Patent ID: 7480671

Claim:
A computer system for making procurement-related information that has been generated on a transaction level available to data warehousing techniques, comprising: a processor; a memory coupled to the processor; a transaction processing layer, configured to utilize the processor, including at least one accounting component with a general ledger data base for centrally storing information contained in accounting-related data sets, the accounting-related data sets being comprised of one or more data lines; a data warehousing layer, configured to utilize the processor, for gathering and accumulating information provided by the transaction processing layer; a duplicator, configured to utilize the processor, for receiving the accounting-related data sets that will be or have been stored in the general ledger data base, for delivering duplicates of such accounting-related data sets that fulfill a predefined criteria in a procurement context; a source data base for storing the duplicated data sets on a data line level; an extractor, configured to utilize the processor, interfacing the data warehousing layer, for selectively moving data contained in data lines or sets of data lines from the source data base to the data warehousing layer; and an analyzer, configured to utilize the processor, for analyzing the duplicated data sets delivered by the duplicator and for adding transfer information to the duplicated data sets, the transfer information controlling at least one of the extraction of data from the source data base and the transfer of extracted data in the data warehousing layer.