SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ASSOCIATING IDENTIFIERS WITH TRANSACTIONS

1 . A method comprising:

retrieving financial transaction data from a financial institution, wherein the financial transaction data includes a transaction value;

comparing the transaction value to a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers;

associating the transaction with one of the transaction identifiers; and

storing the financial transaction data and the associated transaction identifier.

2 . A method as recited in claim 1 wherein retrieving financial transaction data from a financial institution includes retrieving data from a web site associated with a financial institution.

3 . A method as recited in claim 1 wherein the transaction identifiers are applied to a plurality of transaction values to normalize the plurality of transaction values.

4 . A method as recited in claim 1 wherein comparing the transaction value to a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers includes comparing the transaction value to the plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers in a pre-defined order.

5 . A method as recited in claim 4 further comprising manually associating transaction identifiers with each flagged financial transactions.

6 . A method as recited in claim 1 further comprising retrieving additional information regarding the financial transaction data from the financial institution.

7 . A method as recited in claim 1 wherein comparing the transaction value to a plurality of transaction identifiers includes:

comparing specific seed data to the transaction value; and

if a match is not indicated with the specific seed data, comparing general seed data to the transaction value.

8 . One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 1 .

9 . A method comprising:

accessing a web page associated with a financial institution;

retrieving data from the web page using a data harvesting script;

identifying financial transaction data contained in the data retrieved from the web page, wherein the financial transaction data includes a transaction value; and

associating the financial transaction data with one of a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers.

10 . A method as recited in claim 9 further comprising storing the financial transaction data and the associated transaction identifier.

11 . A method as recited in claim 9 wherein retrieving data from the web page using a data harvesting script utilizes a screen scraping process.

12 . A method as recited in claim 9 wherein associating the financial transaction data with one of a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers includes:

attempting to automatically associate the financial transaction data with a transaction identifier based on seed data;

if the financial transaction data is not automatically associated with a transaction identifier, manually associating the financial transaction with a proper transaction identifier.

13 . A method as recited in claim 12 further comprising updating the seed data to subsequently associate the financial transaction data with the proper transaction identifier.

14 . One or more computer-readable memories containing a computer program that is executable by a processor to perform the method recited in claim 9 .

15 . One or more computer readable media having stored thereon a plurality of instructions that, when executed by a processor, causes the processor to:

harvesting first financial transaction data associated with a first financial institution, wherein the first financial transaction data is harvested from a web page associated with the first financial institution;

retrieving second financial transaction data associated with a second financial institution, wherein the second financial transaction data is retrieved from a data file associated with the second financial institution;

associating the first financial transaction data with one of a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers; and

associating the second financial transaction data with one of the plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers.

16 . One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 15 , wherein associating the first financial transaction data with one of a plurality of pre-defined transaction identifiers includes:

comparing specific seed data to the first financial transaction data; and

if a match is not indicated with the specific seed data, comparing general seed data to the first financial transaction data.

17 . One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 16 , further comprising flagging the first financial transaction data if a match is not indicated with the general seed data.

18 . One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 16 , further comprising if a match is not indicated with the general seed data, manually associating one of the plurality of transaction identifiers with the first financial transaction data.

19 . One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 18 , further comprising updating the specific seed data if a match is not indicated with the general seed data and a match is not indicated with the specific seed data.

20 . One or more computer readable media as recited in claim 15 , further comprising:

storing the first financial transaction data and the associated transaction identifier in a storage device; and

storing the second financial transaction data and the associated transaction identifier in the storage device.