Patent ID: 8392285

Claim:
An automated transaction arrangement comprising: a database that stores contract data for parties to a transaction, the contract data including a transaction identifier (ID) and information relating to a contract for an exchange of merchant offerings involving a buyer and a plurality of suppliers, the contract including a plurality of sub-parts for fulfillment, each of the suppliers fulfilling at least one of the sub-parts of the contract; and an automatic transaction processor circuit configured to: receive order information from the buyer, the order information identifying merchant offerings that the buyer desires to purchase, the order information indicating quantities of the merchant offerings that the buyer desires to purchase, and the order information indicating a monetary amount that the buyer expects to pay for the merchant offerings, receive an invoice from each of the suppliers as the suppliers fulfill the sub-parts of the contract, wherein for each respective supplier in the plurality of suppliers, the invoice from the respective supplier includes the transaction ID, for each respective supplier in the plurality of suppliers, determine a condition of payment authorization for the invoice from the respective supplier by auditing the invoice from the respective supplier against the received order information and against the stored contract data associated with the transaction ID, and for each respective supplier in the plurality of suppliers, respond to the condition of payment authorization for the invoice from the respective supplier indicating that payment to the respective supplier is appropriate by facilitating settlement processing of the invoice from the respective supplier as a function of the invoice from the respective supplier and at least a subpart of the contract to which the invoice from the respective supplier applies.