Point-of-sale electronic receipt generation
View Patent ↗Systems, methods and program products for automatically generating authenticated electronic receipts at a point-of-sale terminal for both merchants and customers. These electronic receipts can then be used in place of paper receipts for expense accounting, for tax purposes, for routing to accounting and taxation departments, and for real-time analysis of cash-flow and budgeting. The invention prevents loss of paper receipts, always provides a legible receipt, removes employee subjectivity, provides extensive transaction details, removes entry errors, reduces physical storage requirements, promotes continuous expense tracking and eases expense-reporting procedures. In addition, the point-of-sale terminal can integrate the electronic receipt with other available coded data and information about the method of payment such as an image of the check, or the serial number of the paper currency bills used. The other available coded data can make categorization of the data for separation into budget, accounting, or tax categories easier.
1. A method performed on a computerized device for providing a receipt to a customer and a merchant at a point-of-sale, the method comprising:
on a processor, performing the following:
receiving a receipt instruction including a receipt destination instruction and a receipt content instruction, wherein the receipt destination instruction identifies a receipt destination relative to each of the customer and the merchant;
generating an electronic receipt,
wherein the electronic receipt includes at least one of an image of a payment type used at the point of sale, irrespective of the payment type,
wherein the payment type comprises at least one of paper currency, a credit card face, a smart card, a gift certificate, store credit, and a refund/exchange, and
in a case where the payment type used at the point of sale is paper currency, a serial number of the paper currency and an image,
wherein the image is a copy of a payment type used at the point-of-sale, the payment type comprising at least one of paper currency, a credit card face, a smart card, a gift certificate, store credit, and a refund/exchange;
generating receipt authentication data at the point-of-sale, the receipt authentication data comprising any data that can be used to confirm that the electronic receipt has not been altered;
generating a conventional paper receipt in addition to the electronic receipt; and
transmitting the electronic receipt to the receipt destinations; and separately transmitting the receipt authentication data to the receipt destinations, wherein the receipt authentication data is stored at a merchant system.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receipt authentication data includes at least one of: receipt contents, date, time and merchant identification.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receipt destination includes at least one of: a personal digital assistant, a customer employer expense reporting system, a tax authority, a customer personal expense tracking system, a customer accountant expense tracking system and a tax authority.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transmitting further includes applying content of the electronic receipt to the receipt destination.
5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processor further comprising performs collecting tax data from the electronic receipt.
6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the tax data includes at least one of: a sales tax paid and a deductible expense.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the processor further comprising performs organizing an item on the electronic receipt into an expense category.
8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the receiving includes retrieving a receipt destination from a receipt destination database based on a receipt destination instruction.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic receipt includes a primary key in the form of a unique transaction identifier.
10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic receipt includes at least one of the following fields: purchase date; time; merchant identification; issuing agent; address; merchant phone number; merchant universal resource locator; merchant facsimile number; point-of-sale identifier; buyer identification; additional merchant identification; payment type; transaction type; credit card type; purchase total; total tax; total tip; number of items; item description; item date; item type; and image of currency or check payment.
11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the electronic receipt further includes information collected at a time of applying for a store card, wherein a customer presents the store card at the point-of-sale.