SE546597C2 - A method for handling an electronic main document and digital receipts and a system thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

A method for handling an electronic main document, such as an electronic invoice, and digital receipts associated with the electronic main document is presented. The method may comprise receiving the electronic main document, retrieving the digital receipts associated with the electronic main document by identifying transactions in the electronic main document, extracting identifiers for the transactions, wherein each of the identifiers comprise time of transaction and location of transaction, identifying the digital receipts by using the identifiers, and requesting the digital receipts from a digital receipts database, bundling the electronic main document and the digital receipts into an outlay data package.

Description

A METHOD FOR HANDLING AN ELECTRONIC I\/IAIN DOCUI\/IENT AND DIGITAL RECEIPTS AND A SYSTEM THEREOF Technical Field The methods and systems presented below generally relates to the field of handling electronic documents. l\/lore particularly and by way of example, they relate to how digital receipts can be used in order to make existing processes for handling expenses and the like more efficient.

Background Today it is in many countries required to store a physical receipt in order to be able to prove that there has been an outlay. This holds true for instance for employees when preparing expense reports. The reason for that physical receipts is needed is most often due to legal and tax requirements, and most often it is the actual receipt that is needed and an image of the receipt is not accepted. As an effect, handling outlays is today a labor- intensive process both for the person purchasing a product or service on behalf of a company, e.g. his or her employer, but also for the financial accounting functions responsible for handling e.g. outlays and expense reports. ln addition, since a physical receipt easily can be created and tampered with, the risk of having non-authentic physical receipts cannot be neglected.

Since a couple of years ago services for digital receipts that fulfill the legal requirements are being offered and are becoming increasingly popular, mainly because there is no longer a need for keeping physical receipts. Another advantage is that the receipts can be organized automatically and be integrated with for instance digital bank statements. Such a service is offered today by some banks in cooperation with the applicant, ETNetwork.

Even though digital receipts are today a reality and that they are increasingly popular, there is still a need for improved services for handling for instance outlays.

Summary Accordingly, the claimed subject matter preferably seeks to mitigate, alleviate or eliminate one or more of the above-identified deficiencies in the art and disadvantages singly or in any combination and solves at least the above mentioned problems e.g. by providing methods and systems using transaction data for a purchase for combining electronic sub-documents to an electronic main document, e.g. digital receipts to an electronic invoice.

"Digital receipt" should in this context be given a broad meaning. For instance, it can be understood as a bill of parcel, unpacking note, packaging slip, delivery docket, shipping list, delivery list, delivery note, customer receipt or any other digital document being related to a coming or a performed transaction.

According to a first aspect it is provided a method for handling an electronic main document, such as an electronic invoice, and digital receipts associated with the electronic main document. The method may comprise receiving the electronic main document, retrieving the digital receipts associated with the electronic main document by identifying transactions in the electronic main document, extracting identifiers for the transactions, wherein each of the identifiers comprise time of transaction and location of transaction, identifying the digital receipts by using the identifiers, and requesting the digital receipts from a digital receipts database, bundling the electronic main document and the digital receipts into an outlay data package.

The step of bundling the electronic main document and the digital receipts may comprise identifying areas of the main document corresponding to the transactions, and creating links to the digital receipts within the areas.

The areas may correspond to lines of text in the main electronic document.

The step of bundling may further comprise identifying a type of main electronic document and taking into account the type of main electronic document when identifying the areas.

The method may further comprise presenting the electronic main document via a graphical user interface, receiving a first user input actuation 3 coupled to a selected digital receipt, and creating an expense report including the selected digital receipt.

The method may further comprise presenting the selected digital receipt via the graphical user interface, receiving a second user input actuation coupled to a selected item of the selected digital receipt, and adding information related to the selected item to the expense report.

According to a second aspect it is provided a system for handling an electronic main document, such as an electronic invoice, and digital receipts associated with the electronic main document, said system comprising an electronic main document and digital receipts bundling device configured to receive the electronic main document, retrieve the digital receipts associated with the electronic main document, and bundle the electronic main document and the digital receipts into an outlay data package, a digital receipts database, and a digital receipts handling center (DRHC) configured to identify transactions in the electronic main document, extract identifiers for the transactions, wherein each of the identifiers comprise time of transaction and location of transaction, identify the digital receipts by using the identifiers, and request the digital receipts from the digital receipts database.

The system may further comprise an expense handling device configured to present the electronic main document via a graphical user interface, receive a first user input actuation coupled to a selected digital receipt, and create an expense report including the selected digital receipt.

The expense handling device may further be configured to present the selected digital receipt via the graphical user interface, receive a second user input actuation coupled to a selected item of the selected digital receipt, and add information related to the selected item to the expense report.

According to a third aspect it is provided a computer program product comprising instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry out the steps of the method according to the first aspect.

Brief description of the drawinqs The above, as well as additional objects, features and advantages will be better understood through the following illustrative and non-limiting detailed description, with reference to the appended drawings, wherein: Fig. 1 illustrates an example of an overview of a system for providing electronic invoices with attached digital receipts.

Fig. 2 illustrates an example of a data outlay package.

Fig. 3 illustrates an example of a view from a software program for generating expense reports.

Fig. 4 illustrates a flow chart of a method for handling an electronic main document and digital receipts.

Detailed description Fig 1 illustrates an overview of a system 100 for handling electronic invoices and digital receipts by way of example. As will be readily understood by a skilled person, the principle is not limited to electronic invoices and digital receipts, but these are merely used as examples. Electronic documents should be given a broad meaning and for instance cover electronic invoices, VAT reports, expense reports, statements, images or any other type of electronic document or data set comprising a number of grouped electronic sub-documents.

With reference to the example illustrated in fig 1, a purchase is registered in a point of sales (POS) 102. The POS 102 may be a store using a card terminal for handling a payment, i.e. dedicated piece of hardware for receiving customer card information and exchanging transaction data with a financial institute. Alternatively, the POS 102 may be using a mobile phone 104 or other piece of hardware capable of handling customer card information and exchanging transaction data with a financial institute 106. Further, the POS 102 may use a combination of the card terminal and the mobile phone As part of the purchase, also referred to as a transaction, transaction data comprising e.g. information on the payment card can be sent from the POS 102 to the financial institute 106 or other institution fulfilling the same or a similar function. ln response to this, information is sent back to the POS from the financial institute 106. This information may e.g. comprise a verification that the payment card is not blocked, not recognized or in any other way not eligible. This process for communication between a POS and a card issuer and/or the financial institute 106 is today most often following the international standard ISO ln order to make a receipt available for later use a digital receipt can be generated by the POS 102 and sent to a digital receipts database 108. As an alternative to that the POS 102 is generating the digital receipt itself the digitial receipt can be formed using the mobile phone 104, e.g. by using the mobile phone 104 for making an image of the receipt and the POS 102 for confirming that the image is an authentic copy of the digital receipt. ln order to be able to link the digital receipt created at the POS 102 and the purchase at a later stage, part of the transaction data excanged between the POS 102 and the financial institute 106 may form basis for an identifier. For instance, time and location of the purchase may be extracted from the transaction data exchanged between the POS and the financial institute and may form basis for the identifier. Having the idenitifier and having this linked to the digital receipt, this can be retrieved from the digital receipts database 108 at a later stage. For instance, if a financial institute user is reviewing his or her bank statement, he or she can retrieve the digital receipt associated with a certain transaction in order to find out more about the transaction, provided of course that the financial institute is providing an integrated digital receipts service. ln order to provide for that the digital receipts are stored properly and that digital receipts are only provided to legitimate users a digital receipts handling device (DRHD) 110 may be used. The DRHD 110 may be a data processing device, such as a server computer, configured to communicate with the POS 102, the financial institute 106, the digital receipts database 108 and optionally also the mobile phone 104 and other external devices used for providing or retrieveing digitial receipts information.

Using digital receipts comes very handy in relation to electronic credit card invoices or other eletronic invoices comprising a number of transactions. 6 ln the example of electronic credit card invoices, an electronic invoice, which is an example of an electronic main document 112, may be formed by the financial institute 106 or other institute being issuer of the credit card. ln order to facilitate coming handling of the electronic invoice the financial institute can in parallell with providing the electronic invoice send a request for digital receipts associated with the electronic invoice. This request may be sent to a main document database 113 connected to the DRHD 110. Knowing details of the credit card, such as credit card number or token, as well as having information of the transactions being part of the electronic invoice, associated digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c can be identified and provided by a digital receipts handling center (DRHC) 116 comprising the digital receipts database 108, the DRHD 110 and the main document database 113. The DRHC116 may be a cloud service in full or in part.

The electronic invoice and the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c, identified to be related to the electronic invoice by the DRHC 116, may be provided to an electronic main document and digital receipts bundling device 118. The electronic main document and digital receipts bundling device 118 may for instance be a server computer.

The electronic main document and digitial receipts bundling device 118 may be configured to combine the electronic main document and the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c to an outlay data package 120 comprising information to be used by a user for creating his or her expense report. Bundling the electronic main document and the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c may be done in different ways. For instance, the electronic main document and digital receipts bundling device 118 may identify transactions in the electronic main document and thereafter identify digital receipts114a, 114b, 114c associated to the transactions in a subsequent step. The bundling of the electronic main document and the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c may be that the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c are handled as attachments to the electronic main document. ln order to faciliate later processing of the outlay data package 120, the transactions in the electronic main document may each be associted with one of the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c. ln case the electronic main document is designed such that each transaction 7 represents a line of text, each line may be associated with one of the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c. ln case part of the transactions are not associated with one of the digital receipts, these transactions may be identified such that this information can be provided to the user in a later stage.

When having formed the outlay data package 120 this is fon/varded to an expense handling device 121. The expense handling device 121 may be a software for handling travel expense reports or other software for preparing outlay reports. Based on the outlay data package 120, the expense handling device 121 can prepare a basis for a report. Next, this is presented to a user via a computer 122, or other similar device, in which the user may take additional steps for finalizing and submitting the report.

Even though the the main document and digital receipts bundling device 118 is illustrated as a separate device in fig 1, this device may, as an alternative, form part of the financial institute 106 or, as yet an alternative, form part of the computer 122. Further, the main document and digital receipts bundling device 118 may comprise a number of different sub-devices performing different sub-steps or combining electronic main documents with digital receipts for a chosen set of electronic main document issuers. Likewise, the expense handling device 121 does not need to be a separate device as illustrated in fig 1, but may comprise a number of devices or may be part of devices shared with other systems. ln addition, the DRHC 116 may be emobodied in different ways as well. For instance, the main document database 113 may be an integral part of the DRHD As described above the POS 102 may use a stationary device in the form of e.g. a dedicated card terminal or it may use a mobile device, e.g. a mobile phone, or a combination of the two, e.g. a card terminal supplemented by a mobile phone. ln this latter set-up and in case a receipt is only available in physical format, the mobile phone 104 may be used for creating a digital copy of the receipt. The digital copy may be sent directly from the mobile phone 104 to a digital receipts database 108, or the digital copy may be sent to the card terminal, which in turn is transferring this to the digital receipts database 8 ln fig 2 an example of a structure of the outlay data package 120 is presented in greater detail. ln the illustrated example, the electronic main document comprises three purchases; "Purchase 1", "Purchase 2" and "Purchase 3". These three purchases have each an associated digital receipt as illustrated. ln the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c more detailed information of the purchases can be found, e.g. what articles that have been bought and VAT information. ln addition, metadata may be added by the user. For instance, if a receipt is related to a lunch, names of the particpants may be added as well as purpose of the lunch.

Having the electronic main document, such as the electronic invoice, connected to a number of sub-documents, such as the digital receipts, provides for that more efficient working processes may be achieved. ln fig 3, by way of example, it is illustrated one step in a process for generating an expense report by a user at a computer work station 300 when having access to electronic invoices and their associated digital receipts. ln a view of the work station 300 illustrated in fig 3, "Purchase 1" of the electronic invoice has been actuated, e.g. by that the user has clicked a "Purchase 1" object, with an effect that the digital receipt connected to this has been displayed. ln order for the user to be able to decide which items of the digital receipt that are to be included in the expense report, input fields, such as check boxes, may be provided. ln the example illustrated in fig 3, the user has checked a box associated with "ltem 1" and hence made the input that this is to be included in the expense report being created.

As stated above, the example of electronic invoices and digital receipts is merely an example, and other combinations of main documents and sub- documents are equally possible. For instance, the main document may be a VAT report and the sub-documents may be digital receipts.

Fig 4 illustrates a flow chart 400 of a method for handling the electronic main document 112 by way of example. ln a first step 402 the electronic document 112 is received. Thereafter, in a second step 404, the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c associated with the digital electronic main document 112 are retrieved. ln a third step 406, the 9 electronic main document 112 and the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c are bundled into the outlay data package The second step 402 may comprise a first sub-step 408 of identifying transactions in the electronic main document 112, a second sub-step 410 of extracting identifiers, which may comprise time and location of transaction, a third step 412 of identifying the digital receipts 114a, 114b, 114c by using the identifiers, and a fourth step 414 requesting the digital receipts from the digital receipts database The third step 406 may comprise a fifth sub-step 416 of identifying areas of the main document corresponding to the transactions, and a sixth sub-step 418 of creating links in the areas to the digital receipts. Optionally, a seventh sub-step 420 of identifying a type of the electronic main document 112, e.g. if it is an invoice from a particular vendor using a certain format, may precede the fifth sub-step After the third step 406, a fourth step 422 of presenting the electronic main document 112, a fifth step 424 of receiving a first user input actuation coupled to a selected digital receipt, and a sixth step 426 of creating an expense report including the selected digital receipt may follow. Optionally, in order to be able to select certain items of the selected digital receipt, a seventh step 428 of presenting the selected digital receipt, an eighth step 430 of receiving a second user input actuation coupled to a selected item of the digital receipt, and a ninth step 432 of adding information related to the selected item to the expense report may follow the fourth to sixth steps.

The statements above in relation to that certain information is sent or received, or that a certain action is performed at a certain place should be given a broad interpretation. For instance, instead of sending an entire document a link to a document could be provided, and instead of performing an operation in one place it may be distributed to a number of places.

The invention has mainly been described above with reference to a few embodiments. However, as is readily appreciated by a person skilled in the art, other embodiments than the ones disclosed above are equally possible within the scope of the invention, as defined by the appended patent claims.

Claims (10)

Claims

1. A method (400) for handling an electronic main document (112), such as an electronic lnvoice, and digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) associated with the electronic main document (112), said method comprising » receivinq, from a POS (102). the didital receipts 2114:21 1140. 114c) bv a didital recešpte database (108), - reoeiving (402) the electronic main document (112)p_\¿_za_n electronic main document and digital receipts bundling device (118), - retrieving (404) the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) associated with the electronic main document (112))jromwttguewçjuiggalvpggemçweiptg database t 108) and by the electronic main document and dioital receipts Qutt.§.tl.m_d§yl§àí.1__1§lt by - identifying (408) transactions in the electronic main document (112), - extracting (410) identifiers for the transactions, wherein each of the identifiers comprise time of transaction and location of transaction, - identifying (412) the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) by using the identifiers, and - requesting (414) the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) from a digital receipts database (108), - bundling (406) the electronic main document (112) and the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) into an outlay data package (120),__)_y¿l[;__e¿ei_g_1V the step of receivšnq from the POS (102), the dttytgl receipts (114a. 11413 _1139) by the dwgjtnaflmggsmegpwtmgšmawtwagase äs performed without änvošvind the etectrdnie main document and digital receipts bundêino device (118).

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the step of bundling the electronic main document (112) and the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) comprises i xunmmrerad ram: v. s, lines v-s (Previously submitted ln our submlssl of February 18, 2021) 'I Kømmenhwid [EF2]: Flg. 1, and claim 7 as filed. (Previously submitted ln our submísslon of February 18, 2021) KOIIIMQIMHG [EF3]2 Flg. 1 and claim 7 as filed Kommuaterad [EF4]: Hg.2 - identifying (416) areas of the main document (112) corresponding to the transactions, - creating (418) links to the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) within the areas.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein the areas corresponds to lines of text in the matitrfelectronic ggaigwdocument (112).

4. The method according to any one of the claims 2 or 3, wherein the step of bundling further comprises - identifying (420) a type of main-electronic _r___r_1a_m__document(112) and taking into account the type of main electronic gfggjrymdocument (112) when identifying the areas.

5. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising - presenting (422) the electronic main document (112) via a graphical user interface, - receiving (424) a first user input actuation coupled to a selected digital receipt (114a), and - creating (426) an expense report including the selected digital receipt (114a).

6. The method according to claim 5, further comprising - presenting (428) the selected digital receipt (114a) via the graphical user interface, - receiving (430) a second user input actuation coupled to a selected item of the selected digital receipt (114a), and - adding (432) information related to the selected item to the expense report. 3

7. A system for handling an electronic main document (112), such as an electronic invoice, and digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) associated with the electronic main document (112), said system comprising - an electronic main document and digital reoeipts bundiing device (118) configured to receive the electronic main document (112), retrieve the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) associated with the electronic main document (112), and bundle the electronic main document (112) and the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) into an outlay data package (120), - a digital receipts database (108) configured to receive the diqitaï receipts (114a, 114b 114c)frori1 a POS, and - a digital reoeipts handling center (DRHC) (116) configured to identify transactions in the electronic main document (112), extract identifiers for the transactions, wherein each of the identifiers comprise time of transaction and location of transaction, identify the digital reoeipts (114a, 114b, 114c) by using the identifiers, and request the digital receipts (114a, 114b, 114c) from the digital receipts database (108) wherein the systern is configured such that the digital retxxlriits databease receives said digital receipts frorn the POS (102) vvithcut lnvolvírit; the electronic main document and diqitat receipts; htindlirit; daft/ice (l 18).

8. The system according to claim 7, further comprising - an expense handling device (121) configured to present the electronic main document (112) via a graphical user interface, receive a first user input actuation coupled to a selected digital receipt (114a), and create an expense report including the selected digital receipt (114a).

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein the expense handling device (121) is further configured to present the selected digital receipt (114a) via the graphical user interface, receive a second user input actuation coupled to a selected item of the selected digital receipt (114a), and add information related to the selected item to the expense report. . I kømmellßraa šßasis as lndicated for correspondirirg claim 4

10. A computer program product comprising instructions which, when the program is executed by a computer, cause the computer to carry cut the steps of the method of any one of the claims 1 to 6.