Patent ID: 8326754

Claim:
A method of processing transactions between at least one buying company and at least one selling company which results in creation of a new collaborative data set, the method comprising: providing a central datastore accessible to a user from at least one buying company and a user from at least one selling company; obtaining, via a computer network, purchase order data having at least one entry, the purchase order data including purchase order header information and purchase order detail information; obtaining, via a computer network, invoice data having at least one entry, the invoice data including invoice header information and invoice detail information; sorting the purchase order data corresponding to one or more purchase orders into a plurality of hierarchical logical groups using one or more user-defined parameters, each logical group having a subset of purchase order data; sorting the invoice data corresponding to one or more invoices into the plurality of hierarchical logical groups using one or more user-defined parameters, each logical group having a subset of invoice data; determining, via a computer, a matched record having corresponding purchase order data and invoice data based in part on the sorted purchase order data and the sorted invoice data using the plurality of hierarchical logical groups and a plurality of matching rules; identifying a set of purchase orders corresponding to the determined purchase order data of the matched record; identifying a set of invoices corresponding to the determined matched record invoice data; creating a collaborative data set in the central datastore based in part on the matched record and storing detailed settlement data in the datastore regarding settlement of the matched record of purchase order data and corresponding invoice data; providing for storage of additional settlement data in the central datastore, wherein credit memos and debit memos regarding one of the invoice and the purchase order of the matched record are stored as part of the collaborative data set; receiving into the datastore an indication of a dispute regarding the purchase order data and the corresponding invoice data; storing as part of the collaborative data set supporting images and documentation related to the dispute from one of the at least one buying company and at least one selling company, wherein the supporting images and documentation are accessible to the users from both the at least one buying company and the at least one selling company; and reconciling in the datastore the transaction using the matched record.