Shared accounts represent a source of printing expense. They allow printing costs to be recorded or charged back to the source, with possible uses including:

• Allocating printing expenses to a department
• Charging printing expenses back to a client or job
• Allocating printing expenses to a particular project or phase
• Any other situation where printing would benefit from categorization

Printing is charged to shared accounts as follows:

1. An administrator / manager creates an account (or the account is imported from another source)
2. Users charge printing to the account (via popup client software)
3. Printing records and reports are automatically available, allowing costs to be charged back to the client (for example)

Some organizations will be most interested in charging printing to shared accounts. Examples often include legal, accounting, consulting, design, architecture and engineering firms. PaperCut ChargeBack was specifically designed for these type of organizations, and includes features that make it easy to work with large numbers of shared accounts.

Other organizations will be more interested in tracking which user printed. They may make some use of shared accounts (e.g. to charge printing to the department printing budget), or might not use them at all. Examples often include schools, colleges, universities, government organizations and businesses other than those mentioned above. PaperCut NG is designed to meet the needs of these type of organizations. It includes features to work with and charge to shared accounts, but not to the advanced level of PaperCut ChargeBack.

More Information:

• Account Based Tracking in the PaperCut ChargeBack tour
• Shared Accounts chapter of the PaperCut ChargeBack user manual
• Shared Accounts chapter of the PaperCut NG user manual

Categories: General Information

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