Sales Transaction Hub for Data Integrity

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Solution Overview

Problem

Complexity in managing sales transactions across multiple business channels and subsystems leads to incompatibilities and compromised data integrity due to varying processing formats and increased system complexity, making it difficult to reconcile transactions and maintain data integrity.

Innovation Solution

A computer-implemented method and system that processes sales transactions by receiving un-audited transactions, auditing them, and correlating the audited results with the original transactions, allowing for translation between formats and aggregation of transactions from different sources, thereby establishing a single point of accountability and reducing system complexity.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Adaptability or versatility

If multiple subsystems are used to process sales transactions from different business channels, then the system can handle diverse transaction formats and channels, but the system complexity increases and data integrity is compromised

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveability to handle diverse transaction formats and channelsVSAvoidsystem complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces a centralized transaction hub as an intermediary component that receives transactions from multiple subsystems, standardizes their formats, and distributes them to appropriate backend processors. This mediator architecture allows diverse subsystems to interact through a common interface, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining adaptability to different transaction types and channels.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The transaction hub is designed as a universal processing platform that can handle multiple types of sales transactions from various business channels (online, offline, mobile, etc.) through a single standardized interface. This multi-functional design eliminates the need for separate processing paths for each channel, thereby reducing system complexity while maintaining versatility.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #6Universality (Multi-functionality)

2Adaptability or versatility

If more subsystems are added to the processing system, then additional processing capabilities are provided, but the number of interfaces and reconciliation functions increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprocessing capabilitiesVSAvoidnumber of interfaces and reconciliation functions

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The centralized hub acts as a mediator that consolidates multiple subsystem interfaces into a single standardized interface. New subsystems can be added without increasing the number of interfaces, as they all communicate through the hub's standard protocol, thereby maintaining constant interface complexity regardless of system growth.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent merges multiple reconciliation functions into a single centralized reconciliation process within the transaction hub. Instead of each subsystem performing its own reconciliation, the hub consolidates all reconciliation operations, reducing the total number of reconciliation functions from N (one per subsystem) to 1, thereby reducing complexity.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

3Productivity

If subsystems operate on transactions at different stages of processing, then specialized processing can be performed, but difficulty in reconciling transactions increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvespecialized processing efficiencyVSAvoiddifficulty in reconciling transactions

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The transaction hub serves as a mediator that maintains a centralized view of all transactions regardless of their processing stage. It tracks transaction states and coordinates between subsystems operating at different stages, ensuring that reconciliation is performed against a single source of truth rather than multiple distributed views, thereby reducing reconciliation difficulty.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The hub performs preliminary standardization and validation of transactions before they are distributed to specialized subsystems. By pre-processing transactions to a standardized format and state, the hub eliminates the need for each subsystem to perform redundant reconciliation, reducing overall reconciliation complexity while maintaining specialized processing capabilities.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS7752093B2Sales transaction hub

Publication Date: 2010.07.06 ACCENTURE GLOBAL SERVICES LTD

AI summary

In a computer-implemented method for processing a sales transaction, an un-audited sales transaction is received from a sale generator, and temporarily stored in a memory location and forwarded to a transaction auditor to audit the sales transaction and to a plurality of backend processors to begin processing the sales transaction. An audited sales transaction is received from the transaction auditor, where the audited sales transaction is an audited version of the un-audited sales transaction. The audited sales transaction is correlated with the un-audited sales transaction using the temporarily stored un-audited sales transaction, and a resultant sales transaction that includes information from the audited sales transaction is generated. The resultant sales transaction is transmitted to the plurality of backend processors to continue processing the sales transaction.