Patent ID: 7266566

Claim:
A computer implemented method of operating a community database, said method comprising the steps of: providing a first source database having data fields therein, said data fields containing data representative of a plurality of client records for a plurality of clients in a community; providing a second source database having data fields therein, said data fields containing data representative of a plurality of entity records for a plurality of entities in the community, wherein at least some of the clients of the first source data base are common with corresponding entities in the second source database; comparing data in a predetermined client record in the first source database with at least one of the entity records in the second source database to determine a correspondence there between, including the steps of: assigning a weighting value to the fields for the predetermined client record in the first source database and to the fields of at least one predetermined entity record in the second source database; calculating a percentage value of a portion of the data in a field of the first source database that matches the data in a corresponding field of the second source database; calculating a field value as a product of the weighting value and the percentage value for each data field for the predetermined client record; summing the field values for the data fields of the predetermined client record to create a match value; and establishing a correspondence based on the match value; and for each correspondence, reconciling the data in the first and and/or second source databases to optimize the data in each field of the corresponding client record in the first source database to form a reconciled client record; and; storing the reconciled client record.