Account charging and limits

In Equitrac, you can enforce account charging limits for any combination of user, department, or billing code accounts. A charging limit is a minimum balance an account must maintain in order to gain access to devices and perform transactions.

When printing documents, Equitrac charges the account when the job is first submitted to print, rather than when it is released at an embedded device. Account limits ensure that there is sufficient funds in the account to pay for print jobs before they are released from the queue. When enforcing limits, if an account balance falls below its specified limit, Equitrac can notify the user of insufficient funds at print time. See Selecting Notification Methods for details on configuring error notifications.

At release time, accounts with insufficient funds can open a user session but cannot release print jobs in the queue. Devices connected to Campus Card systems can display an insufficient funds prompt if Session Cost is enabled on the CAS.

When CAS is configured to enforce account limits, and the account balance falls below its specified limit, Equitrac denies that user access to the device.

To configure Equitrac to enforce charging account limits for any combination of user, department, or billing codes, do the following:

  1. In System Configuration, select Global Configuration Settings > Accounting and Quotas > Charging, Limits and Precision.
  2. Under Account Limits, select the account(s) to Enforce account limits against.
  3. Click Apply.
    If Desktop Printing is configured in Workstation Client, account limits are not enforced for jobs printed to locally connected printers.