So any of you IT peeps have experience with print management solutions for Windows networks? I'm looking for something in which I can give the users X number of free pages and then charge for anything over the free amount. Here's the catch, the charging needs to be done against internal debit cards and card readers not simple billing codes.

We've been using PCounter and it worked pretty good. It's debit and card reader functionality, however, are not meeting our requirements.

 

Yes....we're in the process deploying Deibold's CSPRINT. Same situation. Free prints and then charge users by having them swiping mag stripe internal card. So far so good. Only problems have been with the accounting functionality with newer canon printers. However, diebold has been good for support. We send spool files and then they send back patches to the product.

 

it's sad that companies have to implement this but i agree with charging users. computers were suppose to reduce the amount of paper used but has only help to increase it. i see people print out documents just to read, i mean wtf its on the f'ing screen.

 

Its actually much easier for me to read something on paper.

Atleast I don't print out copies of AcuraZine.

 

welp we spent nearly $500k in supporting devicies and printing consumables. Printing needs to be controlled. Our goal isn't to screw the user but to make sure people don't abuse what we give away for free.

 

We also tried the Equitrac print system and the software was terrible. It didn't scale well at all.

 

Thanks for the input gents. I'm going to give Diebold a ring tomorrow and talk to them about the product Zapata mentioned. My needs are for student printing at the law school where I work. If this were a business we could just set rules and discipline people who don't abide by them. Academia is a whole other ball of wax.

 

Billiam,
welp this will work very well for you. We have it setup so users get a free prints and then when free credits are used up the system automatically fails over to the users "cash" account. If you have any additional hardware/software questions etc., questions let me know. We can take it to email.