Revenue Expense Realignment Rules Engine Granularity
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional accounting systems lack the ability to easily retrieve and align revenue and expense data at desired granularities, leading to redundant systems, increased costs, and data security and consistency issues, as well as limitations in user-configured output formats.
Innovation Solution
A user-configurable rules engine within the RECAST system transforms, aggregates, and apportions inbound revenue and expense transactions into a universal transaction format, allowing for customizable data processing and multiple levels of granularity, with workflow security to ensure compliance with regulatory regimes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple sets of books and associated revenue/expense sources are maintained for each level of granularity, then information can be tracked at multiple levels, but system complexity and costs increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a universal transaction structure that can serve multiple granularity levels simultaneously. A single set of books with standardized transaction fields (including optional sub-entity identifiers) can generate reports at entity level, division level, product level, or any custom hierarchy, eliminating the need for separate bookkeeping systems for each granularity level while maintaining adaptability across all levels.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces hierarchical dimensionality to transactions by incorporating parent-child relationship fields and optional sub-entity identifiers within transactions. This allows the same transaction to be viewed and aggregated at multiple hierarchical levels (entity → division → product → sub-entity) without requiring separate transaction sets, thus achieving multi-level tracking within a single system architecture.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple sets of books are maintained for different granularity levels, then data can be accessed at various levels, but data security and consistency problems increase
Solution Approach 1:
By using a single universal bookkeeping system with standardized transaction structures that include hierarchical identifiers, the patent ensures data consistency across all granularity levels. The same source data is used to generate entity-level, division-level, and product-level views, eliminating consistency issues that arise from maintaining separate book sets. Access control can be implemented at the transaction level based on user permissions, ensuring data security while maintaining accessibility.
3Measurement precision
If revenue and expense transactions are stored as individual entries in the general ledger, then detailed tracking is possible, but retrieving and assimilating meaningful information becomes complicated
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by pre-structuring transactions with standardized fields including entity identifiers, division codes, product codes, and optional sub-entity identifiers during the initial transaction creation. This pre-organization of data with hierarchical tags enables efficient retrieval and aggregation at any level without requiring complex post-processing, thus maintaining tracking precision while improving data retrieval ease through structured query capabilities.
4Ease of manufacture
If data is output from revenue and expense sources at fixed granularities, then system configuration is simplified, but user flexibility in desired output formats is limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic configurability where the system can adapt output granularity and format based on user needs without requiring system reconfiguration. The universal transaction structure with hierarchical identifiers allows users to dynamically select their desired aggregation level (entity, division, product, or custom) at query time, providing output format flexibility while maintaining simple system configuration through a single standardized transaction model.
Data Source
AI summary
A system and method for revenue and expense realignment is provided. A revenue and expense realignment application (RECAST) comprising of a rules engine executing on a computer receives revenue and/or expense transactions. At predetermined time intervals, the RECAST executes a series of steps, each of which has one or more user defined rules associated therewith to transform inbound transactions. The transformed transactions are then posted to other applications including, for example, a general ledger.