Patent Application
20050240503
1. Field of the Invention
The present disclosure generally relates to providing business and financial information. In particular, the present disclosure relates to detailed trade data and payment experiences.
2. Description of Related Art
Traditionally, a payment index (PAYDEX™) score, which is a credit information service that rates payment performance, was calculated for all trade experiences. The score was a weighted average of how fast or slow a company paid others. The company may have a good score, yet pay some parties on time and others late. For example, a company may pay parties with big relationships one way and those with small relationships another way.
Customer feedback indicated that they wanted more data used in the calculation; they wanted the data to be fresher, and they wanted the data to be more relevant to them in particular. The customer experience was that some customers behaved just like the score and others did not and they did not know why. There is a need for a payment performance score segmented by industry and payment ranges that is more predictive of how a company will pay a particular party.
The present disclosure is directed to a system and method for portfolio monitoring that meets these and other needs.
One aspect of the present disclosure is a method for providing detailed trade data. A request for a report is received. A number of scores are calculated within a number of measuring periods by taking a weighted average of at least 4 trade experiences for each score within each measuring period. The report is provided, including the scores. In some embodiments, the measuring periods are 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. A 3 month score is calculated for a 3 month manner of payment by 3 month trade experiences using a current weighted average calculation with at least 4 trade experiences. A 6 month score is calculated for a 6 month manner of payment by 6 month trade experiences using a current weighted average calculation with at least 4 trade experiences. A 9 month score is calculated for a 9 month manner of payment by 9 month trade experiences using a current weighted average calculation with at least 4 trade experiences. A 12 month score is calculated for a 12 month manner of payment by 12 month trade experiences using a current weighted average calculation with at least 4 trade experiences. In some embodiments, a largest high credit is provided. The largest high credit is the largest trade experience within the measuring period. In some embodiments, a most seen payment is provided. The most seen payment is the manner of payment that occurs most often within the measuring period.
Another aspect is a computer-readable medium, such as a compact disk (CD) having executable instructions stored thereon to perform a method for providing detailed trade data. A request for a report is received. Calculations are performed to determine 12 monthly scores by calculating each monthly score as a 3 month score. The 3 month score is calculated for a 3 month manner of payment by 3 month trade experiences using a current weighted average calculation with at least 4 trade experiences. The report is provided, including the 12 monthly scores. In some embodiments, the 3 month score uses a current month and two prior months. In some embodiments, a yearly trend is indicated.
Another aspect is a computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon to perform a method for providing detailed trade data. A request for a report is received. Calculations are performed to determine at least one score for at least one industry by taking a weighted average of at least 4 trade experiences for each score within a measuring period. The report is provided, including the score. In some embodiments, the industry is identified by a standard industrial classification (SIC). In some embodiments, the measuring period is 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. In some embodiments, the number of total payments for each industry is provided. The number of total payments is the number of experiences used to calculate the score. In some embodiments, a current trend is provided. In some embodiments, the current trend is calculated in comparison to a 12 month score with a measuring period of 12 months. In some embodiments, a 3 month score is compared to the 12 month score. In some embodiments, a 6 month score is compared to the 12 month score. In some embodiments, a 9 month score is compared to the 12 month score.
Another aspect is a computer-readable medium having executable instructions stored thereon to perform a method for providing detailed trade data. A request for a report is received. Calculations are performed to determine a number of scores for a number of credit ranges by taking a weighted average of at least 4 trade experiences for each score within a measuring period. The credit ranges are based on a credit amount extended and a current payment trend profile. The report is provided, including the scores. In some embodiments, the total payments for each credit range is provided. The total payments are the number of trade experiences for the past 12 months. In some embodiments, the scores are for an industry. In some embodiments, a current trend is provided. The current trend is calculated in comparison to a 12 month score with a measuring period of 12 months. In some embodiments, a 3 month score is compared to the 12 month score. In some embodiments, a 6 month score is compared to the 12 month score. In some embodiments, a 9 month score is compared to the 12 month score.
Another aspect is a system for providing detailed trade data, including a web fabricator, at least one database system, and a component. The web fabricator fabricates a report. The report has at least one score that is calculated within a measuring period by taking a weighted average of at least 4 trade experiences within the measuring period. The database system stores data for the report and the trade experiences. The component retrieves data associated with the report from the database system, calculates the score, and forward the score and the data to the web fabricator. In some embodiments, the report is provided within five seconds of a request for the report being received by the web fabricator. In some embodiments, the report includes a yearly trend. In some embodiments, the report includes scores segmented by industry. In some embodiments, the report includes scores segmented by size of credit extended. In some embodiments, the measuring period is 3, 6, 9, or 12 months.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present disclosure will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims and accompanying drawings where:
In the example reports (See for example FIGS. 7A-7AA and 8A-8V), there are four sections related to payment performance scores: scores by time period (
The first column in table 100 in
The second column is the corresponding payment performance score. The 3 month score is calculated for a 3 month manner of payment times 3 month experiences using a current weighted average calculation with a minimum of four experiences. The 6 month score is calculated for a 6 month manner of payment times 6 month experiences using the current weighted average calculation with a minimum of four experiences. The 9 month score is calculated for a 9 month manner of payment times 9 month experiences using the current weighted average calculation with a minimum of four experiences. The 12 month score is calculated for a 12 month manner of payment times 12 month experiences using the current weighted average calculation with a minimum of four experiences.
The third column in table 100 in
The first column in table 300 indicates an industry, such as by an industry name corresponding to the four-digit standard industrial classification (SIC). The second column in table 300 also indicates an industry, such as by the four-digit SIC. All the industries in which at least one score (3, 6, 9 or 12 month) can be calculated are listed. In this example, the industries are ordered from high to low number of total payment experiences. The third column in table 300 provides a number of total payments corresponding to each industry. The number of total payments is the number of experiences that were used to calculate the score from the database for the past 12 months.
The fourth column is a current trend. In this example, the current trend indicates whether the trend is up, down, unchanged or unavailable. The trend is generated using changes greater than ±6. Trends are calculated in comparison to the 12 month score based on availability. If a 3 month score is available, it is compared to the 12 month score. Otherwise, if a 3 month score is not available, a 6 month score is compared to a 12 month score. Otherwise, if a 6 month score is not available, a 9 month score is compared to a 12 month score. Otherwise, if only a 12 month score is available, no score is provided (UN). The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eight columns indicate industry specific scores. These scores are calculated in the same manner as the other scores in table 100 in
There is an example method of calculating payment performance scores that uses a particular manner of payment and period over which the variables are calculated. A 3 month score is calculated using a 3 month manner of payment for 3 calendar months worth of experiences on each account for a case. A case is data for a company that is associated with a unique corporate identifier. Scores may be calculated on-the-fly or pre-calculated and stored. The following table illustrates how different scores are calculated, in this example.
There is an example method of calculating industry specific scores that involves calculation of payment performance scores for each case by taking into consideration only the experiences from a particular industry. All experiences for a case are categorized by industry type (e.g., using a four-digit SIC) and the number of experiences associated with each category is calculated. Any category having less than four eligible experiences is removed. Then, 3, 6, 9, and 12 month scores are calculated for each category. Scores may be calculated on-the-fly or pre-calculated and stored.
An experience is eligible if at least four trade experiences with a manner of payment or a comment (e.g., placed for collection, bad debt, satisfactory, or unsatisfactory) are available. In this example, if a case that has zero trade experiences available, then a score of 998 is assigned to indicate insufficient data. If a case has one, two, or three trade experiences available, a score of 999 is assigned to indicate the score is not available.
There is an example method of calculating credit specific scores that involves calculation of payment performance scores for each case by taking into consideration only the experiences in a specific credit range. An example of credit ranges is: (1) under $1,000, (2) $1,000 to $4,999, (3) $5,000 to $14,999, (5) $15,000 to $49,999, (6) $100,000 and above. All experiences for a case are categorized by credit ranges and the number of experiences associated with each category is calculated. Any category having less than four eligible experiences is removed. Then, 3, 6, 9, and 12 month scores are calculated for each category. Scores may be calculated on-the-fly or pre-calculated and stored.
In this example, if a case is for a headquarters, then all the trade experiences corresponding to all branches associated with the headquarters are considered for score calculation as well as trade experiences associated with the headquarters itself. If the case is for a branch, then only trade experiences corresponding to that branch are considered for score calculation.
Some experiences are not considered for score calculation, such as poster reject, VTAU reject, ANSH deletes, i-cases, unapproved, blocked, and the like.
In a preferred embodiment, approximately 23,000 reports per day are processed with a response time of 2-4 seconds at the web fabricator 502 and 4-6 seconds at the website.
In this example, the packet identifiers, such as PK/PIHW 508, have four letters. The first letter is P (packet) or R (report). The second letter is K (headquarters) or I (branch). The third and fourth letters identify a particular packet. For example, PKI9 identifies a detailed trade data packet.
In this example, the web server 500 presents a user interface and receives information, such as unique corporate identifiers, customer information, and report requests and forwards the information to the web fabricator 502. The web fabricator 502 is a web server that produces reports in various formats, such as using extensible markup language (XML) style sheets (XSL) and transformations (XSLT) to create hypertext markup language (HTML) reports.
In this example, the first fabrication component 600 and the second fabrication component 602 are processors with stored instructions having rules used to determine which packets are needed for the reports. Data layouts in XML and data from at least database 514 are returned to the first fabrication component 600 and the second fabrication component 602 by the component 626.
In this example, the web fabricator 502 takes in one or more XML data streams, and based on a data product (e.g., report) request, applies a set of one or more XSL files in an XSLT translation process with an output of one or more HTML files. The system is capable of fabricating multiple different versions of a data product based on an incoming request. The data products available may be different, depending on the web server 500. The request includes different information by product determining what type of product to fabricate and various fields to use for accessing a back end system or where to store a response. The resulting products are returned in an XML stream or written to a file system with a return XML pointer to where the files were written.
The example reports have four sections with scores: (1) PAYDEX™ plus scores (
As shown in
In this example, the web fabricator 502, upon receiving a request from a website (e.g., http://www.dnb.com) for a report, triggers a request for corresponding super packets. A credit fabricator (not shown) receives a request for a report from the web fabricator 502 through component 626. The credit fabricator has an initialization program 504, 518 that initializes communication areas, addresses, and passes control to a case verification program 504, 518. The case verification program 504, 518 performs a case lookup and instantiates a product availability check. An exploder program 506, 520 links to the control modules, including data access and formatting programs of each packet. A control module links to corresponding data access modules to retrieve data. Data received from data access modules is formatted with an “*” delimiter in the control programs. The control then returns to the exploder program 506, 520.
Within each of the control modules, there is a data formatter module that in turn invokes one or more data extract modules. The data that is extracted by the extract modules is formatted to a single asterisk delimited string by the formatter module. The exploder program 506, 520 then passes control to the imploder program 514, 526. The imploder program 514, 526 concatenates data from different control modules into one packet and passes control to a super packet program 516, 528. The super packet program 516, 528 reformats the data with XML delimiters and passes the data back to the web fabricator 502. The super packet is similar to other packets, except for the delimiter. Other packets have data delimited by an asterisk, whereas the super packet has data delimited by XML tags. Each data element in the super packet has its own XML start and end tags.
There is an example method of fabricating data. When a report is requested, the web fabricator 502 triggers a request to the component 626 to trigger either the first fabrication component 600 for the eBIR or the second fabrication component 602 for the eCOMP 602. The request undergoes case lookup, product availability check and in-date check, and packet explosion. The packet exploder 506, 520 triggers control modules associated with the request in parallel. For example, if the eBIR report is requested, there are three requests triggered that in turn trigger an associated super packet. Within each super packet, the fabrication process for each of its associated sub packets is triggered in parallel. For example, triggering the PKDB super packet for eBIR triggers PKDW, PKDX, PKDM through PKAT in parallel. Each of these sub packet modules has an associated main or formatting module and one or more data access modules. The data obtained from the access modules is derived and formatted to an asterisk delimited format by the formatting modules. The imploder converts the asterisk delimited string obtained from the individual data sub packets into a single data string. Imploder then passes the data string to the super packet program. The super packet program converts the asterisk delimited text to an XML string. The output of the super packet has its data elements encapsulated within XML tags.
It is to be understood that the drawings and detailed description are intended to be illustrative and not restrictive. Embodiments other than the examples in the drawings and detailed description may be used. Other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description, such as scores over any combination of time periods, reports that can be email, printed, faxed and the like. Structural, logical, and electrical changes may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure. Various designs using hardware, software, and firmware are contemplated by the present disclosure, even though some minor elements would need to change to better support the environments common to such systems and methods, such as various database management systems and programming languages. The present disclosure has applicability to fields other than business information. Therefore, the scope of the present disclosure should be determined with reference to the appended claims, along with the full scope of equivalents to which such claims are entitled.
