Patent ID: 8099361

Claim:
An electronic transaction processing system, comprising: a computing system configured to provide: a payment plan generation component that provides user functionality for generating a re-usable payment plan that specifies at least (a) a plurality of payment instruments, and (b) non-transaction-specific rules for determining how the plurality of payment instruments are to be used to collect payment for a transaction, whereby users of the transaction processing system can create payment plans that may be re-used over time to complete transactions, said payment plan generation component comprising a computer processor, wherein the payment plan generation component provides user functionality for assigning names to payment plans, such that the payment plans may be subsequently selected by name for use; a transaction generation component that provides functionality for a user to generate a transaction, and to select a payment plan to complete payment for the transaction, said transaction generation component comprising a computer processor; and a payment processing component that is operative to use the rules to determine how to divide a total monetary amount of the transaction among the plurality of payment instruments, said payment processing component comprising a computer processor.