Abstract:
The present invention provides an improved billing and contract management method and a computerized enterprise resource management system for processing and management of rent-producing financial products, such as contracts and leases that are past the initial end term date, and that have not been renegotiated or extended, or, in other words, that have entered the “evergreen” period. Among other things, the method and computerized system of the present invention integrate processing of the “evergreen” contracts with a proprietary generalized ERP software product/solution such as Oracle™ E-Business suite&#39;s Lease Management system, and supplement the processing of regular contracts with the “evergreen” contract authoring and booking, processing, validation, billing, accounting, collections, modification and audit trailing of the changes made to the “evergreen” contract terms.

Description:
COPYRIGHT 
     A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 
     BACKGROUND 
     The present invention relates generally to an improved billing and contract management method and a computerized system, and more specifically to software and a method for providing additional billing and management functionality and processing of rent-producing financial products, such as contracts and leases that are past the initial end term date and that have not been renegotiated or extended, or, in other words, that have entered the “evergreen” period. In particular, the present invention relates to the software that provides and incorporates the processing of the financial products (e.g., operating, direct finance, asset sales and sales type leases and loans) in the “evergreen” period with proprietary software products such as Oracle™ E-Business suite&#39;s Lease Management system and allows seamless integration with Oracle and other software contract management products and methods. 
     In today&#39;s competitive technological marketplace, computerized systems and proprietary software (a.k.a. an enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications) are used to track and manage a number of different financial and asset-based products, such as commercial leases and other types of rent-generating contracts. Most ERP systems track and manage only a limited aspect of a business agreement or a particular type of transaction, but some offer a more global approach, allowing a user to track the contractual arrangement and business transactions pursuant to this arrangement from sales and contract origination to the end term of the contractual agreement. 
     For example, Oracle™ Lease Management system and solution helps lessors manage a number of complex contractual business arrangements, such as vendor programs, operating agreements, investor agreements and other types of contracts with sufficient automation and flexibility necessary for operations in a global enterprise marketplace. Among other things, it helps lessors to account for transactions according to standards that may vary from one region to another, comply with evolving regulations, streamline and automate end-to-end business process to improve efficiencies and reduce costs by reducing traditionally labor-intensive processes such as contract authoring, review and approval, management of the transactions in multiple currencies, billing, funding, collections, insurance and contract termination. 
     Although Oracle&#39;s E-business suite&#39;s Lease Management software provides an improvement over prior lease management software products and ERPs that were specific to the requirements of a particular country and did not interface with other similar systems selected by the affiliates in other countries, Oracle&#39;s unified software solution and method for automating the end-to-end business processes is still deficient in a number of important aspects. It only has extremely limited functionality relating to automated processing, billing and accounting for the contracts in the “evergreen” period. The lease contract period for these contracts may have reached its term date, but the rents are still being collected and the contract is neither renegotiated, extended, or rebooked. Therefore, there exists a need for, among other goals and solutions, for a software system and a method of processing the “evergreen” contracts and integrating their processing with such contract management functions as authoring and booking, processing, billing, accounting, collections, modification of the terms and conditions and audit trailing of these modification in the ERP systems currently utilized by lessors. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  illustrates a generalized computer environment for implementing and incorporating the “evergreen” contract processing functionality within an ERP software solution for an enterprise; 
         FIG. 2  shows a flow chart of the logical process in which the “evergreen” contract processing is incorporated into the ERP software and process for managing, billing and collecting rents from a regular term contract; 
         FIG. 3  shows a flow chart and the logical components and processes that are added to the logical components of an ERP in order to implement and integrate the “evergreen” contract functionality with the regular term contract authoring and validation; 
         FIG. 4  shows a flow chart and the logical components and processes that are added to the logical components of an ERP in order to implement and integrate the “evergreen” contract functionality with the regular term contract billing, in-life management components and lease center functions; and 
         FIG. 5  illustrates how the additional logical components that implement “evergreen” processing are incorporated and integrated within the standard contract solution components of a centralized ERP system. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     One aspect of the evergreen lease management system includes resolves missing functionalities or computational shortcomings of existing enterprise resource planning systems. For example, one such ERP system having evergreen shortcomings may be the Oracle E-business suite&#39;s Lease Management software, but may also applicable to other ERPs by incorporating certain additional processes and software components into the generalized ERP software and method. It also addresses the need to incorporate the “evergreen” solution and processing into the centralized ERP system (such as Oracle Lease Management software) as independent modular components that do not interfere with, integrate easily with and operate together with other processes and components of a centralized ERP system. The term “centralized” in this case refers to unified functionality and all aspects of operations for a multinational enterprise. Physically, such a system could be implemented on a standalone computer processor with memory and an input device, as well as over a distributed network or even multiple networks. 
     Another aspect of the present invention is to permit customization and modifications to certain components of the automated solution and methodology utilized for the “evergreen” contract processing, billing, accounting, collections, audit and modification in a centralized ERP system. 
     These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention, its integration and operation within a centralized ERP system such as Oracle Lease Management software, as well as other ERPs, will be best understood from the following detailed description of the embodiments of the present invention, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
     Generally, administrative costs are among the top categories of expenditures for an asset-based finance company. Leasing companies and enterprises reduce the labor intensive processes associated with, for example, contract authoring, billing and collections by streamlining their operations, defining financial products with standard contract terms that generate certain expected accounting results, auditing schemes and collections. The Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized ERP that enables leasing companies to efficiently finance and loan products, manage customer and vendor relationships, bill and collect payment, disburse funds to vendors and investors, track and account for assets and products, define such aspects of a business as “customers,” “vendors,” “suppliers,” “employees” and “financial products.” The process and system incorporating the “evergreen” contract processing with the centralized ERP, such as Oracle E-Business Suite, is shown with reference to  FIGS. 1 through 5 . 
       FIG. 1  illustrates a computer system  100  that includes a processor  102 , a memory  104 , an input device  106 , e.g., a keyboard or a computer mouse and an output device  108 , e.g., a computer screen or a printer. The memory  104  stores executable instructions  109 . The processor  102 , upon receipt of the executable instructions  109 , is operative to perform various processing operations for implementing the management of the financial products with added “evergreen” contract processing in accordance, as discussed later. The processor  102  may consist of one or more processing devices centrally or remotely disposed in a processing environment, and the memory  104  may be any suitable type of memory operative to store and provide the executable instructions  109  to the processor, where the memory  104  may be remote to the processor  102 , or, in another embodiment, may be internally disposed within the processor  102  or within a computing environment having the processor  102  incorporated or connected therein. 
       FIG. 2  is a logical flow chart of a process for creating, integrating and implementing the “evergreen” contract processing and functionality with the ERP software and process for authoring/creating, managing, billing and collecting rents from a regular term contract. The contract, which includes both the regular term and the “evergreen” contract, is “created” at step  202 . In the next step  204 , it is determined whether the contract is DFL or non-DF, i.e. if is it is Evergreen eligible. If not, the contract is authored and processed without “evergreen” terms at step  206 ; otherwise the contract is booked  209  and processed with “Evergreen” Eligibility  207  to determine at step  208  whether it is at the end of its term (EOT). The contract that has not reached its term, i.e., has not reached the “evergreen” status, is then serviced and billed to the customer at step  210 . If, however, the contract has reached its term, the next step  212  is to determine whether negotiations have been completed. If so, then the evergreen amount is entered, contract status is changed to “evergreen,” and the evergreen start date is entered, as shown in steps  214  and  216  of  FIG. 2 . Otherwise, if negotiations have not completed, the processing awaits the completion of those negotiations, as shown in  213 . The next step  218  determines whether the evergreen proceeds should be shared with a vendor (i.e., whether there is a “pass-through” criterion for sharing the rent proceeds). If not, the billing is continued in the “evergreen” mode, subject to the terms of the contract in step  220 . If rent proceeds are to be shared, and the rent value (RV) has been recovered, as determined in step  222 , the proceeds are shared with the vendor, as indicated in step  224 . When no rent value has been recovered, there is no sharing of the evergreen proceeds, as indicated in step  226 . 
       FIG. 3  is a flow chart that illustrates a particular embodiment for implementing and integrating “evergreen” processes within a generalized ERP system, and further illustrates the logical components that are added to the logical components of an ERP system in order to implement and integrate the “evergreen” contract functionality with the regular term contract authoring and validation. The process of booking a contract,  330  begins with “authoring” the contract in step  332 . Then, in step  334 , the “evergreen” terms and conditions are entered. This allows to address situations where the “evergreen” billing frequency and amount are different from the normal term period for the contract that entered the “evergreen” period. It may also be possible to set up terms and conditions as to bill for the “evergreen” rent only, and not for the “evergreen” services. Also, it may be necessary or desirable to send a notice to the customer when the contract changes its status to “evergreen” and the terms change with that change in status. In step  336 , it is determined whether the regular contract is eligible for the “evergreen” pass-through at the end of its term, and, if so, the terms and conditions for the pass-through are entered in step  338 . Then, both types of contracts, those that are eligible for the “evergreen” pass-through and those that are not, are subjected to the validation process  340 , which could be implemented using a QA checker that validates regular contracts as well as those in “evergreen” status. As part of the validation process  340 , the processor  102  executes computer instructions to perform the regular contract validation procedure in step  342 . Then, it is determined in step  344  whether the contract is eligible for “evergreen” status, and, if so, a separate call  346  to the “evergreen”-specific QA checker is made. When the contract at issue is not eligible for the “evergreen” status, the call to the “evergreen”-specific QA checker is bypassed. In one embodiment of the system in accordance with the current invention, the “evergreen”-specific QA checker is added to the software code for a QA checker used to validate regular contracts. Alternatively, it could be implemented in a separate procedure and code segment. Once the “evergreen”-specific QA checker step has completed, the contract is validated and activated, as indicated in step  348 . 
       FIG. 4  further illustrates the flow chart and logical components that are added to the logical components of an ERP system in order to implement and integrate the “evergreen” contract in-life management functions such as billing, form updates and audit trailing of the modifications to the “evergreen” terms and conditions. The contract normal life billing functions  400  begin by performing the code for regular contract billing and generating accrual during the life of the contract at step  402 . It then generates and applies receipts to contract invoices in step  404  until the contract reaches the end of its term. When it is determined in step  406  that a contract has reached the end of its term, it is then determined in step  408  whether this contract is eligible for “evergreen” status, and, if so, changes the status of the contract to “evergreen” in step  410 . The contract that has reached the end of its term but is not eligible for “evergreen” status is simply terminated, as shown in step  412 . 
     Referring to  FIG. 4 , those contracts that change their status to “evergreen” are subject to “evergreen” billing  420  by causing the processor  102  to execute computer instructions for the “evergreen” specific billing programs, as indicated in step  422  and generating “evergreen” accrual streams and invoices for revenue recognition in step  424 . When it is determined in step  426  that the contract is not eligible for the “evergreen” pass-through, the accrued rents or revenue are not shared with the vendor, as indicated in step  428 . Otherwise, the “evergreen” pass-through program or code is called and executed in step  430  and the “evergreen” pass-through invoices are generated as part of the step  432 . As also illustrated in  FIG. 4 , the lease center function  450  is preferably modified to contain custom screen forms to update “evergreen” parameters during the contract life cycle and also create an audit trail of the modifications of the “evergreen parameters,” as indicated respectively in steps  452  and  454 . 
       FIG. 5  shows a table that illustrates how the logical components that add processing and management of the “evergreen” contracts are integrated with the logical and functional components of a generalized ERP system. As discussed in connection with  FIG. 2 , the steps for capturing the “evergreen” billing frequency and amount  502 , capturing “evergreen” amount for a contract based on a particular formula, as shown in  504 , and additional “evergreen” QA Checker  506  are incorporated with the Terms and Conditions logical component  500  of a generalized ERP system. Similarly, the “evergreen” billing  510  process, which includes without limitation billing the “evergreen” rent and service  512  based on the billing structure captured in the Terms and Conditions logical component or based on a particular formula, as shown in  514 , the “evergreen” revenue pass-through logical component  516 , the step of generating accrual streams  518  and creating invoices for revenue recognition are incorporated with the Contract Normal Life Billing function  400  of the standard contract billing process. The custom forms to update the “evergreen parameters”  522  and the audit trail  524  for the updates to the “evergreen” billing parameters are incorporated as part of the Lease Center logical component  520  of a generalized ERP. 
     Although the preceding text sets forth a detailed description of various embodiments, it should be understood that the legal scope of the invention is defined by the words of the claims set forth below. The detailed description provided herein is to be construed as exemplary only and does not describe every possible embodiment of the invention because describing every possible embodiment would be impractical, if not impossible. It should also be noted that the sequence or arrangement of the particular steps shown in various figures accompanying the description of the embodiments of the current invention is not limiting, and it is understood that rearranging these described steps is within the scope of the contemplated invention. Numerous alternative embodiments could also be implemented, using either current technology or technology developed after the filing date of this patent, which would still fall within the scope of the claims defining the invention. 
     It should be understood that there exist implementations of other variations and modifications of the invention and its various aspects, as may be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art, and that the invention is not limited by specific embodiments described herein. It is therefore contemplated to cover any and all modifications, variations or equivalents that fall within the scope of the basic underlying principles disclosed and claimed herein.