Patent ID: 7720759

Claim:
A system for reconciling revenue discrepancies relating to customer billing and vendor settlements for multimedia services provided by a plurality of different vendors through a network, the system comprising: an alert rule component repository configured to store alert rule components needed for the creation of alert rules in configuration tables, wherein a system user interactively creates at least one alert rule and at least one corresponding alert rule threshold by selecting alert rule components from the configuration tables, the alert rule having at least two set-up options including a tracking alert rule option and a trending alert rule option, and the alert rule threshold having at least three set-up options including a key-level threshold option that applies only to a specific set of key values, a default option that applies to all data, and a multiple alert threshold option; a data repository configured to store a plurality of data tables, each data table including data collected from a plurality of network elements in the network and relating to vendor settlement and at least one of customer usage, mediation and customer billing; and a processor configured to execute the at least one alert rule based on data retrieved from at least one data table of the plurality of data tables stored in the data repository, the at least one alert rule comprising a comparison between the at least one data table and at least one other data table of the plurality of tables; wherein the processor triggers an alert associated with the at least one alert rule when the corresponding alert rule threshold associated with a revenue discrepancy is exceeded based on the comparison, and initiates reporting of the triggered alert, and wherein the alert is triggered based on one of four user-selectable trigger options, including (1) when a variance is within a high boundary and a low boundary of the threshold, (2) when a variance is less than or equal to a high boundary of the threshold, (3) when a variance is greater than or equal to the low boundary of the threshold, and (4) when a variance is equal to a high boundary of a threshold.