Standard Meter Setup
Provided a valid Machine Type is selected, there will be a Meter Setup tab at the bottom of the Machine. Select the Meter Setup tab, and let's create a Standard Meter setup for a Colour MFD.
Stock must be set up prior to adding meters, including macro descriptions on the Machines tab.
Example Macros
{{Project.Meter.Counter Name" "}}{{"Last Read - "Project.Meter.Job.Previous Job.Meter Read" "}}{{"Last Estimated Read - "Project.Meter.Job.Previous Job.Estimated Meter Read" "}}{{Project.Meter.Job.Previous Job.Date Due" "}}{{"Current Read - "Project.Meter.Job.Meter Read" "}}{{"Estimated Read - "Project.Meter.Job.Estimated Meter Read" "}}{{"Prints - "Project.Meter.Job.Qty" "}}{{"Estimated Prints - "Project.Meter.Job.Estimated Qty" "}}
Meter Names are free type, however once you have entered a meter name it will appear in the list. In this case, meter types are just standard black and colour. You will notice that in the Billing Stock Code list, only valid billing stock codes can be selected. This means that on a black machine, a colour billing code cannot be selected by mistake, nor an unders billing code used in standard billing. Whether the code appears or not in the list depends on the billing code set up on the Machine tab of the stock code set to Black Standard or not.
For now, ignore the Unders and Overs columns, and scroll right out to the right-hand side to see the Service Meter setup and Current Meter Count.
Opening Balance Meters
As it is common for a machine to have standard, unders and overs billing, it is necessary to set opening balances for each of these values. This is done by setting an opening balance for the stock assigned to the particular charge type. A typical photocopier would only have an opening balance set for the stock of its standard meter.
Using the above example, go to the Open Balance tab at the bottom of the form.
This allows the black meter and black service meters to have independent opening balances. For these two meter types it has little practical impact, as service reads are always charged at $0.00, but it does become more important when unders and overs stock are assigned an opening balance.
Jim2 tracks average or estimated reads for machines using Unders stock. This means that a simple cost per copy machine setup that allows averages may look similar to this:
If this machine was being created in Jim2 for the first time, and had previously had a recorded read of 40,000 black pages, and a subsequent estimated read of 10,000 pages, you would set up its opening balance tab as follows:
The inclusion of a price for the Unders is only required where either of the historical rates of clawback are used (ABH, OBH or AUH, OUH). If either of the current methods of clawback is used (ABC, OBC or AUC, OUC), then only the page count is required. If supplied, the read/purchase date indicates the last time a read was performed. The above grid shows an actual read was recorded on 1st July, but an estimate was supplied the following month on 1st August.
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When adding an Overs opening balance, you will receive a warning that the suggests value might be incorrect:
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Multiple Counter Setups
Even machines with multiple counters are easy to set up. Let's take a machine that has both A4 and A3 counters on it.
Some machines, such as the Fuji Xerox ColourQube have similar setups:
Further information: