Reading, organizing and manipulating accounting data

Abstract

An accounting reconciliation system, with a register containing transaction data of a control account, wherein a theoretical account balance is displayed to a user on a display screen of a computer with a dynamic total of a respective balance of the control account and a set of reviewed transactions of the control account, wherein the reviewed transactions are manually checked, and wherein the user compares the theoretical account balance to an external transactions report account balance.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system for generating a customized financial report, comprising:
 in an electronic device, a read module for reading accounting data and identifying a plurality of accounting data elements within the accounting data;   a data organization module, communicatively coupled to the read module, for generating data structures for the identified accounting data elements;   a storage device, communicatively coupled to the data organization module, for storing the identified accounting data elements;   a report generator, communicatively coupled to the storage device, for transforming the stored accounting data elements to generate at least one financial report; and   an output device, communicatively coupled to the report generator, for outputting the at least one financial report;   wherein the generated data structures comprise a trial balance data structure comprising:   a plurality of trial balance data structure elements representing accounts of the accounting data, wherein the trial balance data structure elements are linked by a doubly-linked list of trial balance data structure element pointers; and   at least one sub-list of trial balance data structure element pointers, for grouping the accounts of the accounting data into financial statement items.   
     
     
         2 . The system of  claim 1  further comprising a dynamically allocated storage mechanism for storing the trial balance data structure elements, and wherein the doubly-linked list comprises a next pointer and a previous pointer. 
     
     
         3 . The system of  claim 1  wherein each trial balance data structure element includes a LINKTRANS field storing a corresponding LINK vector element sequential number, and wherein each element of the LINK vector comprises a memory address of a trial balance data structure element. 
     
     
         4 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the generated data structures further comprise a transaction data structure comprising:
 a plurality of transaction data structure elements representing transactions associated with the accounts, wherein the transactions are linked to respective accounts, and wherein the transaction data structure elements are linked by a doubly-linked list of transaction data structure element pointers. 
 
     
     
         5 . The system of  claim 4  wherein each transaction data structure element comprises a LINKCHART field storing an associated LINK vector element sequential number, and wherein each element of the LINK vector comprises a memory address of the trial balance data structure element. 
     
     
         6 . The system of  claim 4  wherein the generated data structures further comprise a display line data structure comprising:
 a plurality of displayline data structure elements linked by a doubly-linked sub-list of displayline data structure element pointers, each pointer linking a transaction data structure element to a corresponding trial balance structure element. 
 
     
     
         7 . The system of  claim 1  wherein the generated data structures further comprise a financial statement data structure comprising:
 a plurality of financial statement data structure elements representing financial statement items, wherein the financial statement data structure elements are linked by a doubly-linked list of financial statement data structure element pointers, and wherein the financial statement items are grouped into totals using sub-lists of financial statement data structure element pointers. 
 
     
     
         8 . The system of  claim 7  wherein the at least one sub-list of trial balance data structure element pointers comprises at least one doubly-linked list, and wherein the sub-list of trial balance data structure element pointer group the accounts into financial statement items by including a pointer of a first element of each sub-list of trial balance data structure element pointers stored in the financial statement data structure. 
     
     
         9 . The system of  claim 7  wherein the at least one sub-list of financial statement data structure element pointers comprises at least one doubly linked list, and wherein the financial statement items are grouped into totals by including a pointer of a first element of each sub-list of financial statement data structure element pointers stored in the financial statement data structure.