Evaluating public records of supply transactions

Abstract

A platform facilitates buyers, sellers, and third parties in obtaining information related to each other's transaction histories, such as a supplier's shipment history, the types of materials typically shipped, a supplier's customers, a supplier's expertise, what materials and how much a buyer purchases, buyer and shipper reliability, similarity between buyers, similarity between suppliers, and the like. The platform aggregates data from a variety of sources, including, without limitation, customs data associated with actual import/export transactions and facilitates the generation of reports as to the quality of buyers and suppliers, the reports relating to a variety of parameters that are associated with buyer and supplier quality.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method, comprising:
 using a computer implemented facility to collect and store a plurality of customs transactional records;   inferring an entity identifier for each of a portion of the plurality of customs transactional records;   processing with the computer implemented facility data from each of the portion of the plurality of customs transactional records to determine an entity name that is representative of a plurality of different inferred entity identifiers based on similarity of data among the plurality of customs transactional records;   aggregating the customs transactional records of the plurality of different entity identifiers for at least one representative entity name; and   facilitating access to at least one of a portion of the aggregated customs transactional records and information that is derived from the portion of the aggregated customs transactional records.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein facilitating access is via the entity name. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one entity identifier is a variation of the entity name. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein facilitating access comprises presenting the information that is derived from the portion of aggregated customs transactional records in an electronic user interface in response to a user entering a query through the interface comprising at least one of an entity name, an entity identifier, and data that is a variation of the entity name. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the information that is derived is representative of shipping performance of the determined entity name. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the information that is derived is a rating of the determined entity. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the entity name is for one of a buyer, supplier, and shipper. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the determined entity name is one of the different entity identifiers. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising integrating at least one of the aggregated customs transactional records with data from at least one other data source. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 9 , wherein facilitating access comprises facilitating access to at least one of a portion of the aggregated customs transactional records integrated with data from at least one other data source and information that is derived from the portion of the aggregated customs transactional records integrated with data from at least one other data source. 
     
     
         11 . A system, comprising:
 a computer implemented facility adapted to collect and store a plurality of customs transactional records, wherein the plurality of customs transactional records comprises a plurality of data fields from which an entity identifier for an entity associated with each transactional record is inferred by the computer implemented facility;   a module of the computer implemented facility for executing an algorithm that can determine an entity name that is representative of a plurality of different inferred entity identifiers based on similarity of data among the plurality of stored customs transactional records;   an electronic user interface for receiving a user query that comprises entity information that comprises at least one of an entity name, an entity identifier, and data that is a variation of the entity name;   an entity search facility for processing the user query to facilitate access to at least one of a portion of the customs transactional records and information that is derived from the customs transactional records based on a similarity of the entity information in the query to at least one of the inferred entity identifiers and the determined entity name.   
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein the computer implemented facility is adapted to aggregate the plurality of customs transactional records with entity identifiers that are represented by the determined entity name. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 12 , wherein the entity search facility facilitates access to the aggregated customs records. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 11 , wherein to facilitate access by the entity search facility comprises presenting user query search results in the electronic user interface. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 14 , wherein the user query search results comprise at least one of a portion of the customs transactional records and information that is derived from the customs transactional records based on a similarity of the entity information in the query to at least one of the inferred entity identifiers and the determined entity name 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 11 , further comprising a data integration facility for integrating at least one of the aggregated customs transactional records with data from at least one other data source. 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 16 , wherein the entity search facility facilitates access to at least one of a portion of the aggregated customs transactional records integrated with data from at least one other data source and information that is derived from the portion of the aggregated customs transactional records integrated with data from at least one other data source.