Patent ID: 8130396

Claim:
An image formation management system, comprising: image forming apparatuses for forming images according to image formation jobs; and a management apparatus connected via a network to the image forming apparatuses and configured to manage the use of the image forming apparatuses; wherein each of the image forming apparatuses includes a number-of-image-formation-pages storing unit configured to store current numbers of image formation pages of users of the each of the image forming apparatuses, an image formation permission information storing unit configured to store image formation permission information of the users, and an image formation control unit configured to determine whether to allow the users to perform image formation based on the image formation permission information, to count numbers of image formation pages of the allowed users, and to update the current numbers of image formation pages in the number-of-image-formation-pages storing unit based on the counted numbers of image formation pages; and the management apparatus includes a management information storing unit configured to store a total maximum number of image formation pages for each of groups to which the users belong, and a permission control unit configured to obtain the current numbers of image formation pages of the users belonging to the each of the groups from the image forming apparatuses at predetermined timings, to calculate a total number of image formation pages of the each of the groups by adding up the current numbers of image formation pages, to determine whether the total number of image formation pages is equal to or larger than the total maximum number of image formation pages, and to request the image forming apparatuses to set the image formation permission information of the users belonging to the each of the groups to false if the total number of image formation pages is equal to or larger than the total maximum number of image formation pages; wherein the image formation control unit of each of the image forming apparatuses is configured to set the image formation permission information of the corresponding users in the image formation permission information storing unit to false when requested by the permission control unit.