Patent ID: 7475051

Claim:
A method of validating a plurality of electronic data interchange (EDI) documents, where EDI documents, each EDI document associated with at least one of a plurality of entities, the method comprising creating an inventory of all rules, the inventory including a common set of rules for the plurality of entities dynamically adjusting said inventory of all rules based upon the entity-specific rules where the entity specific rules are derived from a plurality of companion guides, each companion guide associated with one of the plurality of entities; determining a profile containing pointers to select rules in the inventory of all rules for each companion guide, storing the profile for each companion guide in a storage; receiving a first document associated with a first entity; checking the first EDI document associated with the first entity by employing a runtime checker engine to check the storage for a first current rule set for the first entity, where the first current rule set comprises rules from the inventory of rules required by the companion guide associated with the first entity comparing the first EDI document with the first current rule set; forwarding the first EDI document to the first entity if the first EDI document matches the first current rule set, wherein the first EDI document is validated; and returning the first EDI document to the sender if the first EDI document does not match the first current rule set, wherein the first EDI document is invalidated; receiving a second document associated with a second entity checking the second EDI document associated with entity the second entity by employing the runtime checker engine to check the storage for a second current rule set for the second entity, where the second current rule set comprises rules from the inventory of rules required by the companion guide associated with the second entity comparing the second EDI document with the second current rule set; forwarding the second EDI document to the second entity if the second EDI document matches the second current rule set, wherein the second EDI document is validated; and returning the second EDI document to the sender if the second EDI document does not match the second current rule set, wherein the second EDI document is invalidated.