Systems and methods for tracking purchasing, distribution and consumption of consumables including heating oil or propane

Abstract

A system operable to monitor the consumption of a commodity at the premises of a consumer may comprise a billing system interfacing with suppliers and retailers of the commodity to facilitate the purchase and distribution of the commodity. The billing system may include a payment structure that can alleviate the burden of consumers having to pay for an entire delivery of the commodity—the consumer is only responsible for paying for the amount actually consumed during a time period at a prevailing price during that time—as well as significantly reduce a retailer's working capital required to float the purchase of the commodity before it is paid by its consumers. Such a billing system and payment structure may eliminate or reduce the need for a retailer to borrow against receivables to pay for such purchases.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A system, comprising:
 a plurality of network connections to at least one retailer system and at least one supplier system;   a data store for storing information associated with the at least one retailer system and the at least one supplier system; and   control logic embodied on non-transitory computer memory for:
 determining, based at least in part on the information in the data store, a total amount of a consumable commodity that a retailer system has obtained from a supplier system; 
 providing or causing the providing of a payment to the supplier system for the total amount of the consumable commodity that the retailer system has obtained from the supplier system; 
 determining or obtaining from the retailer system a total amount of the consumable commodity delivered by the retailer system to a plurality of physical locations associated with a plurality of consumers; 
 generating an invoice based at least in part on a difference between the total amount of the consumable commodity that the retailer system has obtained from the supplier system and the total amount of the consumable commodity delivered by the retailer system to the plurality of physical locations associated with the plurality of consumers; and 
 providing or causing the providing of the invoice to the retailer system.