Associate Royalties and Payments with the Right Individual or Company

It's no longer a cash-and-carry world. Globalization and the rise of electronic commerce have greatly increased the complexity of determining who gets paid and how much is owed. For many organizations, this can be a major issue. Inefficiency and errors in payments and receivables can increase costs and restrict cash flow as manual intervention and exceptions are required. Conversely, improvements in payment verification can drop directly to the bottom line.

The challenge is in handling identity data, the information that accurately identifies a customer or a supplier, whether a corporation or an individual. By its nature, identity data is subject to error and variation: as a simple example, the abbreviation or contraction of a company name, such as FedEx for Federal Express. As channels are expanded and more data is available from more sources, the issue is compounded.

Perhaps the best example of this is in the music industry. Composers, lyricists, performers, and publishers alike are owed royalties not only when a song is downloaded from the Web or included on a CD. Payment also is due when the piece is used as part of a soundtrack, aired on the radio, or performed live.

For the system to work, playlists must be matched against databases of royalty information. Part of the challenge comes from the sheer volume of information that must be matched: thousands of song titles, performers, and songwriters. Making the process even more difficult are the variations that arise when information is being captured "on the fly" from so many different sources. Song titles are abbreviated or use unusual spelling: "luvin'" for "loving." Writing teams who perform as part of a group may be listed individually or by the group's name. Show information can be similarly altered.

Periodical publishers may face similar challenges with subscriptions. A library, for example, might buy multiple subscriptions, which are then sent to different branches. A corporation might buy subscriptions that must be mailed to overseas offices.

Because the Informatica solution for identity resolution in royalties and payment verification can be configured to meet specific requirements, it's ideally suited for use with payment or receivable verification systems. It behaves like an expert user, recognizing and ranking matches despite errors and variations, but scales to provide subsecond response even when dealing with very large databases. This solution can:

  • Provide fast, accurate searching across multiple data sources
  • Increase efficiency and cut costs
  • Be used as part of an existing business process or system