Patent ID: 8005731

Claim:
A purchase request management system for multiple sellers to remotely manage purchase request records, the system comprising: a plurality of purchase request records stored in a computer system remotely accessible via a network and created from data received from potential buyers, said data including buyer contact information and product information; a plurality of participating seller records comprising information about a plurality of participating sellers, said purchase request records and seller records stored on computer-readable medium; a buyer-seller association software module stored on computer-readable medium and configured to assign each of said purchase request records to only a subset of the participating sellers in accordance with purchase request criteria, said purchase request criteria for each of said participating sellers predetermined in accordance with a relationship between a lead distributor and each of said plurality of participating sellers; a seller remote access software module executed on said computer system, stored on computer-readable medium, comprising computer-executable instructions that define operations for viewing and managing said purchase request records, and configured to provide each of said participating sellers with access to said computer system such that each seller can access only the subset of purchase request records which have been assigned to said seller by said buyer-seller association software module and can invoke the operations for viewing and managing said subset of purchase request records, wherein the operations for viewing and managing said purchase request records comprise: viewing status of purchase requests; modifying status of purchase requests; associating tasks with purchase requests; and assigning tasks associated with purchase requests to individual users associated with a seller; and a processor in communication with said buyer-seller association software modules and said seller remote access software module and configured to execute said buyer-seller association software modules and said seller remote access software module.