Patent ID: 7356496

Claim:
A method for maintaining in a digital computer system synchronization of ledger accounts between a back-end procurement system and a front-end requisition and catalog system on behalf of a plurality of customer companies of an enterprise providing procurement services to a plurality of company groups, each said company group including a different plurality of said customer companies, comprising the steps of: associating a plurality of said customer companies within a company group, said customer companies within said company group storing in respective storage devices a same chart of accounts which varies with respect to a chart of accounts associated with a different company group of customer companies of said enterprise; maintaining a requisition and catalog system in respective digital computer systems at each said customer company; maintaining said chart of accounts in a digital storage device at said back-end procurement system at said enterprise; periodically extracting from said chart of accounts, account identification indicia and descriptive information for a given customer company; communicating said account identification indicia and descriptive information to said requisition and catalog system for each said customer company of a given company group; at said requisition and catalog system, storing said indicia and information in an electronic data store of valid general ledger accounts associated with said company group for said given customer company; associating commodity codes with said account identification indicia; pushing commodity code/account identification associations to all other companies in said company group of said given customer company; responsive to a user request for a requisition of a commodity, providing to a user interface of a computer display device a selection list of valid account codes and descriptions authorized for purchase by users from companies within said company group to facilitate selection by a user of a correct account code for said commodity.