Patent ID: 8391835

Claim:
A processor-based system for automated construction of a proposed time record entry (PTRE) in response to a telephone call with a timekeeper and with reference to a database of valid billing references, comprising: (a) a call-log having telephone call information including at least CallerID (ANI/CLI) in case of a received call and DDI (MSN/DNIS) in case of an outgoing call; (b) a processor; and (c) a plurality of modules executing in the processor, including: a parser module executing in the processor to extract the telephone call information including the CallerID in the case of the received call and the DDI in the case of the outgoing call from a memory of a machine; a heuristic engine module communicatively coupled to the parser and executing in the processor to associate the telephone call with one or more billing references from the database using at least a portion of the extracted telephone call information; an automated time-record entry generator module executing in the processor to construct the PTRE for the timekeeper so as to include at least: (i) any billing reference that has been associated with the telephone call by the heuristic engine module, (ii) a portion of the telephone call information, and (iii) narrative text extracted by the parser module or derived using the heuristic engine module, the extraction or derivation of the narrative text being from at least the CallerID in the case of the received call and the DDI in the case of the outgoing call and being automatically placed into the so-constructed PTRE in the form of a sentence in which a first part of the sentence identifies the PTRE as concerning a telephone conference and a second part of the sentence identifies a party to the telephone conference without user intervention or assistance; and a user interface module executing in the processor to present the constructed PTRE including the automatically placed narrative text, to receive an instruction from the timekeeper to manually accept, modify or cancel the PTRE, and to output any accepted or modified PTRE in response to the instruction.