Modernsoft, Inc.

Lee Hecht

William J Clancey

Erich A Helfert

Edgar P Canty

John Wu

A computer-implemented method of populating row and column cells of an electronic financial statement document containing with formulas and data, and related apparatus. A formula for a cell in a financial statement is generated from a row definition for the row and a column definition for the column of the cell, where the row definition defines a term of the statement and the column definition specifies a period of time. The resulting statement is displayed to a user, and new formula expressions can be generated to reflect changes in the statement. The statement can have three kinds of columns, namely base columns, subtotal columns, and grand total columns. Data in columns of an input database corresponds to a database period of time, and the base columns in the statement have statement period unit. For each base column of the statement, a correspondence to more than one column of the input database can be computed dynamically. The cells of the statement column can be populated using data from the corresponding database columns. The cells can be repopulated in response to a change in the statement period unit.

Populating cells of an electronic financial statement

A computer-implemented method of creating and editing a document containing one or more terms. A knowledge base containing a set of terms with one or more predefined properties including part-of properties relating terms to each other is provided. The one or more predefined properties associated with a user-selected term are identified. Constraints are imposed on user manipulation of the document with respect to the user-selected term in accordance with the one or more identified predefined properties associated with the user-selected term. In a particular implementation, a method of creating and editing a financial document containing one or more financial terms is described. The tasks of creating and editing documents are simplified by the separation of the presentation of information contained in a document from underlying representation of calculations and interrelationships. A user may readily manipulate the content and appearance of domain-specific (e.g., financial) analyses, without having repeatedly to define and verify calculations. A user may define and customize standard reports with a simple palette of powerful editing tools that implement and maintain the semantics of the items in a document. This frees the user from having to handle the underlying references directly, allowing the user to focus instead upon concepts and contexts contained within the document.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Lee Hecht