There are a few features that help the tracking of toners process:
▪Any consumable or spare part can be set up with a yield in the stock code, which means Jim2 knows how much each consumable or part should last.
▪Using Jim2 email, take individual meter reads from a Consumable Alert email and add them as a service read, so the contract page count is known.
▪The Consumable preview pane records time between toner supplies for each consumable, last job, last meter read.
The advantage of getting a meter reading each time is that information in Jim2 is as accurate as it can be. Things to consider are:
▪As colour pages also use black toner, the Black Total shown there will in fact be a combined black and colour meter total.
▪Jim2 is calculating a daily average use for each meter and then determining the meter read shown by adding the daily average from the last known meter read to provide an estimate of where the meters would have been. For example: Known Read on January 1 is Black 10,000 Colour 5,000 = Total 15,000. The calculated daily average from previous meter reads in Jim2 may be Black 500 and Colour 100. A job for a black toner is sent to the customer and finished on January 10. The calculated meter read beside that date will be:
–January 1, 10,000 + 5,000 = 15,000
–Plus daily average 500 x 10 days = 5,000 + 100 x 10 days = 1,000 Black + Colour total = 6,000
–Meter reading as at date out of job, is calculated for black toner as 21,000.
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Note: The mention above of date out of job. In the Jim2 job, we can only assume the date the toner was sent to the customer based on the date the job is finished. If you work flow is to invoice consumable jobs at the end of the month, the yield preview pane dates and calculated reads will be inconsistent.
To get as close to reality as possible, it is important to record the first toner supplied with a device when it is new. A lot of manufacturers supply the first toners free. If they are not recorded against the device in Jim2, then numbers are affected. This is complicated even more if the toners are low yield starter toners or if the device is second hand with partly used toners already in the machine. |
The coloured gauges are a quick and easy indicator that a device may be oversupplied with toner and should be checked if the colour is red.
With meter collection tools these days and device alerts it is much easier to gather this information, and it is not hard to condition customers to provide a meter read and contract number at the time of ordering the consumable, or even set up the web pages to reflect the changes.
Follow the links below for further information: