Patent ID: 7940899

Claim:
A computer-implemented method comprising: loading transaction-related data from an enterprise resource planning system to a common data model database, wherein the transaction-related data includes accounting data and entity identification data; searching for matches between identification data entries in the common data model database, including performing a series of sequential data transformations and loading results of each transformation into a corresponding database table, wherein performing a series of sequential data transformations and loading results of each transformation into a corresponding database table includes: extracting the entity identification data from the common data model database; loading the extracted entity identification data into a first database table; creating a respective new record for each name listed in the first database table; performing a first data pre-cleansing process with respect to names in the new records; storing the pre-cleansed records in a second database table; performing an address cleansing process with respect to the records stored in the second database table; categorizing each name entry in the second database table as a personal name or an organization name; performing a data cleansing process for each record depending on the category to which the corresponding name entry is assigned and storing results of the data cleansing process in a third database table; compressing data in the third database table to obtain a single record for each particular entity name and storing the compressed data in a fourth database table; and performing a data matching process for the compressed data based on a program selected by a user from among a plurality of stored programs, and storing results of the data matching process in a fifth database table; identifying a link between two or more records for the loaded data based on one or more matches between identification data for the entities corresponding to those records; and clustering two or more entities based on links among records for those entities.