HP Access Control - Manual (Page 68)

8 Manage print costs
8.1 Cost control overview
One of the main HP Access Control (HP AC) Job Accounting benefits is its ability to produce extremely
accurate printing cost information and employ enterprise-level print cost control solutions in your
organization. The cost of a printer is linked to many factors:
● Accessories
● Maintenance
● Technology (such as whether it is a laser printer)
● Color
● Quality
● Speed
● Depreciation time
Each of these factors involves a cost, which determines the cost of each printed page. To secure accurate
billing, the exact number of printed pages and associated costs must be determined. After this information is
compiled, the cost of a print job can be calculated. If the cost of any printer, media, or other element is
updated or modified, the resulting cost of all print jobs related to this printer, media, or other element will
also be dynamically updated.
CAUTION: The cost of media is independent of the printer. Media cost depends on the price of the paper in
this particular format and quality. HP Access Control (HP AC) Job Accounting automatically calculates the cost
of a print job according to the defined costs and the number of printed pages.
In addition to calculating the actual price of each print job or page, HP Access Control (HP AC) Job Accounting
also enables you to assign a fixed cost to a print job or to a printed page. These user-defined costs do not
take into account the real price involved in the print process, but rather printing characteristics, such as the
media or the color mode. For more information on these fixed costs, see the Define fixed costs section of this
guide.
You must enter the cost of all printers and media if you want to launch queries related to costs. If any of this
information is missing, all your query results containing cost information will be inaccurate.
CAUTION: If a printer’s purchase price has been defined for a printer using a printer template, it is not
necessary to redefine this cost, since it automatically becomes the real purchase price for this printer.
54 Chapter 8 Manage print costs