Patent ID: 8177121

Claim:
A system for comparing spending information of a target entity with spending information of other entities, the system comprising: a target entity computing system having stored therein financial transaction data representing spending transactions of the target entity, each spending transaction having a payee, a date, and an amount, the target entity computing system comprising: a processor; and a memory having stored therein instructions for executing a process for comparing spending information of a target entity with spending information of other entities, the process comprising: aggregating, on the target entity computing system, the spending transactions of the target entity with respect to at least one attribute of the spending transactions of the target entity to obtain an aggregated spending amount of the target entity; transmitting the aggregated spending amount of the target entity together with the at least one attribute and selective criteria to a central server communicatively coupled to the target entity computing system; receiving, at the target entity computing system from the central server, a comparison of the aggregated spending amount of the target entity and aggregated spending amounts of at least one entity of a collection of entities other than the target entity, the entities of the collection meeting the selective criteria, the aggregated spending amounts of the at least one entity of the collection sharing the at least one attribute; displaying a report on the target entity computer that comprises the comparison received from the central server.