Patent ID: 8311266

Claim:
An image processing apparatus, comprising an image processing section configured to output image data, an accounting table storing: accountings corresponding to a situation in which each image data is output; and a frequency at which image data is output, and an accounting section configured to determine an accounting corresponding to the output of image data using the accounting table, the image data including image data related to coupons and an accounting being set to increase as the frequency for coupon outputs by the same user becomes larger, wherein said accounting section comprises a situation detection section for detecting situations in which image data is output from the image processing section and a frequency detection section for detecting a frequency at which image data is output from the image processing section, wherein said situation detection section detects, based on contents of a user's operating instruction or output information input from the image processing section, a document name to be output and a user name who provides instruction for output of image data, wherein said frequency detection section counts and stores a number of image data outputs based on the image data output by a user who provides instruction for output of image data, and wherein said accounting section determines, based on the document name of image data to be output detected by the situation detection section, whether image data to be output is a coupon or not, and, when the image data to be output is a coupon, determines an accounting, so as to increase as the frequency for coupon outputs becomes larger, based on the number of outputs of coupons by the same user detected by the frequency detection section, using the accounting table.