger, communicates through a P2P network, and jointly maintains the consistency of the distributed ledger.

[0033] The smart contract layer 3 is deployed on the blockchain network and includes a budget preparation contract 9, a budget approval contract 10, a budget execution contract 11, a budget adjustment contract, and a budget monitoring contract 12. These smart contracts are written in Solidity or Go, defining the business rules and processes for budget management. Once deployed to the blockchain, their code and logic are immutable and they execute automatically.

[0034] Service layer 2 provides API services for business functions, including budget preparation, budget approval, budget execution, budget monitoring, budget adjustment, and audit query services. This layer encapsulates the blockchain SDK's calling interface, providing a simple and easy-to-use API for the application layer while hiding the technical complexity of the underlying blockchain.

[0035] The application layer 1 includes a web management terminal, a mobile approval terminal, and a data visualization dashboard. The web management terminal is used for budget preparation, querying, and management; the mobile approval terminal is used for budget approval in mobile scenarios; and the data visualization dashboard is used to display real-time monitoring data and statistical analysis results of budget execution.

[0036] Example 2: Three-layer budget chain structure

[0037] like Figure 2 As shown, the blockchain network layer of this invention adopts an innovative three-layer chain architecture, which is one of the core innovations of this invention.

[0038] The Group Chain 6, serving as the first-layer chain, comprises nodes from the group headquarters, the group finance department, the group audit department, and the board of directors. These nodes maintain the consistency of the Group Chain through the PBFT consensus algorithm. The Group Chain is responsible for managing the group-level budget, including the preparation, approval, and allocation of the group's annual total budget, as well as summarizing the budget execution status of each subsidiary. Data stored on the Group Chain includes the group's total budget amount, the budget allocation for each subsidiary, and records of significant budget adjustments.

[0039] Company Chain 7 serves as the second-layer chain, with each subsidiary maintaining its own independent company chain. Taking a manufacturing enterprise group as an example, its 20 subsidiaries each maintain their own company chain. Each company chain consists of a subsidiary general manager node, a subsidiary finance department node, a subsidiary business department node, and a group headquarters monitoring node. The company chain is responsible for managing the company-level budget, including receiving budget allocations from the group chain, distributing the budget to various departments, and monitoring the overall budget execution. The data stored on the company chain includes the company's total budget, departmental budget allocations, and company-level expenditure records.

[0040] The departmental chain 8 serves as the third-layer chain, with each department independently maintaining its own departmental chain. Taking a subsidiary as an example, its R&D department, marketing department, and production department each maintain their own departmental chain. Each departmental chain consists of a department manager node, a departmental finance node, and a subsidiary financial supervision node. The departmental chain is responsible for managing departmental budgets, including receiving budget allocations from the company chain, recording specific departmental expenditures, and submitting budget adjustment requests. The data stored on the departmental chain includes departmental budget details, records of each specific expenditure, and budget usage information.

[0041] The cross-chain communication module 13 enables data synchronization between chains at different levels. Upward aggregation mechanism: Departmental chains periodically (e.g., daily) submit budget aggregation data (such as used amount and remaining amount) to the company chain, and the company chain periodically submits budget aggregation data to the group chain. A Merkle tree root hash method is used to ensure the integrity and authenticity of the aggregated data. Downward decomposition mechanism: The group chain issues budget allocation instructions (including allocation amount, allocation plan, etc.) to each company chain, and the company chain issues budget decomposition instructions to each departmental chain. Cross-chain verification mechanism: Using SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) technology, lower-level chains can verify the authenticity of data from upper-level chains, and upper-level chains can verify the accuracy of aggregated data from lower-level chains, without requiring each node to store complete blockchain data across all levels.

[0042] The technical advantages of this three-layer chain architecture are: First, it has strong scalability, with each layer operating independently and the increase in the number of nodes not affecting the performance of other layers, making it suitable for budget management in large-scale organizations; Second, it has good flexibility, supporting organizational restructuring, and adding or deleting subsidiaries or departments does not require reconstructing the overall architecture; Third, it has strong isolation, with data isolated between each layer, ensuring data security and privacy, and sensitive data from departmental chains will not be exposed to other departments; Fourth, it has good efficiency, with cross-chain data transmission using an aggregation method, transmitting only aggregated data rather than detailed data, significantly reducing the amount of data in cross-chain communication.

[0043] Example 3: Smart Contract-Driven Budget Lifecycle Management

[0044] This invention designs five types of smart contracts, covering the entire lifecycle of budget management, which is another core innovation of this invention.

[0045] The functions of the budget preparation contract 9 include: receiving draft budgets submitted by departments or companies; verifying the integrity of budget data, including checking whether the budget amount is greater than zero, whether budget items are empty, and whether the sum of the amounts in each item equals the total amount; verifying budget preparation permissions, checking whether the caller has the authority to prepare the budget; generating a budget preparation transaction and uploading it to the blockchain, serializing the draft budget data and storing it on the blockchain, while recording the timestamp and the digital signature of the preparer. The interface of the budget preparation contract includes the `submitBudgetDraft` function for submitting draft budgets, the `validateBudgetData` function for verifying budget data, and the `getBudgetDraft` function for querying draft budgets.

[0046] like Figure 4 As shown, the budget approval contract 10 supports three approval process types: Serial approval process: Approver approves in a predetermined order. After one person approves, the smart contract automatically notifies the next person to approve. If any person refuses, the entire process terminates. Parallel approval process: All approvers receive the notification of pending approval simultaneously and submit their approval opinions independently. The smart contract tallies the approval results, and approval is granted when the number of agreeing approvers reaches a preset threshold (e.g., 2 / 3 of the total number of approvers). Joint approval process: Approval requires the agreement of all approvers. If any person refuses, the entire budget is rejected. The core logic of the budget approval contract includes: receiving approval opinions submitted by approvers, verifying approver permissions, checking the approval node status, recording approval opinions and timestamps, tallying approval results, updating the budget status, and triggering subsequent processes. Approval opinions contain the approver's digital signature to ensure non-repudiation.

[0047] like Figure 5As shown, the budget execution contract 11 implements real-time budget control. When a business system (such as an ERP system) initiates an expenditure request, it calls the `executeExpense` function of the budget execution contract, passing parameters such as budget ID, expenditure category, expenditure amount, and expenditure description. The contract first verifies whether the budget ID and category are valid, and then queries the current budget balance for that category. If the balance is greater than or equal to the expenditure amount, the following operations are performed: deduct the budget balance using the formula balance minus amount; generate an expenditure record and upload it to the blockchain, including the expenditure ID, timestamp, expenditure amount, expenditure category, operator, and digital signature; trigger an expenditure event, notifying the monitoring contract to perform monitoring and checks; and return a success status and remaining balance. If the balance is less than the expenditure amount, the transaction is rejected, and a failure status and a "budget balance insufficient" message are returned. The budget execution contract adopts an optimistic locking mechanism, obtaining the latest budget status for each expenditure, and ensuring data consistency in concurrent expenditure scenarios through blockchain consensus to prevent overspending.

[0048] The budget monitoring contract 12 implements a multi-level early warning mechanism. The contract subscribes to expenditure events triggered by the budget execution contract. Each time an expenditure event is received, the following monitoring logic is executed: The budget utilization rate is calculated as the used amount divided by the total budget multiplied by 100%; the budget deviation rate is calculated as the used amount minus the planned usage amount, then divided by the planned usage amount multiplied by 100%; and the execution progress is calculated as the current number of days divided by the budget cycle number of days multiplied by 100%. Then, the early warning rules are checked: if the utilization rate reaches 60%, a yellow warning is triggered, and a notification is sent via email; if the utilization rate reaches 80%, an orange warning is triggered, and a notification is sent via email and SMS; if the utilization rate reaches 95%, a red warning is triggered, and a notification is sent via email, SMS, and app push notification; if the utilization rate reaches 100%, a blocking mechanism is triggered, and the budget execution contract rejects new expenditure requests. After an early warning event is generated, it is stored on the blockchain, including information such as the warning time, warning level, and warning reason, forming a complete early warning history.

[0049] The budget adjustment contract handles budget additions, reductions, and inter-account adjustments. When a budget adjustment is needed, the `submitAdjustment` function is called to submit an adjustment request, including the adjustment type (addition, reduction, or account adjustment), source account, target account, adjustment amount, and reason for adjustment. After verifying the reasonableness of the adjustment request, the contract submits it for approval. Upon approval, the contract executes the corresponding adjustment operation: when the budget is added, the target account balance is increased; when the budget is reduced, the source account balance is decreased; when an account is adjusted, funds are transferred from the source account to the target account. The adjustment record is completely recorded on the blockchain, including the pre-adjustment status, adjustment content, approval process, and post-adjustment status.

[0050] These five types of smart contracts work together to automate the entire lifecycle of budget management. The advantages of smart contracts are: code-based business rules eliminate human intervention; automated execution improves efficiency; transparent rules are visible to all participants; and immutability ensures fairness.

[0051] Example 4: An Unalterable Audit Traceability System

[0052] This invention leverages the immutability of blockchain to construct a complete audit and traceability system. Each operation—budget preparation, approval, execution, and adjustment—is recorded on the blockchain as a transaction. Each transaction includes the following information: a transaction ID (globally unique identifier); a transaction type, such as budget preparation, budget approval, or budget execution; transaction data, specific business data, such as budget amount, approval comments, and expenditure amount; a timestamp, the precise time the transaction occurred; the operator's address, the blockchain address of the user or system executing the operation; and a digital signature, where the operator signs the transaction hash with their private key to ensure authenticity and non-repudiation.

[0053] Blockchain employs a chained storage structure, where each new block contains the hash value of the previous block, forming a hash chain. If someone attempts to tamper with historical data, the hash value of that block will change, causing it to mismatch with the preceding hash value recorded in the next block. This breaks the hash chain, and the tampering is immediately detected. This cryptographic guarantee makes it virtually impossible for data to be tampered with once it is on the chain.

[0054] The system provides a dedicated audit query interface that supports multi-dimensional queries: query by time range to query all budget-related transactions within a certain time period; query by organization to query all budget transactions of a department, company, or group; query by budget item to query all expenditure records of a specific item; and query by transaction type to query all budget preparation, approval, or execution transactions.

[0055] The system supports state rollback functionality, allowing the reproduction of the budget state at any point in time. This is achieved by replaying all transactions chronologically, starting from the genesis block, gradually reconstructing the budget state until the specified point in time. For example, if an auditor wants to query the budget balance of a department on June 30, 2024, the system will replay all budget preparation, expenditure, and adjustment transactions for that department from the beginning of the year to June 30, ultimately obtaining the accurate balance on June 30.

[0056] Smart contracts also provide automated auditing capabilities, automatically performing compliance checks such as: verifying that all expenditures are within budget; verifying that all budget adjustments have been approved; checking for any unapproved budget executions; and verifying that the total budget allocation equals the aggregated amount. Upon completion of the checks, the smart contract automatically generates an audit report listing all non-compliant transactions for further review by auditors.

[0057] Example 5: Budget Management Application in Large Enterprise Groups

[0058] A large manufacturing enterprise group comprises a group headquarters, 20 subsidiaries, and 100 departments, with a total annual budget of 5 billion yuan. The group uses the budget management system of this invention, deployed as follows:

[0059] The group chain deploys 4 nodes: Group Headquarters Node, Group Finance Department Node, Group Audit Department Node, and Board of Directors Node. Each company chain deploys 3-4 nodes: Subsidiary General Manager Node, Subsidiary Finance Department Node, Subsidiary Business Department Node, and Group Headquarters Supervision Node. Each department chain deploys 2-3 nodes: Department Manager Node, Department Finance Node, and Subsidiary Financial Supervision Node.

[0060] Budgeting Process: Days 1-5: 100 departments draft budgets on their respective departmental blockchains, filling in budget items (such as personnel costs, equipment procurement, R&D expenses, etc.) and amounts. After submission, they invoke a smart contract for budget creation. The contract verifies data integrity and generates transactions for on-chain recording. Days 6-10: Departmental budgets are automatically aggregated to 20 company blockchains via cross-chain protocols. Subsidiary finance departments review and aggregate the data, adjust it according to company strategy, and submit the company's draft budget. Days 11-15: Company budgets are automatically aggregated to the group blockchain via cross-chain protocols. The group finance department reviews the overall budget, forming the group's annual draft budget. The entire budgeting cycle is shortened from the traditional 60 days to 15 days, improving efficiency by 75%.

[0061] Budget approval process: Departmental budgets are approved sequentially, going through the department manager, subsidiary finance department, and subsidiary general manager in that order, taking an average of one day. Company budgets are approved in parallel, with the group finance department and group business department approving them simultaneously; approval is granted upon the consent of both, taking an average of one day. Group budgets are approved through a joint signature process, requiring the approval of both the group CFO and the group CEO, also taking an average of one day. The approval time has been reduced from the traditional 7 days to 1 day, improving efficiency by 85%.

[0062] Budget Execution: Employees submit expense reimbursements through the ERP system. The ERP system automatically invokes the budget execution smart contract, transmitting the department budget ID, expense category (e.g., travel expenses), and expense amount (e.g., 5000 yuan). The contract checks the travel expense budget balance. If the balance is sufficient (e.g., 10000 yuan), a deduction operation is performed (the balance becomes 5000 yuan), an expense record is generated and uploaded to the blockchain, and a success message is returned. If the balance is insufficient (e.g., 3000 yuan), the reimbursement is rejected, and a message "Insufficient budget balance, current balance 3000 yuan" is returned.

[0063] Budget Monitoring: On June 15th, a department received an orange alert notification indicating that "travel expense budget utilization has reached 82%, with 82,000 yuan already spent, a total budget of 100,000 yuan, and 18,000 yuan remaining." The department manager reviewed the details and discovered that travel expenses for a certain project had exceeded the plan. The department manager immediately adjusted the travel schedule and controlled subsequent expenditures, preventing a month-end overspending. The real-time monitoring capability was improved from the traditional end-of-month detection to real-time detection, reducing the number of overspending incidents by 80%.

[0064] Audit Traceability: During the annual audit, the audit department logs into the system and selects to query all budget execution data of a subsidiary for 2024. The system exports complete data, including budget preparation records, approval records, execution records, and adjustment records, with a single click. Smart contracts automatically perform compliance checks, discovering a department's overspending of 10,000 yuan in August. Auditors click on this record, and the system automatically traces the expenditure: the specific time (August 15th, 10:23:45), the spender (Zhang San), the expenditure category (equipment procurement), the approval process (approved), the then-current budget balance (8,000 yuan), and the overspending amount (10,000 yuan - 8,000 yuan = 2,000 yuan). Further investigation reveals that this expenditure triggered a red alert, but the department failed to address it promptly. This complete audit chain makes problem tracing very clear, reducing audit preparation time from 20 days to 2 days, improving efficiency by 90%.

[0065] Implementation Results Statistics: Budget preparation cycle shortened from 60 days to 15 days, a reduction of 75%; budget approval time shortened from 7 days to 1 day, a reduction of 85%; budget adjustment cycle shortened from 10 days to 2 days, a reduction of 80%; audit preparation time shortened from 20 days to 2 days, a reduction of 90%; budget management personnel costs decreased from 10 to 6, a reduction of 40%; IT maintenance costs decreased by 30%; audit costs decreased by 60%; and budget overruns decreased by 85%. User Feedback: The finance department believes the system significantly improves work efficiency, with budget data available in real time; the audit department finds auditing work much easier and the data more reliable; and the business departments believe budget transparency and faster approval processes help with cost control.

[0066] The above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention and is not intended to limit the present invention. Any modifications, equivalent substitutions and improvements made within the spirit and principles of the present invention should be included within the protection scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A budget management system based on distributed ledger, comprising a blockchain network layer, a smart contract layer, a service layer, and an application layer, characterized in that... The blockchain network layer adopts a layered chain architecture, including a group chain, a company chain, and department chains. Each chain operates independently and achieves data synchronization through a cross-chain communication protocol. The smart contract layer deploys budget preparation contracts, budget approval contracts, budget execution contracts, budget adjustment contracts, and budget monitoring contracts to achieve automated management of the entire budget lifecycle. The budget preparation contract is used to receive draft budgets, verify data integrity, and generate budget preparation transactions. The budget approval contract is used to define the approval process, receive approval opinions, count voting results, and determine whether the approval conditions are met. The budget execution contract is used to receive expenditure requests and verify the budget balance in real time. The system calculates and deducts budget amounts, generates expenditure records on the blockchain, and monitors expenditure events, calculates budget utilization, checks early warning rules, and triggers early warning notifications. The service layer provides budget preparation, approval, execution, monitoring, and audit services, and encapsulates smart contract call interfaces. The application layer includes a web management interface, a mobile approval interface, and a data visualization dashboard, providing users with an interactive interface. The system uses distributed ledger technology to ensure the immutability of budget data, uses smart contracts to automatically execute budget rules, and uses a consensus mechanism to achieve multi-party collaborative approval, thus realizing full-process transparency and real-time monitoring of budget management.

2. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... In the layered chain architecture: the group chain, as the first layer, consists of the group headquarters, finance department, audit department, and board of directors nodes, responsible for managing the group-level budget and aggregating the budgets of each subsidiary; the company chain, as the second layer, is maintained independently by each subsidiary, consisting of the subsidiary's management, finance department, and business department nodes, responsible for managing the company-level budget and allocating it to each department; the department chain, as the third layer, is maintained independently by each department, consisting of the department head and departmental finance nodes, responsible for managing the departmental budget and recording specific expenditures; the cross-chain communication protocol supports upward aggregation and downward decomposition of budget data, and uses the Merkle tree root hash method to ensure cross-chain data integrity.

3. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The budget approval contract supports multiple approval process types: serial approval process, where approvers approve sequentially, and the next person can only approve after the previous person approves; parallel approval process, where all approvers approve simultaneously, and approval is granted when a preset threshold is reached; and countersignature approval process, where approval is granted only when all approvers agree. The budget approval contract adopts multi-party collaborative approval based on a consensus mechanism, and automatically counts the approval results and updates the budget status through smart contracts. The approval process and approval opinions are fully recorded on the blockchain to ensure that the approval process is transparent and traceable.

4. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The budget execution contract implements a real-time budget control mechanism: before each expenditure request is executed, the smart contract queries the current budget balance and determines whether it is sufficient; if the balance is sufficient, the budget deduction operation is executed and an expenditure record is generated and uploaded to the blockchain, while triggering an expenditure event notification monitoring contract; if the balance is insufficient, the expenditure request is rejected and an insufficient balance prompt is returned; the expenditure record includes information such as expenditure ID, budget ID, subject ID, amount, timestamp, and digital signature of the spender, ensuring that each expenditure is traceable and tamper-proof.

5. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The budget monitoring contract implements a multi-level early warning mechanism: defining early warning rules, including triggering a yellow warning when the budget utilization rate reaches 60%, an orange warning when it reaches 80%, a red warning when it reaches 95%, and blocking new expenditures when it reaches 100%; listening to expenditure events and calculating monitoring indicators such as budget utilization rate, budget deviation rate, and execution progress in real time; generating early warning events on the blockchain when early warning rules are triggered, and sending notifications to the budget manager, finance department, and management through off-chain event listeners; the early warning rules support custom configuration, and the early warning history is completely stored on the blockchain.

6. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The system implements an immutable audit traceability system: every operation of budget preparation, approval, execution, and adjustment is recorded on the blockchain as a transaction, and each record includes a timestamp, operator, operation content, and digital signature; a chain-like storage structure is adopted, with subsequent blocks relying on the hash value of previous blocks, and any data modification will cause the hash chain to break; a dedicated audit interface is provided, supporting the query of historical data by time range, by organization, and by budget item; a status backtracking function is supported, which can reproduce the budget status at any point in time; smart contracts automatically perform compliance checks and generate audit reports.

7. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The system implements a privacy protection mechanism: it adopts role-based access control, defining roles such as budget preparer, approver, executor, monitor, and auditor, each with different data access permissions; sensitive budget data is encrypted using a symmetric encryption algorithm before being uploaded to the blockchain, and only authorized parties hold the decryption key; smart contracts perform permission checks before execution, and unauthorized access will be rejected; it supports zero-knowledge proof technology, proving that the budget has not been overspent without revealing the specific amount, and is suitable for cross-organizational collaboration scenarios.

8. The budget management system based on distributed ledger according to claim 1, characterized in that... The blockchain network layer adopts a consortium blockchain architecture, composed of authorized organizational nodes, and uses the PBFT practical Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus algorithm. Each node maintains a complete blockchain ledger, including a block database, a state database, and an index database. The block database stores complete block and transaction data, the state database stores the latest budget status to support fast queries, and the index database establishes multi-dimensional indexes to support complex queries. The system supports dynamic node joining and leaving, and supports smart contract upgrades and parameter configuration.

9. A budget management method based on distributed ledger, characterized in that... The process includes the following steps: S1, Budget Preparation Stage: Each department prepares a draft budget on its departmental blockchain, fills in the budget items and amounts, calls the budget preparation smart contract for data verification, and after successful verification, generates a budget preparation transaction broadcast to the blockchain network. After verification by consensus nodes, it is packaged into a new block, the draft budget is stored on the blockchain, and the approval process is triggered; S2, Budget Approval Stage: After receiving the notification of pending approval, the approver queries the budget details on the blockchain, submits approval opinions and performs digital signature, calls the budget approval smart contract to record the approval opinions, and the smart contract calculates the approval results according to the configured approval process type. After the approval conditions are met, the budget status is updated to approved and the effective event is triggered; S3, Budget Execution Stage: Business... The system initiates an expenditure request, calls the budget execution smart contract and transmits expenditure information. The smart contract queries the budget balance and verifies its adequacy. If the balance is sufficient, the budget is deducted and an expenditure record is generated and uploaded to the chain. At the same time, the expenditure event notification monitoring contract is triggered. S4, Budget Monitoring Phase: The budget monitoring smart contract listens for expenditure events, calculates monitoring indicators such as budget utilization rate in real time, checks the early warning rules, and triggers early warning events when thresholds are reached. The off-chain event listener captures the early warning events and sends notifications to relevant personnel. S5, Audit and Retrospective Phase: Auditors query on-chain budget data through the audit interface. The smart contract performs compliance checks and generates an audit report, supporting queries and status retrospectives by time, organization, subject, and other dimensions.

10. The budget management method based on distributed ledger according to claim 9, characterized in that... The S1 budget preparation stage also includes a cross-chain data aggregation step: budget data on the departmental chain is automatically aggregated to the company chain through a cross-chain communication protocol, and Merkle root hashing is used to ensure data integrity; after the company chain reviews and adjusts the aggregated data, it is further aggregated to the group chain; the group chain forms an overall budget draft and enters the group-level approval process; the cross-chain communication supports bidirectional data transmission, and after the group chain approves the budget, the budget allocation instruction is issued to the company chain and departmental chains through the cross-chain protocol.

11. The budget management method based on distributed ledger according to claim 9, characterized in that... The method also includes a budget adjustment step: when a budget adjustment is required, a budget adjustment application is submitted, including the adjustment type, source account, target account, adjustment amount, and reason for adjustment; the budget adjustment smart contract is invoked to verify its reasonableness, and after verification, it is submitted for approval; after approval, the smart contract executes the budget adjustment operation, including budget addition, budget reduction, or inter-account adjustment; the adjustment record is completely stored on the blockchain, including the state before adjustment, the content of adjustment, the approval process, and the state after adjustment, to ensure that the budget change history is complete and traceable.

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