Patent ID: 7472083

Claim:
A method for exchanging documents in transactions between partners that are joined in an exchange network, the partners communicating with each other via a hub entity, the method comprising: storing an agreement associated with each document type for each partner that joins the exchange network, wherein each agreement defines one or more rules about the data format in which the respective partner sends and receives documents of the document type; placing in a file receive location a document from a first partner, the file receive location being password protected such that only a partner that provides a correct identity with any document it sends may place that document at the file receive location; and performing steps, by the hub entity, including, retrieving the document from the file receive location, validating the document against its respective agreement, transforming the document into a standard document format that is partner system platform neutral and that is a different data format than the format in which the document from the first partner was received, assigning a key to the document for future references, processing the document based on the agreement, the process including applying rules of the hub entity and rules of the first partner, and based on the corresponding agreement, transforming the processed document from the standard format into an altered document format that is associated with a second partner and sending the altered document to the second partner.