This disclosure relates generally to reconciliation of two sets of data, and more particularly to methods and apparatus for reconciliation of multiple sets of data.
Reconciliation of two sets of data is required in many types of industries including, banking, telecommunication, retail and the like. There are many instances when various entities in an industry need to reconcile records to determine which entity is entitled to payment for more use of its system commonly referred to as arbitrage. Although there are certain standards related to many aspects of computer systems, there are really no standards for how electronic data is stored in various computer systems. Most likely, each entity has a one or more computer networks. Data and different representations of the data are stored in different ways depending on the needs/uses for the data by the different entities. Records may also need to be reconciled within an entity. In many instances, an entity will have multiple computer networks. Various groups within an entity will have different needs for data and each will configure differently to suite their particular needs. In short, there are many instances, including within an entity and between entities and even between industries, where the data may need to be reconciled between that store data in a different way or a different format. Due to configuration differences in different network systems, the data for a single event may be recorded by different network systems in different layouts or forms. In many instances, this makes reconciliation more important, as well as more complex to achieve.
Revenue assurance is one service industry that relies very heavily on technology for reconciling records between multiple data feeds. Revenue assurance compares records from multiple data feeds and identifies discrepancies that would lead to revenue leakage or over-billing of a service. In the telecommunications industry, for example, billable telephony records can be reconciled with the base signaling records as the billable telephony records pass through an organization's data collection, guiding, rating, and billing stages before the call appears as a line item on the customer's bill. Common issues include dropped billing records, incorrect start and end times, incorrect rating of the event, or inability to guide the billable record to the appropriate billable account. It has been estimated that as much as seven to fifteen percent of a telecommunications company's service goes unbilled due to revenue assurance issues.
Another example is related to web content delivery (e.g., ringtones, wallpapers, video clips, etc.), where the content is owned by third parties. Mobile companies are billed for their end customer's downloads and must ensure appropriate billing of the end customers. In yet another example, in the utilities industry, upwards of five to ten percent of capacity goes unbilled due to line leakage, un-metered lines, faulty meeting equipment, or fraud.
Not only are revenue assurance issues paramount to the profitability of an organization, these issues are also for compliance with numerous regulatory or governmental requirements, such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX). Unfortunately, current techniques for detecting and resolving revenue assurance issues re inefficient, costly, and of limited effectiveness.
Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.