Patent ID: 7124105

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of determining a cash flow plan corresponding to a plurality of payment obligations in accounts payable of a finance account while satisfying at least one objective, the computer-implemented method comprising: generating a first set of computer data representing a genome population having a first set of vectors, each vector in the first set of vectors representing the cash flow plan, numerically defining a payment date and a payment amount corresponding to each payment obligation in the accounts payable; obtaining a second set of computer data representing a plurality of objectives with respect to the cash flow plan, the objectives including maximizing a minimum daily cash on hand in the finance account and each objective associated with a weight indicating the importance of the objective; and modifying the first set of computer data representing the genome population by use of a genetic algorithm, including: determining a fitness for each of the vectors in the genome population using objective values, the objective values determined by applying objective functions to the vectors, each objective value weighted by the corresponding weight; and introducing new vectors in the genome population derived from other vectors including the first set of vectors, until at least one of the vectors in the genome population represents the cash flow plan, such that payment of each payment obligation in the accounts payable in accordance with the cash flow plan maximizes the minimum daily cash on hand in the finance account while satisfying the objectives, wherein each vector in the first set of vectors comprises a plurality of alleles each including a plurality of bits, and generating a first set of computer data representing a genome population having a first set of vectors comprises: randomly choosing a bit density d from a uniform distribution, wherein 0<=d<=1; and in each of the first set of vectors, randomly setting each bit of each allele to one with a probability of d.