Controlling, configuring, storing, monitoring and maintaining accounting or bookkeeping information employing trees with nodes having embedded information

Abstract

A method and system for providing multilevel information about aspects of accounting. The method comprises the steps of generating a display, on a computer display screen, of a tree having a plurality of nodes, and embedding in the nodes multilevel information about said accounting aspects. For example, trees may be generated that represent credit, debit, revenue, expense, credit and/or debit plans, credit or debit thresholds, assets (cash, investments, receivables), inventory costing and control, short term and/or long term liabilities (stocks, bonds, mortgage notes), stockholders (equity, dividends, cost basis, restrictions, donations), working capital, cash flow (income statement, operations, earnings, forecast, historical data), customer data, manufacturing costs (processing, target), profit (product, division), taxes (income, sales, real estate, etc.). Information may be embedded with a matrix approach. As examples, matrices may be used that contain cost accounting information for a catalog of elements of products with a catalog of subsystem, matrices may be used that provide particular bookkeeping and accounting requirements, and matrices may be used that represent corporate accounting firms.

1 - 17 . (Cancelled)  
     
     
         18 . A method for representing interconnection of a plurality of elements of an accounting system, the method comprising: 
 providing a first catalog for a first subset of said elements, and    providing a second catalog for a second subset of said elements;    creating a matrix of connection cells formed by an intersection of a pair of elements, wherein a first element of each pair is taken from the first catalog and a second element of each pair is taken from the second catalog; and    forming a connection representation for at least a subset of the pairs.    
     
     
         19 . A method as recited in  claim 18 , wherein at least one element is a catalog of sub-elements, and the method further comprises the step of including all sub-elements in the matrix.  
     
     
         20 . A method as recited in  claim 18 , wherein at least one of the catalogs includes a plurality of sub-catalogs.  
     
     
         21 . A method as recited in  claim 18 , wherein at least a portion of one catalog is formed using combinatorial operations upon elements of other catalogs.  
     
     
         22 . A method as recited in  claim 18 , further comprising displaying at least one portion of the matrix.  
     
     
         23 . A method as recited in  claim 18 , further comprising employing a wizard to form at least a subset of the elements.  
     
     
         24 . An article of manufacture comprising a computer usable medium having computer readable program code means embodied therein for causing representation of interconnection of a plurality of elements of an accounting system, the computer readable program code means in said article of manufacture comprising computer readable program code means for causing a computer to effect the steps of  claim 18 .  
     
     
         25 . An architecture comprising: 
 a matrix module forming an accounting information system matrix having at least one matrix row element and at least one matrix column element, an intersection of each said at least one matrix row element with each said at least one matrix column element forming a matrix cell;    a set of accounting elements, a first subset of said set having a connection requirement with a second subset of said set;    a first catalog including at least one accounting element forming said at least one matrix row element; and    a second catalog including at least one accounting element forming said at least one matrix column element, wherein each matrix cell represents an accounting connection between each accounting element of the first catalog and each accounting element of the second catalog to enable systematic cooperation among accounting elements according to an accounting requirement.    
     
     
         26 . An architecture as recited in  claim 25 , wherein at least one accounting element is a catalog of accounting sub-elements.  
     
     
         27 . An architecture as recited in  claim 25 , wherein at least one accounting element is a catalog of elements only peripherally related to accounting.  
     
     
         28 . An architecture as recited in  claim 27 , wherein the catalog of elements only peripherally related to accounting includes an item selected from the group of items including customer habits, customer likes and/or dislikes, customer product data.  
     
     
         29 . (Cancelled)