Patent ID: 7350698

Claim:
An electronic purchasing system, comprising: a process manager system configured to automatically process electronic purchase requisitions over multiple back-end resource servers, wherein the process manager system is configured to access a plurality of catalogs containing descriptions of goods and services pertinent to a procurement environment; a database configured to store data descriptors describing items contained in said catalogs, and configured to store data object and attributes pertinent to said electronic purchase requisitions; and a line item approving system configured to, responsive to receiving a particular purchase requisition associated with a particular purchasing request, process approval of a plurality of items specified in said particular purchase requisition on a line-by-line basis, wherein one or more approvers are identified for each of the plurality of items, wherein to process approval the line item approving system is further configured to present to a particular approver only those items for which the particular approver is identified, and wherein the items for which the particular approver is identified are less than all of the plurality of items specified in said particular purchase requisition.