Patent ID: 7131069

Claim:
A software system comprising: representations of a plurality of business documents; means for relating the plurality of business documents; means for displaying a hierarchical tree structure of representations of business documents, the tree structure having at least one branch, wherein: the tree structure has a plurality of levels in a hierarchy, each level being in a dominant-subordinate relationship with each adjacent level, at least two levels in the same branch comprise at least one document type node and at least one document instance node, the document type nodes in at least two different levels in the same tree branch identify different types of business documents, each document instance node is: (a) immediately subordinate to a document type node, (b) associated with a representation of the same type of business document as a document instance node in the same level of the same branch, and (c) associated with a representation of a business document that is related to a representation of a business document associated with a document instance node in another level in the same branch; means for selecting a particular document instance node; means for displaying information contained in the representation of a business document associated with a selected document instance node; and at least one representation of a sub-document wherein: the means for relating the plurality of business documents further comprises means for relating sub-documents; the tree structure includes at least one branch having levels comprising at least a dominant level, a subordinate level and a sub-subordinate level, and wherein the dominant and sub-subordinate levels comprise document type nodes associated with representations of different business document types and the subordinate level comprises a sub-document type node and at least one sub-document instance node associated with the at least one representation of a business sub-document; each sub-document instance node is: (d) immediately subordinate to a sub-document type node; (e) associated with a representation of the same type of sub-document as a sub-document instance node in the same level of the same branch; and (f) related to a representation of a business document associated with a document instance node in another level in the branch; and wherein the means for selecting further comprises means for selecting a particular sub-document instance node; and wherein the means for displaying information further comprises means for displaying information contained in the representation of a sub-document associated with the selected sub-document instance node.