JP2002245356A - Charging management device and system including it - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make a charging system easily settable in a system including a lot of devices such as a printer and to collectively manage charging for the devices in the system. SOLUTION: The charging management device which manages charging in the system where a host and devices are connected through a network is comprised of communication equipment for communication between the host and devices, a storage part where a database of information required for charging is stored, and a charging processing part which acquires information required for charge calculation from devices by the communication equipment and stores it in the database in the storage part.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

[0001] The present invention relates to a system in which a host, a printer, and the like are connected to a network.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When a plurality of printers are used in a system in which devices such as a printer and a scanner are connected to a network (for example, a LAN), various types of printers are often connected. When printing a print job in such a complex printing system, the user can select the printer options (color printing, staple printing, duplex printing, printing on special paper, high quality by adding hard disk drive and RAM). Printing, etc.) to change the quality of the printed output.

[0003] In a printer, charging is performed according to the output quality and the number of output sheets. Although the accounting system differs for each printer, the setting is manually set for each printer. For example, for color printing and monochrome printing, charging is performed according to the number of prints. The number of prints is counted when print data is passed. Billing can be calculated for each user by identifying the user.

[0004]

Conventionally, in a system including a plurality of devices as described above, the accounting system for printing had to be manually registered. Also, when printer options change,
It also needed to be changed manually. In addition, when a plurality of different types of printers are used, a management unit that manages charging is required for each printer in order to set a charging amount for those printers.

An object of the present invention is to make it possible to easily set a billing system in a system including a plurality of devices such as a printer. The object of the present invention is
An object of the present invention is to make it possible to collectively manage charges for a plurality of devices in a system.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A charging management apparatus according to the present invention is a charging management apparatus for managing charging in a system in which a host and a device are connected by a network, and a communication apparatus for communicating with the host and the device. And a storage unit for storing a database of information required for charging, and charging information management means for acquiring information required for charging from the device and storing the information in the database of the storage unit.

Here, the database in the storage unit stores a billing system for each device. Further, for example, the database in the storage unit stores a relative billing system among a plurality of devices. Further, for example, the billing processing unit updates the database in the storage unit by periodically communicating with the device via a communication device. Also, for example, the charging processing unit is provided in any of the hosts, and when any of the hosts outputs a job, acquires information necessary for charging from the host and stores the information in the storage unit. Update the database in. Further, for example, the host includes a print driver that outputs a print job or a scan driver that outputs a scan job. Also, for example, the device is a printer, a scanner, or a print job or a scan job execution terminal. Further, for example, the information necessary for the charging is MIB information.

[0008] A system according to the present invention is a system in which a host and a plurality of devices are connected to a network, and performs printing based on a print driver that outputs print job data and a print job received from the print driver. The printing apparatus includes the printing apparatus, and the above-described charging management apparatus which is located between the driver and the printing apparatus and acquires information required for charging from the host and the printing apparatus.

In the accounting management method according to the present invention, accounting is managed in a system in which a host and a device are connected by a network. In this billing management method,
The information necessary for calculating the charge is acquired from each device, and then stored in a database of information necessary for calculating the charge in the storage device.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the system shown in FIG.
Via a network 10, a workstation 12,
A host such as a personal computer 14 and a plurality of devices (such as a printer 16, a scanner 18, and a multifunction peripheral thereof) are connected. Here, the devices can also communicate with each other through the network 10. The user can access the network 10 from one of the hosts 12 and 14.
The print job is output to any one of the printers 16 through. The plurality of printers 16 are different types of printers, and options (color printing, staple printing, duplex (double-sided) printing, printing on special paper, high quality printing by adding a hard disk device and RAM, etc.) Output quality can be changed. Alternatively, the hosts 12 and 14 cause the scanner 18 to execute a scan job and acquire the data.

In this system, a charging management unit (charging management device) 30 for managing charging collectively manages charging of a plurality of printers and other devices using communication via a network and a database of a charging system. Things. As shown in FIG. 2, the charge management unit (charge management device) 30 is located between a job output unit 32 that generates a job such as a print job and the printer 16 that actually outputs a printed material. When charging for print jobs, etc.
In order to reflect the amount of change in the quality of the output on the billing, the billing management unit (billing management device) 30 transmits each device (printer, scanner, print execution terminal, etc.) via the network 10.
The information required for charging (information on the charging system) is acquired from, and a charging system database is created for a plurality of devices. Here, by acquiring information on the billing system at regular time intervals, the database can be updated by itself. Since the database is always kept up-to-date by the successive update, the user does not need to maintain the billing information. When executing a job in the device, the charging management unit (charging management device) 30 can calculate the charging by referring to this database. In the following, charging of a print job will be mainly described, but charging of a job of another device can be similarly handled.

As shown in FIG. 2, in the printer 16, a print control system includes a CPU 162, a ROM 162 for storing programs, a RAM 164 as a work area, and a storage device 16 for storing print information.
6. Various input / output interfaces 168, communication devices 17
0, and an interface 172 with an engine unit 174 for executing printing. The storage device 166 stores information on the billing system in a database.

The charging management unit (charging management device) 30 collectively manages charging via communication via a network and the above-mentioned database.
It is possible to easily set the relative billing system between. Here, in one method of billing setting, a state without options is set as a standard, and a billing amount is relatively set for each option. For example, when the charge for one sheet of monochrome printing (no option) is set to 1, the charge for one sheet of color print is set relatively to 1.5. Thus, the relative charge amount for each different printer can be easily set using the database. Here, the user can easily understand the charging system by looking at the display of the charging system between different devices.

Next, charging management will be described in more detail. First, the charging management unit (charging management device) 30 automatically obtains information (such as option information) required for charging from the printer 16 via the network in order to reflect the amount of change in output quality in charging. A database of a billing system is created and stored in a storage device. Then, the database is updated by itself at regular time intervals to maintain the latest state at all times. As a result, the user can save maintenance work. The charge management unit 30
Notifies the print job output unit (user) 32 of the charge.

The job output unit 32 is, for example, as shown in FIG.
And print driver (print job data creation means) 3
22. The print data created by the application 320 is transmitted by the print driver 322 as print job data.

The job output unit 32 may be provided in the hosts 12 and 14. In this case, at the time of print job output, job information of the hosts 12 and 14 is acquired, a billing system is calculated based on the job information, and registered in the database 304.
This makes it possible to know how many print jobs have been executed from which host without any special registration work.
A billing target for a print job can be uniquely specified.

Similarly, the job output unit 32 is connected to the host 12,
An example of the inside of the scanner 14 is a scan job of the scanner 18 using the network TWAIN function. Also in this case, how many scan jobs have been executed from which hosts 12 and 14 can be understood without requiring any special registration work, and billing for the scan jobs becomes possible. The scanner 18 includes a scan driver, and the scan driver transmits scan job data obtained from the scan data to the hosts 12 and 14.
Send to The job output unit 32 in the host sends the received scan job data to the printer 16.

The charge management unit (charge management device) 30 may be provided in a computer, a scanner, or the like, or may be provided in a print server. Moreover, you may provide as an independent apparatus. When the job output unit 32 and the charge management unit 30 are provided in the same device, the charge management unit 30
Acquires the information necessary for charging directly from the job output unit 32 without communication.

Next, the configuration of the charging management unit (charging management device) 30 will be described. The charge management unit 30 includes a print job output unit 32 in addition to the charge management module (charge processing unit) 300.
And a communication device 302 that communicates with devices such as the printer 16 and the printer 16 (for example, using the SNP protocol which is an existing protocol), and a database for storing and managing information obtained from the printer 16 and the print job output unit 32. A storage device for storing the data 304. The charge management module 300 uses the SNP protocol to
Acquire B (Management Information Base) information.
The MIB information is information including information on a printer and a device.

FIG. 3 shows a charge management unit (charge management device) 30.
6 is a flowchart showing the operation of the first embodiment. Charge management unit 30
Performs an initialization operation such as checking the database 304 and communication means, detecting the printer 16 and the print job output unit 32 (S10). Thereafter, information necessary for accounting is acquired from the registered device (here, the printer 16) and the print job output unit 32 via the network (S12). The acquired information is registered in the database 304 (S14). All printers 1
When the information can be obtained from the printer 6, a relative charging system among the plurality of printers 16 is calculated and automatically registered in the database 304 (S16). After a certain time (S
18) Return to step S12, and periodically update the information of the charging system.

For example, if three printers 16 are registered in the charging management unit (charging management device) 30 in the case of the network of FIG. 1, the charging management unit (charging management device) 3
0 first obtains information necessary for charging from each printer 16 and registers it in the database 304 using a value that can uniquely identify the printer 16 as a key. Thereafter, the relative billing amounts of the three printers 16 are set and stored in the database 304 as separate records.
The above processing is performed periodically, and the database 304 is updated by changing options of the printer 16 and adding a new printer 16 to the network.
The charge management unit (charge management device) 30 also supports manual printer registration and charge settings by the user.

FIG. 4 shows a processing flow of a print job of the charging management unit (charging management device) 30. When receiving the print job information from the job output unit 32 (S30), the accounting management unit 30 first looks at the database 304 (S30).
32). Then, the charge information corresponding to the job is notified to the image processing unit (S34). Here, the details of the billing can be displayed in detail. Then, the print job is sent to the printer 16 (S36).

[0023]

According to the present invention, it is possible to automatically obtain necessary information from a device (such as a printer) and create a database of a billing system. This eliminates the need for the administrator to manually set all the information (charging system) required for charging the individual devices. Since necessary information can be automatically acquired from devices, billing for a plurality of devices can be managed collectively. As a result, centralized management of a plurality of devices can be performed. Further, the relative charging system (charging amount) between different devices can be easily set using one database.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram of a network in which a host and a printer are connected.

FIG. 2 is a diagram of a system provided with a charge management unit;

FIG. 3 is a first flowchart of a charge management unit.

FIG. 4 is a second flowchart of a charging management unit.

[Explanation of symbols]

10 network, host 12, 14, 1
6 printer, 18 scanner, 30 charge management unit (charge management device), 32 job output unit,
300 charge management module (charge processing unit), 30
2 Communication device, 304 database.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁷ Identification code FI Theme coat ゛ (Reference) H04N 1/00 106 H04N 1/00 106C F term (Reference) 2C061 AP01 AR03 HH03 HJ06 HJ10 HK04 HK05 HK15 HN02 HN05 HN15 5B021 AA01 EE04 NN00 5C062 AA05 AA14 AA35 AB38 AB42 AC41 AF00 AF08 BA04

Claims (10)

[Claims] 1. A charging management apparatus for managing charging in a system in which a host and a device are connected by a network, wherein the communication apparatus communicates with the host and the device, and stores a database of information necessary for charging. An accounting management device comprising: a storage unit; and an accounting processing unit that acquires information necessary for accounting from a device and stores the information in a database of the storage unit. 2. The database in the storage unit,
It is characterized by storing the billing system for each device.
The charging management device according to claim 1. 3. The database in the storage unit,
The charging management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a relative charging system between a plurality of devices is stored. 4. The accounting according to claim 1, wherein the accounting unit updates the database in the storage unit by periodically communicating with the device via a communication device. Management device. 5. The accounting section is provided in any of the hosts, and when any of the hosts outputs a job, acquires information necessary for accounting from the host and stores the information. 2. The charging management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the database in the section is updated. 6. The accounting management device according to claim 1, wherein the host includes a print driver that outputs a print job or a scan driver that outputs a scan job. 7. The accounting management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the device is a printer, a scanner, or a print job or a scan job execution terminal. 8. The charging management apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said information necessary for charging is MIB information. 9. A system in which a host and a plurality of devices are connected to a network, a print driver that outputs print job data, a printing apparatus that performs printing based on a print job received from the print driver, and a driver. And a printing apparatus, which is located between the printer and the printing apparatus, and includes a host and a charging management apparatus that acquires information necessary for charging from the printing apparatus. The charging management apparatus includes a communication device that communicates with the host and the device. A system comprising: a storage unit that stores a database of information necessary for charging; and a charging processing unit that acquires information required for charging from a device by a communication device and stores the information in a database of the storage unit. 10. A billing management method for managing billing in a system in which a host and a device are connected by a network, wherein information necessary for billing calculation is obtained from each device, and information necessary for billing in a storage device is obtained. A charge management method characterized by storing in a database of important information.