Methods and systems for converting business to business data to a canonical format

A method of exchanging business to business data, comprising:

• receiving by a translation engine of canonical structured data from a data provider;
• loading a pattern file corresponding to a target data recipient, wherein the pattern file includes instructions for translating the canonical structured data into at least one business to business data standard;
• and
• using the pattern file to convert the canonical structured data into the at least one business to business data standard structure.

A system for exchanging business to business data, comprising:

• at least one translation engine capable of translating at least one business to business data standard;
• and
• at least one pattern file useable by the at least one translation engine, the pattern file including instructions for translating data in the least one business to business data standard to a canonical format,
• wherein the at least one translation engine:
• receives data from a data provider,
• loads the at least one pattern file, and
• translates the data into a canonical format in accordance with the instructions in the pattern file.