The invention is related to electronic information transfer between trading partners and more particularly to the use of a catalog, catalog query, and item identifier to specify an item that has a number of configurations or features. The item identifier is used in business transactions between the trading partners. In the present invention, a configured item is associated with a two-part item identifier where one part is a systematically assigned, fixed length field that provides systematic identification of the catalog and the second part is a variable length field to identify the item in the catalog. A catalog and catalog query provide a means to generate the two-part item identifier based on the description of the configured item identifier. A catalog query with the item identifier can query the catalog to determine the description of the item.