Systems and methods for transaction tracing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11514534-B1
Application number	US-202016938686-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Jul 24, 2020
Priority date	Jul 24, 2020
Publication date	Nov 29, 2022
Grant date	Nov 29, 2022

Abstract

A method and apparatus is described for performing transaction tracing. The method may include mapping one or more funds flow transactions into each account to one or more funds flow transactions out of said each account based on a first-in-first-out ordering. The method may also include generating an initial graph from the mappings of the transactions for each said account. Furthermore, the method may include transforming the initial graph to a function graph, wherein the functional graph is a directed pseudoforest where each node has an out degree of at most one. Then, the method may include for a node in the functional graph, performing a trace of the transaction generating a set of transactions that contributed to the transaction.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for performing transaction tracing, the method comprising:
for each of a plurality of accounts of a server system, mapping, by distributed processing resources of a processing system of the server system, one or more funds flow transactions into each account to one or more funds flow transactions out of said each account based on a first-in-first-out ordering, wherein a plurality of mappings are performed for the plurality of accounts in parallel by the distributed processing resources;
generating, by the processing system of the server system, an initial graph from the mappings of the transactions for each said account, where the graph comprises nodes and edges, where each node represents at least an amount of funds flowing through the node for a transaction and each edge connected to the node represents a transfer of the amount of funds to the node, out of the node, or a combination thereof;
transforming, by the processing system of the server system, the initial graph to a function graph, wherein the functional graph is a directed pseudoforest where each node has an out degree of at most one, and wherein the functional graph is generated incrementally by splitting each node in the initial graph having an out degree greater than one, wherein the transforming is performed in-memory of a single processing system from the distributed processing resources of the server system; and
for a node in the functional graph, the node representing at least part of the transaction, performing, by the processing system of the server system, a trace of the transaction generating a set of transactions that contributed to the transaction.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the transforming further comprises:
transforming the nodes and edges of the initial graph such that the nodes represent transaction amounts and edges represent attribution pairs form the mappings;
processing the transformed graph to generate one or more strongly connected components; and
generating the functional graph from the strongly connected components.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein each mapping performed for each of the plurality of accounts of the server system is processed and distributed as a separate processing job for parallel processing by the distributed processing resources.

4. The method of claim 2 , wherein the functional graph is generated from the strongly connected components in-memory of the single processing system of the server system.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein for each iteration in which nodes of the initial graph are incrementally split, the method further comprises:
when performing splitting in a current iteration, marking each node that has an outdegree greater than 1 as dirty; and
performing splitting in a next iteration, after the current iteration, on only nodes marked as dirty to reduce processing resources consumed during the iterative process of generating the functional graph.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
analyzing the set of transactions that contributed to the transaction based on a rule, where the rule defines permissible source and destination account relationships for funds flowing into and out of a server system account associated with the transaction; and
generating a notification when the rule is not satisfied.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the notification comprises an email message, a text message, a multimedia message, a user interface, or combination thereof informing a user associated with the server system account of the rules violation.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
limiting the initial graph to those accounts from the plurality of accounts of the server system that have more than one incoming edge, more than one outgoing edge, or a combination thereof to reduce storage requirements for the initial graph.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
transforming, by the processing system of the server system, the initial graph to a first function graph, wherein the first functional graph is a directed pseudoforest for funds flowing to accounts of the plurality of accounts of a server system; and
transforming, by the processing system of the server system, a transpose of the initial graph to a second function graph, wherein the second functional graph is a directed pseudoforest for funds flowing from accounts of the plurality of accounts of a server system.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein one or more of the plurality of accounts of the server system are merchant accounts.

11. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processing resources of a server system, cause the server system to perform operations for performing transaction tracing, the operations comprising:
for each of a plurality of accounts of the server system, mapping, by distributed processing resources of a processing system of the server system, one or more funds flow transactions into each account to one or more funds flow transactions out of said each account based on a first-in-first-out ordering, wherein a plurality of mappings are performed for the plurality of accounts in parallel by the distributed processing resources;
generating an initial graph from the mappings of the transactions for each said account, where the graph comprises nodes and edges, where each node represents at least an amount of funds flowing through the node for a transaction and each edge connected to the node represents a transfer of the amount of funds to the node, out of the node, or a combination thereof;
transforming the initial graph to a function graph, wherein the functional graph is a directed pseudoforest where each node has an out degree of at most one, and wherein the functional graph is generated incrementally by splitting each node in the initial graph having an out degree greater than one, wherein the transforming is performed in-memory of a single processing system from the distributed processing resources of the server system; and
for a node in the functional graph, the node representing at least part of the transaction, performing a trace of the transaction generating a set of transactions that contributed to the transaction.

12. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein the transforming further comprises:
transforming the nodes and edges of the initial graph such that the nodes represent transaction amounts and edges represent attribution pairs form the mappings;
processing the transformed graph to generate one or more strongly connected components; and
generating the functional graph from the strongly connected components.

13. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein each mapping performed for each of the plurality of accounts of the server system is processed and distributed as a separate processing job for parallel processing by the distributed processing resources.

14. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 12 , wherein the functional graph is generated from the strongly connected components in-memory of a single processing system of the server system.

15. The non-transitory computer readable storage medium of claim 11 , wherein for each iteration in which nodes of the initial graph are incrementally split, the method further comprises:
when performing splitting in a current iteration, marking each node that has an outdegree greater than 1 as dirty; and
performing splitting in a next iteration, after the current iteration, on only nodes marked as dirty to reduce processing resources consumed during the iterative

Assignees

• Stripe Inc

Inventors

• Ying Robert
• Horeff Cale
• Flores Miguel
• Clemenson Jeremiah
• Zhang Andy

Classifications

• G06Q40/12 Primary

  Accounting · CPC title

• G06Q40/02 Primary

  Banking, e.g. interest calculation or account maintenance (credit or loans G06Q40/03) · CPC title

• G06Q30/0185

  Product, service or business identity fraud · CPC title

• G06Q10/107

  Computer-aided management of electronic mailing [e-mailing] · CPC title

• G06Q20/405

  Establishing or using transaction specific rules · CPC title