This chapter explains in detail the structure of ac counts, and the data that is captured by PaperCut ChargeBack for each print job. It also explains how the data can be used for invoicing purposes.

What is an account?

Accounts in PaperCut ChargeBackcan be used to represent your clients, departments, job numbers, projectsand/or expens e accounts. (Note: this should not be confused with users or us er accounts on your network). Each account has the following attributes:

   Main account, or subaccount

   Active or inactive

   Deleted or not deleted

   Whether to allow non-invoiceable print jobsto be assigned to the account

   Whether to require comments / descriptions for each print job assigned to the account

These are explained below.

Main accounts and Subaccounts

Accounts in PaperCut ChargeBackare structured hierarchially. This means that there are two types of account -main accounts and s ubaccounts. Each subacc ount belongs to a main account, and there are an unlimited number of main and subaccounts allowed in PaperCut ChargeBack.

This system allows you to group related accounts together for reporting and statistical purposes. For example, main accounts can be created for clients, and subaccounts for each project/job for each client. Alternatively, a main account can be created for each job number, and subaccounts optionally created for s ub-items within each job number.

This is shown in the following screenshot.

Active and Inactive Accounts

Over time, accounts may become redundant - for example, a project may be complete and no further printing will occur. The account can then be marked as Inactive so that it does not appearin the client-popup window. Thus, users will no longer be able to assign costs to it.

PaperCut archives all print jobs to allow for historical reporting. Active accountsare accountsthat may have cos ts assigned to them, whereas Inactive accounts may not.

Deleting accounts

When you delete an account from the PaperCut ChargeBack Administration Console, it is removed from view in the console. However, if costs are assigned to that ac count, the account will still appear in the Report Generator.

Invoiceable and non-invoiceable print jobs

By default all print jobsare invoiceable. That is, once they are assigned to an acc ount, they will appear on the invoice report for that account, allowing for easy cost recovery.

However, some organizations require the ability to assign print jobs to accounts, but not all their print jobs will be invoiceable.

In such cases, the relevant accounts c an be set to allow print jobs to be non-invoiceable. Then when a user prints and selects the account, the user will also be able to choose whether to include the print job in the invoice report, or not.

This gives organizations extra flexibility when tracking costs. Reports can also be run on invoiceable, and non-invoiceable print jobs, thus allowing reporting of costs that are recoverable and not recoverable from clients or departments.

Comments for print jobs

You may choose to allow or require users to enter in a comment whenever they assign a print job to a given account. These commentscan then show up in reports ¨C such asshowing a breakdown of costs for a client, or allowing a project manager to review costs.

By default, comments are not required for print jobs. However, you can change this default setting to make comments either mandatory, or optional.

Each account has its own setting for comments. For example, you may wish to enforce comments for internal expense accounts, but not require them for one particular job number. Thisflexibility is provided to suit your needs.

Reporting and invoices

Please note: the reporting process is further explained in Chapter 7. All but one of the reports can be run to show data for invoiceable print jobs, non-invoiceable print jobs, or both. (The exception is the Invoice report, which will only show invoiceable print jobs in the report.)

This allows the reporting of cost recoverable, or non-cost recoverable, or all expenses for a given ac count.