cancel the forecast by actuating a cancel button 323 although in the example of fig3 the current date is after the end date of the current period it will be recognized that the current date can be before the end date of the current period for example the analyst may wish to forecast sales for the fourth quarter of 2013 based upon stored payment card transactions processed as of oct 31 2013 in that case the analyst would enter u201c 2013 10 31 u201d in entry field 309 fig4 is a flowchart of an embodiment of clearing management processor 113 processing clearing management processor 113 receives a batch of transaction records from an acquirer system as indicated at block 401 clearing management processor 113 sets a constant n equal to the number of transaction records in the batch and sets n 1 as indicated at block 403 then clearing management processor 113 stores in transaction database 115 the merchant name transaction date transaction amount and process date for transaction record n as indicated at block 405 clearing management processor 113 then determines at block 407 the issuer associated with transaction n and puts transaction record n in a sub batch for transmission to the issuer as indicated at block 409 then clearing management processor 113 determines at decision block 411 if n is equal to n if n is not equal to n clearing management processor 113 sets n equal to n plus 1 at block 413 and.