How Printer Pages Are Counted and Billed (Mono, Colour and Accent Colour)

Counting starts when the printer is claimed

Plenix counts pages only from the moment a printer is claimed for a customer. Pages printed before that are never counted or billed. The printer's overview shows Managed since with the exact date and time.

If you move a printer to a different customer, or release it and claim it again, counting starts again from that moment. Pages from the previous customer are never carried over.

Mono, colour and accent colour

Many HP business printers (PageWide and some LaserJets) sort every page into three groups:

• Mono – black only.
• Full colour – normal colour pages.
• Accent colour – a mostly black page with a small amount of colour, such as a coloured logo, a blue hyperlink or one line of coloured text.

The printer itself counts an accent colour page as colour. A document that looks black and white on screen can still be printed as accent colour if it has a link, a coloured signature or a coloured logo in it.

Plenix keeps accent colour pages separate, so the Colour tile on the overview shows "N full · M accent", and the Usage tab lists them separately.

Choose how accent colour is billed

Open the printer's Billing tab and set Accent colour pages to one of:

• Bill at the colour rate – the default, matching how the printer counts them.
• Bill at the mono rate – treat accent pages as black and white.
• Bill at their own accent rate – enter a price between your mono and colour prices.

The bill summary and draft invoices show the accent charge on its own line. Printers that don't report accent colour bill all colour pages at the colour rate.

Check what the printer counted: the print job log

The printer's overview has a Print jobs card listing each job the printer reports: time, document name, user, pages and whether the printer counted it as mono, accent or full colour. Tick Colour jobs only to find colour jobs quickly when a customer queries a bill. The job log needs agent 3.71.0 or later at the customer's site and a printer that publishes a job log (HP LEDM printers do).

Stop accidental colour printing

If a customer only wants black and white, use Make B&W the default in the Engineer controls on the overview. Windows PCs that print to this printer then default to grayscale. See Printer Engineer Controls.

Where to go next

• Printer Engineer Controls
• Monitor Toner Levels