Blockchain E-bill Write-off via Smart Contract Validation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current blockchain technologies lack an efficient method for validating and writing off electronic bills (e-bills) to prevent forged e-bills from being written off, and ensuring the accuracy of bill content validation.
Innovation Solution
A blockchain-based method and apparatus that utilizes smart contracts to check if the e-bill number matches the allocated segment in the blockchain account of the bill issuer, and performs a validity check on the bill content by comparing it with the entry amount from a billing supervisor's server, ensuring that only valid e-bills can be written off.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If blockchain technology is used to maintain e-bill number segments and perform validity checks, then the reliability of e-bill write-off is improved, but the device complexity increases due to smart contract deployment and oracle machine integration
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an oracle machine as an intermediary component that bridges the blockchain system and external billing supervisor servers. The oracle machine receives validation requests from the blockchain, performs bill content verification against the billing supervisor's records, and returns validation results to the smart contract. This intermediary approach maintains system reliability by ensuring accurate bill verification while managing complexity through clear separation of concerns between the blockchain layer and external validation layer.
2Measurement precision
If multiple validation steps are performed including bill number matching and bill content verification, then the measurement precision of e-bill validation is improved, but the loss of time increases due to additional validation steps
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-maintaining e-bill number segments allocated to each billing supervisor on the blockchain. When a write-off request is received, the smart contract first performs a quick bill number matching check against these pre-stored segments before triggering the more time-consuming bill content verification through the oracle machine. This preliminary filtering reduces the frequency of full validation cycles and accelerates the overall write-off process while maintaining comprehensive validation accuracy.
3Reliability
If e-bill number segments are allocated and maintained on blockchain accounts, then the reliability of preventing forged e-bills is improved, but the device complexity increases due to account management and number allocation mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the e-bill validation space into distinct number segments, where each billing supervisor is allocated a specific range of e-bill numbers. These segments are maintained on blockchain accounts associated with each billing supervisor. When validating an e-bill, the system checks whether the e-bill number falls within the authorized segment for that supervisor. This segmentation approach enhances reliability by preventing forged e-bills with unauthorized numbers while managing complexity through a structured, hierarchical allocation system that mirrors existing billing supervisor hierarchies.
Data Source
AI summary
A target transaction to write off a target e-bill is received. In response to the target transaction, a write-off logic declared in a smart contract published on a blockchain is invoked. A bill number of the target e-bill is obtained, and whether the bill number matches an e-bill number segment maintained in a blockchain account corresponding to a bill issuer of the target e-bill is checked. In response to determining that the bill number matches the e-bill number segment maintained in the blockchain account corresponding to the bill issuer of the target e-bill, a validity check is performed on bill content of the target e-bill. After the validity check succeeds, generating a write-off completion event corresponding to the target e-bill is generated and published to the blockchain for storage.