Rules engine, such as for purchase request management

Abstract

Systems and methods for managing purchases for an organization using a rules engine are disclosed. A purchasing system accesses an electronic message and parses a plurality of elements therefrom. The purchasing system generates a parsing tree using the plurality of elements. Based on the parsing tree, the purchasing system determines purchase order information. The purchasing system automatically verifies the purchase order information by executing at least one rule. The purchasing system generates a digital credit object configured to allow the user to make the purchase and provides the digital credit object to the user.

I/We claim: 
     
         1 . At least one computer-readable medium, excluding transitory signals, and carrying instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:
 receive a set of rules to apply to a purchase order;   receive, at a purchasing system of an organization, a purchase request message from a user associated with the organization;   extract, by the purchasing system, purchase order information from the purchase request message,
 wherein the purchase order information is associated with a request from the user to make a purchase, and 
 wherein the extracting includes:
 generating, by the purchasing system and based on the purchase request message, a parsing tree comprising at least four of the following elements: 
 an expense category, 
 an expense threshold amount, 
 an item description, 
 an item vendor, 
 an item quantity, or 
 an item amount; 
 wherein generating the parsing tree comprises determining at least one element by identifying a phrasal segment proximate to the at least one element in the purchase request message; and 
 determining, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information, 
 wherein the purchase order information comprises two or more of the elements of the parsing tree; 
 
   automatically verify, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information by applying at least one rule to the purchase order information,
 wherein the at least one rule is selected from a set of multiple rules to apply to the purchase order information, 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one condition that, when present, causes the rule to be applied, 
 wherein the at least one condition relates to least one of:
 the expense category, 
 the expense threshold amount, 
 the item description, 
 the item vendor, 
 the item quantity, 
 the item amount, 
 an identity of the user, 
 a recurrence or non-recurrence of the request, 
 a requested method of payment, or 
 an account from which funds are requested, and 
 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one action applied to a purchase order object when the rule is applied; 
   apply, to the purchase order object and for each rule in the identified set of rules, the at least one action,
 wherein the at least one action includes at least one of:
 transmit the purchase order object to an approval entity, 
 automatically approve the purchase order, 
 automatically reject the purchase order, 
 alert a requestor, or 
 assign an approver; 
 
   generate, by the purchasing system, the purchase order object using the extracted purchase order information;   upon receiving authorization from each approval entity, generate, by the purchasing system, a digital credit object configured to allow the user to make the purchase,
 wherein the digital credit object is configured with metadata about the set of rules applicable to the purchase order object; and 
   provide, by the purchasing system, the digital credit object to the user, for the user to make the purchase.   
     
     
         2 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one action includes at least one of auto-approve, auto-reject, alert requestor, assign approver, trigger external process, or stop processing actions. 
     
     
         3 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the at least one condition includes at least one of an amount of the requested purchase, a description of the requested purchase, a category of item or service requested, an identity of the user, a recurrence or non-recurrence of the request, a requested method of payment, or an account from which funds are requested. 
     
     
         4 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the purchasing system includes a virtual bot that receives the purchase request message, and wherein the instructions cause the computing system to receive the purchase request message and provide the digital credit object via a collaboration tool. 
     
     
         5 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the computing system to:
 generate an entry in a purchase order database that includes information about the provided digital credit object and the identified set of rules.   
     
     
         6 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein the provided digital credit object is a virtual credit card, a virtual prepaid card, an amount of digital currency or cryptocurrency, or a purchase order. 
     
     
         7 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 1 , wherein identifying the set of rules applicable to the purchase order object is further based, at least in part, on contextual information associated with the purchase request message. 
     
     
         8 . At least one computer-readable medium, excluding transitory signals, and carrying instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations to manage purchases associated with an organization, the operations comprising:
 accessing, at a purchasing system of the organization, an electronic message from a user associated with the organization;   parsing, by the purchasing system and from the electronic message, multiple elements;   generating, by the purchasing system and using the parsed multiple elements, a parsing tree comprising at least four of:
 an expense category, 
 an expense threshold amount, 
 an item description, 
 an item vendor, 
 an item quantity, or 
 an item amount, and 
 wherein generating the parsing tree comprises determining at least one element in the multiple elements by identifying a phrasal segment proximate to the at least one element in the electronic message; 
   determining, by the purchasing system, purchase order information, the purchase order information comprising two or more of the multiple elements of the parsing tree, 
 wherein the determined purchase order information is associated with a request from the user to make a purchase; 
   automatically verifying, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information by applying at least one rule to the purchase order information,
 wherein the at least one rule is selected from a set of multiple rules to apply to the purchase order information, 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one condition that, when present, causes the rule to be applied, and 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one action applied to a purchase order object when the rule is applied; 
   generating, by the purchasing system, a digital credit object configured to allow the user to make the purchase; and   providing, by the purchasing system, the digital credit object to the user, for the user to make the purchase using the determined purchase order information, 
 wherein the digital credit object is a virtual credit card, a virtual prepaid card, an amount of digital currency or cryptocurrency, or a purchase order. 
   
     
     
         9 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , the operations to automatically verify, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information by applying at least one rule to the purchase order information further comprising:
 generating, by the purchasing system, a purchase order object using the determined purchase order information;   determining the set of multiple rules to apply to the purchase order object;   changing an order in which the set of rules are applied based on a dragging and
 dropping operation to re-order at least one rule in the set of rules; and 
   applying, to the purchase order object and for each rule in the set of rules, the at least one action.   
     
     
         10 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , wherein the at least one action includes any of: transmit the purchase order object to an approval entity, auto-approve, auto-reject, alert requestor, assign approver, trigger external process, or stop processing actions. 
     
     
         11 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 8 ,
 wherein the at least one condition relates to least one of the expense category, the expense threshold amount, the item description, the item vendor, the item quantity, the item amount, an identity of the user, a recurrence or non-recurrence of the request, a requested method of payment, or an account from which funds are requested.   
     
     
         12 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , the operations further comprising:
 generating an entry in a purchase order database that includes information about the digital credit object, the set of rules, the purchase, the user associated with the organization, an approval entity, or an amount of the purchase.   
     
     
         13 . The at least one computer-readable medium of  claim 8 , wherein determining the set of rules applicable to the purchase order object is further based, at least in part, on contextual information associated with the electronic message,
 wherein the contextual information includes at least two of:
 a date associated with the electronic message, 
 an identity of the user associated with the organization, 
 an identity of an approver of the purchase order object, 
 a location associated with the user or the approver, 
 a group or department of the user or the approver, 
 a category for the purchase, 
 a domain name or packet header associated with the electronic message, or 
 a vendor associated with the request. 
   
     
     
         14 . A computing system, comprising:
 at least one hardware processor; and   at least one memory carrying instructions that, when executed by the at least one hardware processor, causes the computing system to perform operations related to a purchasing system of an organization, the operations comprising:
 accessing an electronic message from a user associated with the organization; 
 parsing, by the purchasing system and from the electronic message, multiple elements; 
 generating, by the purchasing system and using the parsed multiple elements,
 a parsing tree comprising at least four of: 
 an expense category, 
 an expense threshold amount, 
 an item description, 
 an item vendor, 
 an item quantity, or 
 an item amount, and 
 wherein generating the parsing tree comprises determining at least one element in the multiple elements by identifying a phrasal segment proximate to the at least one element in the electronic message; 
 
 determining, by the purchasing system, purchase order information, the purchase order information comprising two or more of the multiple elements of the parsing tree,
 wherein the determined purchase order information is associated with a request from the user to make a purchase; 
 
 automatically verifying, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information by applying at least one rule to the purchase order information,
 wherein the at least one rule is selected from a set of multiple rules to apply to the purchase order information, 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one condition that, when present, causes the rule to be applied, and 
 wherein each rule in the set of rules is associated with at least one action applied to a purchase order object when the rule is applied; 
 
 generating, by the purchasing system, a digital credit object configured to allow the user to make the purchase; and 
 providing, by the purchasing system, the digital credit object to the user, for the user to make the purchase using the determined purchase order information,
 wherein the digital credit object is a virtual credit card, a virtual prepaid card, an amount of digital currency or cryptocurrency, or a purchase order. 
 
   
     
     
         15 . The computing system of  claim 14 , the operations to automatically verify, by the purchasing system, the purchase order information by applying at least one rule to the purchase order information further comprising:
 generating, by the purchasing system, a purchase order object using the determined purchase order information;   determining the set of multiple rules to apply to the purchase order object;   changing an order in which the set of rules are applied based on a dragging and dropping operation to re-order at least one rule in the set of rules; and   applying, to the purchase order object and for each rule in the set of rules, the at least one action.   
     
     
         16 . The computing system of  claim 14 , wherein the at least one action includes any of: transmit the purchase order object to an approval entity, auto-approve, auto-reject, alert requestor, assign approver, trigger external process, or stop processing actions. 
     
     
         17 . The computing system of  claim 14 ,
 wherein the at least one condition relates to least one of the expense category, the expense threshold amount, the item description, the item vendor, the item quantity, the item amount, an identity of the user, a recurrence or non-recurrence of the request, a requested method of payment, or an account from which funds are requested.   
     
     
         18 . The computing system of  claim 14 , the operations further comprising:
 generating an entry in a purchase order database that includes information about the digital credit object, the set of rules, the purchase, the user associated with the organization, an approval entity, or an amount of the purchase.   
     
     
         19 . The computing system of  claim 14 , wherein determining the set of rules applicable to the purchase order object is further based, at least in part, on contextual information associated with the electronic message,
 wherein the contextual information includes at least two of:
 a date associated with the electronic message, 
 an identity of the user associated with the organization, 
 an identity of an approver of the purchase order object, 
 a location associated with the user or the approver, 
 a group or department of the user or the approver, 
 a category for the purchase, 
 a domain name or packet header associated with the electronic message, or 
 a vendor associated with the request.