Patent ID: 8825546

Claim:
A system, comprising: a processing module embodied on a non-transitory computer-readable medium and configured to: track consumption of a commodity at a physical location of a consumer, wherein the commodity is obtained from a supplier and delivered to the physical location by a retailer; and a billing system operating on one or more server machines communicatively connected to a retailer back office system over a first network connection and a supplier back office system over a second network connection, wherein the retailer back office system is owned and operated by the retailer and external to the billing system and the supplier back office system, wherein the supplier back office system is owned and operated by the supplier and external to the billing system and the retailer back office system, and wherein the billing system is configured, independently of the retailer back office system and the supplier back office system, to: determine whether to reimburse or pay the supplier for a total amount of the commodity that the retailer has obtained from the supplier during a first time period pursuant to a first agreement between an operator of the billing system and the supplier; communicate to the retailer an amount of consumption of the commodity at the physical location of the consumer during a second time period, wherein the retailer bills the consumer for the amount of consumption of the commodity at the physical location of the consumer during the second time period pursuant to a second agreement between the operator of the billing system and the retailer; determine or obtain a total amount of the commodity that the retailer has delivered to a set of consumers during the first time period; and bill the retailer for a difference between the total amount of the commodity that the retailer has obtained from the supplier during the first time period and a total amount of the commodity that the retailer has delivered to a set of consumers during the first time period.