Abstract: A method of determining a financial rate associated with a particular property in respect of purchase of goods or services, the method comprising the steps of: identifying the goods or services; identifying a property associated with the identified goods or services; using a look up table to determine a financial rate associated with the property of the identified goods and services and determining one or more rules to be used in conjunction with the determined financial rate for any subsequent purpose.

Abstract: A system for settling the payment of a travel e-ticket includes: data storage elements for storing passenger name records in a database; elements for identifying passenger name records eligible for a late payment service in the database, each passenger name record being associated to at least one segment, elements for detecting when a predetermined event occurs prior to transportation carrier departure, a server associated to the database and arranged for retrieving therefrom all passenger name records eligible for the late payment service; elements for selecting at least one segment that can be priced for each retrieved passenger name record; elements for pricing the segment; elements for issuing a coupon associated to the segment; elements for updating the database with issuance information concerning the segment; elements for voiding all travel coupons for which no change of coupon status has been reported by an airport departure control system handling the carrier departure; elements for receiving a chang

Abstract: A method of managing a billing process is provided to optimize or simulate different models in order to reach a predetermined level of a metric associated with the service. The method includes determining an input model to optimize or simulate, determining existing associated models, comparing the existing model and the input model, iterating one or more parameters of the input model in order to achieve the predetermined level of the metric, and determining the iterated input model.