System and methods for financing merchant business needs

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9786005-B1
Application number	US-201414491963-A
Country	US
Kind code	B1
Filing date	Sep 19, 2014
Priority date	May 26, 2014
Publication date	Oct 10, 2017
Grant date	Oct 10, 2017

Abstract

A payment system can determine when a business need for a merchant is expected to occur for a particular time period. The payment system can also determine whether a merchant is eligible for a cash advance for a particular amount, along with a fee for the cash advance. Once a determination is made that the merchant is eligible for the cash advance, the payment system can send the merchant a notification describing the expected business need for the particular time period along with an offer for the cash advance. The merchant can accept the offer for the cash advance by sending an acceptance to the payment system. Upon accepting the offer, the merchant is provided the cash advance for the particular amount, for example, in the form of an electronic deposit in a financial account of the merchant.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, over a first period of time, by one or more processors of a payment system, from a point-of-sale (POS) computing device of a merchant, transaction data for a plurality of first financial transactions corresponding to purchases by a plurality of customers of a plurality of first items from an inventory of the merchant, the transaction data including payment data to enable the one or more processors to process payments for each first financial transaction, the transaction data further including an itemized listing of the first items and other items purchased from the merchant for each first financial transaction;
maintaining, by the one or more processors, based on the received transaction data, a data structure of the inventory of the merchant, the data structure including information about items available for purchase from the merchant, including a quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant;
determining, by the one or more processors, a current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant by subtracting from the data structure the first items purchased from the merchant as indicated in the received transaction data;
utilizing, by the one or more processors, one or more application programming interfaces to access one or more social media resources to obtain social media data that describes a popularity of the merchant;
determining, by the one or more processors, based on the obtained social media data indicating that the merchant is gaining popularity, that the merchant will be receiving more customers
determining, by the one or more processors, from the data structure, a historical quantity of the first item sold during a prior time period corresponding to an upcoming time period;
based on the historical quantity determined from the data structure, the current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory determined from the data structure, and further based on determining from the social media data that the merchant will be receiving more customers, determining, by the one or more processors, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period;
determining, by the one or more processors, based at least partially on the transaction data received from the POS merchant computing device over the first period of time, a cash advance amount for enabling the merchant to purchase at least a portion of the quantity of the first item for replenishing the first item in the inventory;
sending, by the one or more processors, a notification to the POS merchant computing device of the merchant to cause a merchant application on the POS computing device to display an inventory interface concurrently with a transaction interface, the inventory interface presenting a message indicating the quantity of the first item for replenishing the inventory and further presenting an offer for the cash advance, wherein the inventory interface includes at least one control for accepting the cash advance, wherein transaction interface on the POS computing device is used to conduct the first financial transactions between the merchant and the customers of the merchant;
receiving, by the one or more processors, via the at least one control included in the inventory interface presented on the POS computing device, an acceptance of the offer for the cash advance from the POS computing device of the merchant;
providing, by the one or more processors, the cash advance to a financial account of the merchant, wherein the financial account of the merchant is maintained by a financial institution that is a separate entity from the payment system;
processing, by the one or more processors, at least one second financial transaction conducted between the merchant and at least one customer of the merchant using the POS computing device of the merchant;
determining, by the one or more processors, that the merchant has not repaid the cash advance and a fee for the cash advance; and
apportioning, by the one or more processors, a respective portion of funds from the at least one second financial transaction to a separate financial account of the payment system.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the transaction data indicates, for a respective first financial transaction, a respective quantity of the first item that was purchased during the respective first financial transaction, the method further comprising:
in response to receiving the transaction data for the respective first financial transaction, updating in the data structure, by the one or more processors, the quantity of the first item maintained in the inventory based on the respective quantity of the first item that was purchased during the individual first financial transaction.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises:
determining, at least partially from the data structure, based at least partially on the historical quantity for the prior time period, a quantity needed to satisfy demand for the first item during the upcoming time period; and
determining, based on the current quantity of the first item in the inventory indicated by the data structure, that the current quantity of the first item in the inventory does not satisfy the quantity needed to satisfy the demand.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the one or more processors of the payment system, transaction data from a plurality of other merchants, wherein at least some of the other merchants are in a same merchant category as the merchant,
wherein determining, for the upcoming time period, the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase to replenish the inventory for the upcoming time period further comprises determining the quantity of the first item for the merchant to purchase based in part on determining, for the upcoming time period, a quantity of the first item needed by the other merchants that are in the same merchant category as the merchant.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 1 , wherein the amount of the cash advance is based at least in part on determining, from the received transaction data, an amount collected by the merchant through the first financial transactions that were conducted by the merchant through the payment system over the first period of time.

6. A payment system comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the payment system to perform operations comprising:
receiving, over a first period of time, from a point-of-sale (POS) computing device of a merchant, transaction data for a plurality of first financial transactions corresponding to purchases by a plurality of customers of a plurality of first items from an inventory of the merchant, the transaction data including payment data used by the one or more processors to process payments for each first financial transaction, the transaction data further including an itemized listing of the first items and other items purchased from the merchant for each first financial transaction;
maintaining, based on the received transaction data, a data structure of the inventory of the merchant, the data structure including information about items available for purchase from the merchant, including a quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant;
determining a current quantity of the first item remaining in the inventory of the merchant by subtrac

Assignees

• Square Inc

Inventors

• Poursartip Ariana
• Scott John Bryan
• Teh Kevin

Classifications

• G06Q10/06315 Primary

  Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis · CPC title

• G06Q40/03 Primary

  Credit; Loans; Processing thereof · CPC title

• G06Q40/025 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic