A system is provided for facilitating the closure of a multi-party
transaction consisting of multiple offers. In this system, atomic offers
are generated by or on behalf of parties that produce or provide basic
goods or services or other things of value. A broker, supplier, dealer,
purchaser or other party may aggregate multiple offers (including atomic
offers and other aggregated offers) to form a multi-party offer. Offers
may be initiated by buyers as well as sellers and, when a buyer's and a
seller's offers match (e.g., on price and/or other terms), a zero-sum
offer is generated and the multi-party transaction can be closed. Closing
a transaction involves a first stage in which payment of the agreed-upon
funds and shipment of goods/services are authorized. More particularly,
the availability of the funds and the goods/services are verified. In a
second phase the funds are committed and the goods/services are obligated
by being held for shipment or performance. Finally, the funds are
remitted to each supplier, broker and other intermediary that provided
value after shipment and or delivery are verified. Advantageously,
closure of the transaction allows collective settling of all the offers
included in the transaction rather than requiring each to be settled
separately.