Patent ID: 8751337

Claim:
An automated transaction processing system for processing business transactions involving buyers and providers and pertaining to an inventory of items to which merchant offerings in the transactions apply, the system comprising: a data storage arrangement configured and arranged to store buyer-specific profile information and contract data for each buyer, each of the respective contracts being defined as a function of one of the plurality of buyers and a predefined business relationship between the one buyer and at least one provider; and a transaction processor arrangement configured and arranged to process transactions involving merchant offerings subject to an inventory according to the stored contract data and profile information, the transaction processor arrangement including: an auditing engine configured and arranged to audit a transaction involving a buyer and at least one provider using transaction data, inventory data corresponding to an inventory to which the transaction applies, and stored contract data for the transaction, a payment processor configured and arranged to process a payment for the transaction on behalf of the buyer in response to the auditing function indicating that the payment is appropriate for the transaction, and a fee assessment engine configured and arranged to assess a transaction processing fee against at least one of the parties to the transaction for which the payment is processed.