Patent ID: 8566701

Claim:
An apparatus for managing metadata for a plurality of systems having respective different metadata formats, said apparatus comprising: a conversion part configured to convert first metadata generated by a first system in a first format in connection with a first document, to a second format of a second system, and convert second metadata generated by the second system in the second format in connection with a second document, to a third format of an invoice management system; a metadata passing part configured to pass the converted first metadata in the second format to the second system, and pass the converted second metadata in the third format to the invoice management system; and a processing part that determines whether a user-modified version of the second document, that is generated by the second system based on the converted first metadata, is a finalized version of the second document, wherein in a case that the processing part determines that the user-modified version of the second document generated based on the converted first metadata is the finalized version of the second document, the processing part locks the user-modified version of the second document to prevent changes to the second document, causes finalized metadata to be generated and stored based on the finalized second document, and causes at least in part the converted second metadata generated based on the finalized second document to be utilized by the invoice management system to generate an invoice document, and wherein the second system utilizes the converted first metadata received from the metadata passing part to automatically complete a document template by filling in one or more blank sections in a displayed portion of the document template using the converted first metadata to generate the second document, the second document generated by the second system having a document format specific to the second system, and the completed document template of the second system being different from the first document.