ink and paper charging

[bazM]

At the moment we have one pot of money which pays for all the ink and paper in all the computers rooms, but we'd like to make departments more responsible for what they print when they book an IT room.

Does anyone charge department for this?

We were thinking of charging a set fee for booking an IT room, we have print manager plus 4 but it would be a pain to have to run a report for every bookable IT lesson.

cheers

[Nij.UK]

i understand PCounter is a very good piece of software where it does all the department costing for you, and then u can generate a report and get departments to pay for there printing.....

I use the one built into Viglen Classlink... and we set teachers and students with print credits, and when they run out, they have to buy more, and if teachers run out, then the ICT dept charges the department for the cost of the print credits

[Geoff]

Only issue with Printer Quota software is if it supports all your printers.

[Nij.UK]

yea i know, that is one issue with Print Quota,

ive just bought some new HP colour lazers, and found that Print Quota doesnt support the drivers from HP

it will only work with PCL 5 and 6 drivers, which is a BIG pain!

[Geoff]

Huh? I thought PCL 5/6 worked on any HP Printer? That's their native printer language. They invented it after all...

[Ric_]

We give the kids £2 of quota at the start of the year and monitor what staff use by using Print Manager Plus.

I use HP printers (PCL 3/5/6 drivers) and all work fine. Colour prints are charged at about 10p/page and B&W are charged at about 1p/page. I worked out the actual printer running costs so different model printers vary slightly in cost.