Patent ID: 8090634

Claim:
In a computerized data processing system, a computer-implemented method for pricing transactions for a billable entity comprising related accounts over a billing cycle, comprising: for each transaction to be priced, at the time the transaction takes place: identifying from the transaction one or more production services, wherein one or more instances of each production service are components of the transaction; and for each production service identified from the transaction: counting the instances of the production service in the transaction; determining a total number of instances of the production service associated with all transactions of the billable entity that are provided during the billing cycle up to and including the transaction; determining a price applicable to the total number of instances of the production service according to a pricing method applicable to the production service or the billable entity at the time of the transaction; and apportioning the price to the transaction based on the number of instances of the production service in the transaction; at the end of the billing cycle, for each production service, calculating a variance to the price apportioned to each transaction for the production service, the variance being calculated using a method comprising: determining an end-of-period total number of instances of the production service associated with the billable entity provided during the billing cycle; determining an end-of-period pricing method applicable to the production service or the billable entity at the end of the billing cycle; according to the end-of-period pricing method, determining an end-of-period price applicable to the end-of-period total number of instances of the production service; and calculating the variance for the production service by determining a difference between the end-of-period price and the price apportioned to the transaction; and modifying the price apportioned to each transaction for each production service using the variance calculated for the production service in the transaction; and wherein all of the above steps are performed by the computerized data processing system.