US 12,169,807 B2
Benchmarking through data mining
Tim Mole, Castor Bay (NZ); and Grant Anderson, Seatown (NZ)
Assigned to Xero Limited, Wellington (NZ)
Filed by Xero Limited, Wellington (NZ)
Filed on Jan. 30, 2023, as Appl. No. 18/161,684.
Application 18/161,684 is a continuation of application No. 17/650,189, filed on Feb. 7, 2022, granted, now 11,610,172.
Application 17/650,189 is a continuation of application No. 16/715,409, filed on Dec. 16, 2019, granted, now 11,288,615, issued on Mar. 29, 2022.
Application 16/715,409 is a continuation of application No. 16/027,989, filed on Jul. 5, 2018, granted, now 10,546,261, issued on Jan. 28, 2020.
Application 16/027,989 is a continuation of application No. 14/696,925, filed on Apr. 27, 2015, granted, now 10,037,506, issued on Jul. 31, 2018.
Prior Publication US 2023/0169438 A1, Jun. 1, 2023
Int. Cl. G06Q 10/0639 (2023.01)
CPC G06Q 10/06393 (2013.01) 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method comprising:
importing into user data, by an accounting platform in a cloud computing environment, financial data for each of a plurality of users having a user account with the accounting platform,
wherein the accounting platform is configured to access and import banking data over a network through a bank feed or document, or over a network via an application protocol interface, and wherein the accessing the banking data comprises providing account credentials of the plurality of users to obtain access to the banking data for the plurality of users, wherein the accounting platform is provided by a primary data center comprising a plurality of pods, each pod comprising one or more application server virtual machines that are specific to the pod, and the plurality of pods collectively providing an internal services virtual machine that is shared between the plurality of pods, and wherein the internal services virtual machine provides back-end tools for the application server virtual machines and/or monitoring tools to an application hypervisor monitoring the application server virtual machines;
wherein the accounting platform is configured to gather accounting data and provide accounting services to the plurality of users;
determining and maintaining, by the accounting platform, user data for the plurality of users, wherein the user data comprises an entity identifier indicative of the entity with which the user data is associated, and at least a first attribute,
wherein determining, by the accounting platform, user data for each of the plurality of users comprises analyzing accounting data gathered by the accounting platform and financial data imported by the accounting platform to determine the at least first attribute;
storing the user data in a database; and
responsive to a request for user data from a user of the plurality of users, and/or from an application, providing at least a subset of the user data to user or application.