Patent ID: 8099503

Claim:
A method of providing secure user access to retail management services offered by a retail management service provider to a point-of-sale client application over a network, the method comprising: receiving an application cookie initiated by the point-of-sale client application, the point-of-sale client application configured to create and populate the application cookie with user role information, user access privileges, and a merchant identifier of an authenticated user that is accessible by the point-of-sale client application; reading the application cookie with an account module, the account module configured to cross-reference the user role information, the user access privileges, and the merchant identifier populated in the application cookie with information in an existing merchant account database to determine what retail management services are available to the authenticated user based on the user role information, the user access privileges, and the merchant identifier; populating a service cookie with information from the merchant account database indicating retail management services the authenticated user has the authority to access using the user role information, the user access privileges, and the merchant identifier populated in the application cookie; transmitting the populated service cookie to the point-of-sale client application; receiving the populated service back from the point-of-sale client application with a request to access the retail management services; reading the service cookie with an auth-filter to verify the service cookie and provide access to an offered retail management service based on information in the service cookie; and providing the retail management services to the point-of-sale client application that are limited to the available retail management services of the authenticated user as outlined in the service cookie.