trade-examples

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What trade is all about

Trade is the act of transacting goods between two parties. Transactions may or may not involve the actual exchange of goods, as they may simply represent an order for goods.

This is an exploratory page to document trade examples currently published around the web. Typically, the metadata associated with this content is stored in non-semantic markup and proprietary formats. The purpose of the studies on this page is to serve as background for the design of a simple distributed trade microformat.

Why do we need a trade microformat?

There are many examples of financial transactions across the web and in desktop applications, including bank statements, purchase receipts, wishlists, PFM applications, etc. A standardized format would facilitate integration between vendors, financial institutions and applications to provide for far more robust financial accounting integration.

There is no published standard means of communicating trade. As such there are many different implementations, and much parsing occurs at both ends of the equation.

Example

  • A bank stores structured transactional metadata in a mainframe.
  • A consumer references this information in an online banking web application.
  • A consumer tracks their finances using mobile banking.
  • A consumer deposits their cash using an ATM.
  • A consumer uses their mobile device and NFC technology to purchase items at a storefront.
  • A consumer manages their personal goals using an online toolkit.
  • A consumer also manages their budget using Quicken.
  • A consumer purchases items with their credit card on an e-commerce portal.
  • A consumer maintains a list of items they wish to purchase at a future date.
  • A small business supplies services to a consumer, emails them an invoice and uses an e-check as payment.

Each of these platforms uses a proprietary means of displaying, structuring and storing the same data. A microformat devoted to trade would provide for easy interoperability between services and applications, facilitating further trade, and simplifying the means of transferring data.

Participants

How people trade today

Current

  • People transact through a number of electronic forms
    • card transactions
    • ACH (Automatic Clearing House)
    • POS (Point of Sale)
    • Check (e-checks)
    • Transfers
      • Interbank
      • Intrabank
      • P2P
    • ATM
      • Deposits
      • Transfers
      • Withdrawals
      • Purchases
  • People use records of these transactions to
    • Plan their finances
    • Manage their expenses
    • Report their PNL
  • All of which create collections of records
    • Bank statements
    • Purchase orders
    • wishlists
    • Financial Management suites
    • Account aggregators
    • Budgets
      • Personal
      • Business / Enterprise

Human

People use a number of means to track their finances in meatspace.

Consumers use their check registers to track finances. Many times consumers will use a spreadsheet for budgeting, or Quicken / MS Money to track expenditures. Many people track their finances using envelopes to represent discretionary spending within specific categories. People are beginning to use tools like Mvelopes and Wesabe to do an electronic equivalent.

Business use robust financial software to manage their finances. Spreadsheets are common, as is the use of financial ledgers.

Behavior

  • TODO: notes below are from the behavior boilerplate
  • What people actually do. Think empirical evidence, much as in the same way that the scientific method requires gathering of empirical data.
  • not:
    • what they might do
    • should have done
    • would do
    • Intention/Desire/Want. A common mistake done by folks researching background for formats is to explicitly *ask* folks what they *want* or *prefer*, as opposed to *studying* what they *do*. It is well known among behavioral researchers/surveyors that *asking* people what they *want*, or even *asking* people what they *do*, will give you very different (and worse / less accurate) answers than actually *studying* what they *do* in the real world.
    • Formats. Formats are prescriptions for behavior, not behavior itself. For documenting formats, create a *-formats page.

Web

  • TODO: notes below are from the WEB boilerplate
  • The examples MUST focus on examples actually published on the Web, at a publicly available URL, which should be documented along with the example itself on the wiki page.
  • Non-web examples are ok *only* for secondary/tertiary consideration, and by no means outweight (no matter what their quantity etc.) the Web examples.
    • private files
    • paper
    • etc.

Trade Examples

Bank of America

Bank of America

Deposit Accounts

Grouped by Account

  • date
    • posted
    • scheduled
  • payee Name
  • type
    • check image url (front)
    • check image url (back)
  • status
  • amount
  • running balance
  • fee info
  • amount held
  • date held

Markup: 

<tr class="module1bkgd3" id="row17">
 <td class="mi" width="6"><a name="skip17"></a><img 
 src="spacer-image-url" alt="" border="0" width="6"></td>
 <td class="mi" width="6">
  <div id="fdi17" class="inline"><a href="some-url" 
  onclick="some-js()" class="linknormal" id="di17"><img 
  id="rtImg17" src="expand-image-url" alt="Expand this 
  form to view and enter additional details for this 
  transaction" align="absmiddle" border="0"></a></div>
 </td>
 <td class="tp" align="left" width="15%">07/31/2007</td>
 <td class="t2" width="36%">
  <div id="dld17" class="inline">
   <a href="some-url" class="linknormal4" title="BANK 
   OF AMERICA DES:PAYROLL ID: INDN:NEWTON CLAY CO 
   ID:1042472499 PPD REF:000478766385121108250007211
   00301576107073122" onclick="some-js()">BANK OF 
   AMERICA DES:PAYROLL ID: INDN:NEWT...</a>
  </div>
 </td>		
 <td class="mi" align="center" width="10%"><img 
 src="deposit-image-url" alt="Deposit"></td>
 <td class="mi" align="center" width="10%">
  <a onclick="some-js()" href="some-url" 
  class="linknormal2" title=""><img id="stat_17" 
  src="status-image-url" alt="Cleared. Select this 
  link to mark transaction as reconciled." border="0"></a>
 </td>
 <td class="mi" align="right" nowrap="nowrap" 
 width="75">
  <div class="statementcolmn2"><span 
  class="textn2">$1,234.56</span></div>
 </td>
 <td class="module1bkgd4" width="1"><img 
 src="spacer-image-url" alt="" height="1" 
 width="1"></td>
 <td class="mi" nowrap="nowrap" width="11%">
  <div class="statementcolmn2">
   <span class="textn2">$8,910.11</span>
  </div>
 </td>
 <td width="10"><img src="spacer-image-url" 
 alt="" border="0" width="10"></td>
</tr>

Keep the Change

  • date posted
  • # of transactions
    • transaction description
    • transaction url
    • is matched?
    • transaction amount
  • amount you keep
  • to account
  • no transfer

Card Accounts

  • date
    • transaction
    • posted
  • description
  • amount
  • running balance
  • card type
  • transaction type
  • periodic rate
  • reference number
  • reward
    • reward type
    • reward url

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo

enter notes here

Citibank

Citibank

enter notes here

ING

ING

enter notes here

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

enter notes here

eBay

Ebay

enter notes here

Paypal

Paypal

enter notes here

Quicken

Quicken

Deposits Accounts

  • post date (PostDt)
  • transaction description (TrDesc)
  • transaction amount (TrAmt)
  • type (TT)
  • running balance (RunningBal)

Markup: 

<Item>
<PostDt>12/27/2005</PostDt>
<TrDesc>FIREWOOD CAFE-METREON 12/22 CARD #0265 PURCHASE  #24388945357670320615609 SAN FRANCISCO, CA</TrDesc>
<TrAmt>-$10.95</TrAmt>
<TT>D</TT>
<RunningBal>$2,916.63</RunningBal>
</Item>

Quickbooks

enter notes here

Wesabe

enter notes here

Yodlee

enter notes here

See Also

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