Payment processing method and apparatus with advanced funds

Abstract

A payment processing method and apparatus with advanced funds are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method comprises generating, using a revenue forecasting engine of a payment processing system, a probabilistic forecast of revenue for a plurality of merchants for a period of time in the future; determining, using a pricing engine of the payment processing system, one or more potential cash advances for each of the plurality of merchants; automatically generating one or more offers for advances for each of the plurality of merchants; and electronically sending a notification containing the one or more offers to the plurality of merchants for display on a graphical user interface (GUI) with information about availability of an advance and terms to enable selection of at least one of the one or more offers; .

1 . A computer-implemented method comprising:
 receiving, by one or more processors of the payment processing system, from a plurality of merchant computing devices, transaction information of commercial transactions performed between customers and merchants associated with the merchant computing devices;   displaying, by a merchant client of each merchant of the plurality of merchants, transaction information in a graphical user interface (GUI) generated by the merchant client to enable tracking payment processing performed by the payment processing system on behalf of said each merchant;   generating, using a revenue forecasting engine of a payment processing system, a probabilistic forecast of revenue for a plurality of merchants for a period of time in the future based on the transaction information, including training models for forecasting revenue for use by the revenue forecasting engine;   determining, using a pricing engine of the payment processing system, one or more potential cash advances for each of the plurality of merchants based on the probabilistic forecast of revenue for said each of the plurality of merchants, including determining terms for the one or more potential cash advances;   automatically generating, by the one or more processors, one or more offers for advances for each of the plurality of merchants;   electronically sending, by the one or more processors, a notification containing the one or more offers to the plurality of merchants for display, in the GUI a generated by the a merchant client, with information about availability of an advance and terms to enable selection of at least one of the one or more offers;   adding, by the merchant client, the one or more offers with one or more GUI elements to select an advance amount in the GUI that is tracking payment processing performed by the payment processing system on behalf of said each merchant, the one or more GUI elements including one GUI element to move an indicator to select the advance amount and have a withhold rate for the selected advance amount prorated by the merchant client accordingly;   selecting, by the merchant client, the advance amount using the GUI, including automatically deriving terms of a different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system, including a rate of return and time period to repay the advance, without requesting a new offer from the payment processing system upon determining that the different advance amount is lower than advance amounts specified by the one or more offers with an identical rate of return to at least one of the one or more offers,   wherein automatically deriving terms of the different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system comprises the merchant client executing one or more commands to divide both an advance amount of one offer of the one or more offers and a withhold rate of the one offer by a common scalar factor;   electronically receiving, by the one or more processors, a response indicating an election to receive a cash advance in response to the merchant client selecting the advance amount, while agreeing to a deduction in funds from future payments until the advance and an additional cost associated with the cash advance have been paid down   automatically accepting, by the one or more processors, the different advance amount lower than the advance specified in an offer with an identical rate of return, without invoking the revenue forecast engine to generate a new probabilistic forecast of revenue;   triggering, by the one or more processors, a transfer of the advance to an account associated with the at least one merchant; and   determining, by the one or more processors, when the at least one merchant processes charges for payments and creating one or more paydown objects to cause a fraction from each payment, which is tracked in the GUI generated by the merchant client, as a paydown on the advance while triggering a transfer of other funds associated with each payment to the merchant as part of settlement.   
     
     
         2 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising filtering, based on heuristics and prior to generating the probabilistic forecast of revenue for the plurality of merchants, one or more merchants from a pool of merchants, based on heuristics, to determine the plurality of merchants to receive the one or more offers. 
     
     
         3 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising generating, using the revenue forecasting engine, a plurality of time series revenue forecasts in parallel for the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         4 . The method defined in  claim 3  further comprising training time series models for forecasting revenue in parallel. 
     
     
         5 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising performing, using the pricing engine, a search over every possible cash advance with terms deemed acceptable for each of the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         6 . The method defined in  claim 5  further comprising generating, using the pricing engine, a maximum advance amount for each of the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         7 . The method defined in  claim 5  further comprising calculating, using the pricing engine, a probabilistic rate of return associated with the probabilistic forecast of revenue assuming the terms. 
     
     
         8 . The method defined in  claim 1  wherein the notification comprises an electronic mail (email) or text message transferred over a network. 
     
     
         9 . The method defined in  claim 1  wherein the GUI is a merchant dashboard used by the merchant to track payment processing performed by the payment processing system. 
     
     
         10 . (canceled) 
     
     
         11 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising automatically regenerating an offer to at least one merchant of the plurality of merchants at predetermined time intervals; and automatically expiring offers for cash advances after a predetermined period of time. 
     
     
         12 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising determining, by the payment processing system, when the at least one merchant has satisfied an obligation to paydown the advance amount. 
     
     
         13 . The method defined in  claim 12  further comprising:
 tracking one or more balances remaining to be paid down associated with each advance; and 
 using the one or more balances associated with the advance account for the at least one merchant to determine whether the at least one merchant has satisfied the obligation to paydown the advance. 
 
     
     
         14 . The method defined in  claim 1  wherein each of the one or more paydown objects is generated with a balance transaction for the merchant to track settlement of their funds every time a merchant processes a charge and invokes use of the payment processor system, and causes creation of a sweep instruction to perform a sweep to transfer the fraction representing the paydown amount, out of the card network settlement account, and into an advance account, and further comprising creating the sweep instruction to perform the sweep to transfer the fraction representing the paydown amount, out of the card network settlement account, and into the advance account. 
     
     
         15 . The method defined in  claim 14  further comprising transferring advances to that at least one merchant from the advance account. 
     
     
         16 . The method defined in  claim 14  further comprising periodically batching and executing in a single book transfer to transfer the cumulative paydown amount for a period of time. 
     
     
         17 . The method defined in  claim 16  wherein the single book transfer is performed daily. 
     
     
         18 . The method defined in  claim 1  wherein triggering the transfer of the advance to the account of the merchant is performed via Automated Clearing House (ACH). 
     
     
         19 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising automatically sending a notification to the at least one merchant to notify the at least one merchant when becoming eligible for a cash advance. 
     
     
         20 . The method defined in  claim 1  further comprising revoking an advance to one merchant of the plurality of merchants after the offer for the advance has been accepted but has not been paid. 
     
     
         21 . One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media having instructions stored thereupon which, when executed by a payment processing system having at least a processor and a memory therein, cause the payment processing system to perform operations comprising:
 receiving, by one or more processors of the payment processing system, from a plurality of merchant computing devices, transaction information of commercial transactions performed between customers and merchants associated with the merchant computing devices;   displaying, by a merchant client of each merchant of the plurality of merchants, transaction information in a graphical user interface (GUI) generated by the merchant client to enable tracking payment processing performed by the payment processing system on behalf of said each merchant;   generating, using a revenue forecasting engine of a payment processing system, a probabilistic forecast of revenue for a plurality of merchants for a period of time in the future based on the transaction information, including training models for forecasting revenue for use by the revenue forecasting engine;   determining, using a pricing engine of the payment processing system, one or more potential cash advances for each of the plurality of merchants based on the probabilistic forecast of revenue for said each of the plurality of merchants, including determining terms for the one or more potential cash advances;   automatically generating, by the one or more processors, one or more offers for advances for each of the plurality of merchants;   electronically sending, by the one or more processors, a notification containing the one or more offers to the plurality of merchants for display, on the GUI generated by the merchant client, with information about availability of an advance and terms to enable selection of at least one of the one or more offers;   adding, by the merchant client, the one or more offers with one or more GUI elements to select an advance amount into the GUI that is tracking payment processing performed by the payment processing system on behalf of said each merchant, the one or more GUI elements including one GUI element to move an indicator to select the advance amount and have a withhold rate for the selected advance amount prorated by the merchant client accordingly;   selecting, by the merchant client, the advance amount using the GUI, including   automatically deriving terms of a different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system, including a rate of return and time period to repay the advance, without requesting a new offer from the payment processing system upon determining that the different advance amount is lower than advance amounts specified by the one or more offers with an identical rate of return to at least one of the one or more offers,   wherein automatically deriving terms of the different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system comprises the merchant client executing one or more commands to divide both an advance amount of one offer of the one or more offers and a withhold rate of the one offer by a common scalar factor;   electronically receiving, by the one or more processors, a response indicating an election to receive a cash advance in response to the merchant client selecting the advance amount, while agreeing to a deduction in funds from future payments until the advance and an additional cost associated with the cash advance have been paid down   automatically accepting, by the one or more processors, the different advance amount lower than the advance specified in an offer with an identical rate of return, without invoking the revenue forecast engine to generate a new probabilistic forecast of revenue;   triggering, by the one or more processors, a transfer of the advance to an account associated with the at least one merchant; and   determining, by the one or more processors, when the at least one merchant processes charges for payments and creating one or more paydown objects to cause a fraction from each payment, which is tracked in the GUI generated by the merchant client, as a paydown on the advance while triggering a transfer of other funds associated with each payment to the merchant as part of settlement.   
     
     
         22 . The medium defined in  claim 21  wherein the method further comprises generating, using the revenue forecasting engine, a plurality of revenue forecasts in parallel for the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         23 . The medium defined in  claim 21  wherein the method further comprises performing, using the pricing engine, a search over every possible cash advance with terms deemed acceptable for each of the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         24 . The medium defined in  claim 23  wherein the method further comprises calculating, using the pricing engine, a probabilistic rate of return associated with the probabilistic forecast of revenue assuming the terms. 
     
     
         25 . The medium defined in  claim 21  wherein the GUI is a merchant dashboard used by the merchant to track payment processing performed by the payment processing system. 
     
     
         26 . The medium defined in  claim 21  wherein the method further comprises creating a sweep instruction to perform a sweep to transfer the fraction representing the paydown amount, out of the card network settlement account, and into an advance account. 
     
     
         27 . A payment processing system to process transactions of a plurality of merchants, the payment processing system comprising:
 a network interface;   a memory to store instructions;   one or more processors coupled to the memory and the network interface to execute the stored instructions to:   receive from a plurality of merchant computing devices, transaction information of commercial transactions performed between customers and merchants associated with the merchant computing devices, wherein the transaction information is displayed by a merchant client of each merchant of the plurality of merchants, in a graphical user interface (GUI) generated by the merchant client to enable tracking payment processing performed by the payment processing system on behalf of said each merchant;   execute a revenue forecasting engine to generate a probabilistic forecast of revenue for a plurality of merchants for a period of time in the future based on the transaction information, the revenue forecasting engine including models for forecasting revenue generated by training performed by the one or more processors;   execute a pricing engine to determine one or more potential cash advances for each of the plurality of merchants based on the probabilistic forecast of revenue for said each of the plurality of merchants, wherein the pricing engine determines terms for the one or more potential cash advances;   automatically generate one or more offers for advances for each of the plurality of merchants;   electronically send, via the network interface, a notification containing the one or more offers to the plurality of merchants for display, on the GUI generated by the merchant client, with information about availability of an advance and terms to enable selection of at least one of the one or more offers, wherein the one or more offers are added into the GUI tracking payment processing along with one or more GUI elements to select an advance amount the one or more GUI elements including one GUI element to move an indicator to select the advance amount and have a withhold rate for the selected advance amount prorated by the merchant client accordingly;   electronically receive selection from a merchant client, using the GUI, of the advance amount, the selection including automatically derived terms of a different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system, including a rate of return and time period to repay the advance, without requesting a new offer from the payment processing system upon determining that the different advance amount is lower than advance amounts specified by the one or more offers with an identical rate of return to at least one of the one or more offers,   wherein the automatically derived terms of the different advance amount acceptable to the payment processing system are derived by the merchant client executing one or more commands to divide both an advance amount of one offer of the one or more offers and a withhold rate of the one offer by a common scalar factor;   electronically receive, via the network interface, a response indicating an election to receive a cash advance in response to the merchant client selecting the advance amount, while agreeing to a deduction in funds from future payments until the advance and an additional cost associated with the cash advance have been paid down   automatically accept the different advance amount lower than the advance specified in an offer with an identical rate of return, without invoking the revenue forecast engine to generate a new probabilistic forecast of revenue;   trigger a transfer of the advance to an account associated with the at least one merchant; and   determine when the at least one merchant processes charges for payments and creating one or more paydown objects to cause a fraction from each payment, which is tracked in the GUI generated by the merchant client, as a paydown on the advance while triggering a transfer of other funds associated with each payment to the merchant as part of settlement.   
     
     
         28 . The system defined in  claim 27  wherein the one or more processors are operable to generate a plurality of time series revenue forecasts in parallel for the plurality of merchants as part of executing the revenue forecasting engine. 
     
     
         29 . The system defined in  claim 27  wherein the one or more processors are operable to perform, as part of executing the pricing engine, a search over every possible cash advance with terms deemed acceptable for each of the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         30 . The system defined in  claim 29  wherein the one or more processors are operable to calculate, as part of executing the pricing engine, a probabilistic rate of return associated with the probabilistic forecast of revenue assuming the terms. 
     
     
         31 . The system defined in  claim 27  wherein the GUI is a merchant dashboard used by the merchant to track payment processing performed by the payment processing system. 
     
     
         32 . The system defined in  claim 27  wherein the one or more processors are operable to create a sweep instruction to perform a sweep to transfer the fraction representing the paydown amount, out of the card network settlement account, and into an advance account. 
     
     
         33 . The system defined in  claim 27  wherein the one or more processors execute a settlement engine including hardware for settling transactions associated with each of the plurality of merchants. 
     
     
         34 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 maintaining account information involved in the advanced funds and paydowns in a spreadsheet; and 
 periodically running, by the payment processing system, a cron job to initiate cash advances in the spreadsheet selected by any of the plurality of merchants, and associated paydowns, wherein, when run, the cron job 
 queries accounts in the spreadsheet to determine if a cash advance transfer to an account have occurred among transfers of the accounts based on evaluating metadata on transfers associated with accounts that occurred on the account and creates a cash advance transfer if no transfer in the account exists to pay out the cash advance, and 
 queries accounts in the spreadsheet to determine if paydowns on an account have occurred among transfers of the accounts based on evaluating metadata on transfers associated with accounts that occurred on the account and compute a paydown amount and create a new account transfer to encompass a paydown amount if no transfer in the account exists as a paydown of the cash advance.