a method and system are disclosed for pushing credit payments as buyer initiated transactions . the buyer communicates payment instructions to initiate payment of accounts payable items so that the existing credit card infrastructure can be used to make payments to merchants without a credit card transaction being initiated by the merchants . in this way , a buyer can push credit payments into the system without having to communicate with the merchant , and these transactions can be processed as credit transactions with respect to standard settlement procedures , for example , as used by credit card receipt acquirers . this ability to push credit payments provides an advantageous , efficient and powerful solution to handling accounts payable operations , particularly in a corporate environment . and a purchasing management system can be used to manage and control these activities and to allow selection , or automatic selection based upon merchant profiles , of whether to make payments as pushed credit payments or cash / debit transactions .