Balance

The Balance feature lets you charge users for print and copy jobs. Every page costs credits according to a price list, and the cost is deducted from the user's balance. You manage user balances, the policies that decide how users are charged, and the prices.

Related pages

My Balance — what users see.
Balance limitations — which devices, job types and workflows are checked and charged.
Balance on cloud terminals — what users see on the cloud terminal.

Setting up Balance step by step

Setting up Balance — enable Balance, give administrators the permissions they need and set the price of a page.
Balance policies — decide which users are charged and whether they pay from quota, wallet or both.
Managing user balances — see users' balances and transactions, top up and withdraw credits.
PayPal payment gateway — optional: let users buy wallet credit themselves.
External payment system integration — optional: top up and deduct credits from your own application through the API.

Balance types

The balance type of a policy decides which balance the user's jobs are paid from. You choose it for each policy, see Balance policies.

Free — not charged, the user sees no balance.
Quota only — free credit granted by the administrator.
Wallet only — paid credit, topped up by an administrator, bought by the user through a payment gateway, or added by your own application through the API.
Quota and wallet — both balances, quota is spent first, then the wallet.

How credits are charged

Print and copy jobs are charged after they finish. Scan and fax jobs are not charged.
The cost is the number of pages multiplied by the price per page for its color and size. Duplex (2-sided) is charged as 2 pages.
With Quota only, credits are deducted from the quota, with Wallet only from the wallet, and with Quota and wallet from the quota first, then from the wallet. With Free, nothing is charged.
A print job released by someone other than its owner, for example a job shared through My profile › Sharing, is charged to the user who releases it, according to that user's policy. The balance check before the job is released also uses that user's balance.
Each charge appears as a Deduction transaction.

Insufficient balance

Before a print job is released at a device, its cost is compared with the user's balance (quota and wallet together). If the balance does not cover the cost, the job is not released.

The PMC Client also checks the user's balance and informs the user when it does not cover a print job.

Which devices, job types and workflows are checked is listed in Balance limitations.