METHOD FOR FINANCIAL SYSTEM PROCESS AUTOMATION COMPRISING SCHEDULING AND SCOPING

1. A system for process automation of financial accounting organization comprising a method tangibly embodied as a software program product encoded on computer-readable media comprising the following steps: controlling a financial task, accessing a financial account, and evaluating a scoping rule wherein a scoping rule specifies conditions under which a financial task is determined to be “in-scope” whereby a process automation scheduling system is made aware of the task as a candidate for assignment to an actor and a calendar.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein a financial account further comprises a financial account balance tangibly embodied as a numerical value of monetary units encoded on a computer-readable media.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein a financial account balance further comprises a current financial accounting period balance and at least one previous financial accounting period balance.

4. The system of claim 3 further comprising a record of at least one task encoded on computer readable media of a determination of being “in-scope” or not “in-scope” for at least one previous period whereby a scoping rule may use the previous history as a factor in determining the current determination of being “in-scope” or not “in-scope”.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein a financial task comprises at least one of a financial period close task, a financial account reconciliation task, and a financial control task.

6. The system of claim 5 further comprising a plurality of business entities wherein financial accounts are associated with business entities each having a financial accounting system, and wherein tasks are associated with business entities having personnel who may be assigned and scheduled to perform the tasks whereby evaluating a scoping rule results in a certain financial accounting task for a certain financial account to be scheduled for performance within a certain business entity by its personnel.

7. The system of claim 6 further comprising groups of financial tasks, groups of financial accounts, groups of scoping rules, and groups of business entities and further comprising task type, account type, rule type, and entity type, wherein a type may be a string or number denoting membership in a group and wherein a scoping rule group may be evaluated for at least one of a task group, an account group, and a business entity group whereby a plurality of tasks may be designated “in-scope”.

8. The system of claim 7 wherein a scoping rule comprises at least one of the following steps: whereby a task may be determined to be “in-scope” or not “in-scoped”.

9. The system of claim 8 further comprising the steps of displaying a list of tasks determined to be “in-scope” and displaying a control enabling the user to override the determination of a task being “in-scope” whereby tasks are not automatically scheduled without approval.

10. A method for financial process automation comprising a first process and a second process, wherein the first process comprises scheduling financial tasks, assigning tasks to personnel, tracking the timely completion of tasks, and escalating late tasks to supervisory personnel according to a financial calendar, and wherein the second process comprises scoping financial tasks, evaluating rules for scoping, enabling the visibility of tasks to the scheduling process according to changes in financial account balances.

11. The method for financial process automation of claim 10 wherein the first process operates to schedule according to a financial calendar those tasks which are presented as “in-scope” by the second process, and wherein the second process operates to determine a task is “in-scope” by evaluating at least one of the following: a rule forcing a task, all tasks connected to a financial account of a business unit, and all tasks connected to all financial accounts of a business unit to be “in-scope”; a rule evaluating a comparison of at least one financial account with at least one of a fixed value, a previous period value, and the value of a second financial account; and randomly selecting a task to be “in-scope”.

12. The second process of claim 11 for scoping financial tasks whereby a task determined to be “in-scope” is visible to the first process for scheduling and a task determined to be not “in-scope” requires no attention by the first process for scheduling, the scoping process comprising at least one of the steps of evaluating a rule comparing a first financial account balance with a second financial account balance when either of the financial account balances is updated with current values, evaluating a rule comparing a financial account balance with a historical value of the same financial account when the financial account balance is updated with a current value, evaluating a rule comparing a financial account balance with one of a stored value and an average value for the same financial account balance when the financial account balance is updated with a current value.

13. A process for work flow automation of financial tasks comprising a scheduling method, and a scoping method,

wherein a scoping method comprises reading a list of financial accounts whose data has been uploaded, determining if a financial task is assigned the property “in-scope” because the scoping process has been overridden, determining if a financial task is assigned the property “in-scope” by evaluating a rule based on the data value of the account, wherein a scheduling method comprises reading the current date, reading a financial task which has been determined to be “in-scope”, comparing the current date to the financial task completion date, computing an offset to determine a start date, assigning a resource to the financial task, and tracking completion of the financial task.

14. The process of claim 13 further comprising an accounting method wherein an accounting method comprises linking a plurality of financial accounts to each part of a financial statement, linking a plurality of financial accounts to a business entity, performing financial control tasks, performing financial close tasks, and performing financial reconciliation tasks.

15. The process of claim 14 further comprising an overriding method, wherein an overriding method comprises at least one of assigning the property “in-scope” to at least one of all tasks related to Account=A, assigning the property “in-scope” to at least one of all tasks related to Business Entity=B, assigning the property “in-scope” to all tasks related to Accounts whose type=T wherein A, B, and T may be settable by a user on a list recorded on a computer readable media.

16. The process of claim 15 further comprising a business rule evaluation method, wherein evaluating a business rule comprises reading current and historical values for the balance of at least one a financial account and computing a value based on a rule and setting the property “in-scope” as a function of the computation.

17. The method of claim 16 further comprising

assessing propinquity of financial tasks,

wherein assessing propinquity of financial tasks comprises making each financial task associated with a financial account of a business unit which has the property of “in-scope” visible to a scheduler having recognition of the present calendar, past history of tasks initiated, and access to the definition of a financial task with scheduling specifications.