Patent ID: 7987119

Claim:
A mailpiece inventory management system comprising: a franking machine; a database of mailpiece types; a mailpiece identification system coupled to the franking machine, said mailpiece identification system comprising a scanner adapted to identify the type of each mailpiece franked by the franking machine from among a plurality of mailpiece types defined by the database of mailpiece types; a plurality of mailpiece counters in the franking machine, each mailpiece counter associated with a type of mailpiece and incremented when a particular type of mailpiece as identified by the mailpiece identification system is franked by the franking machine; and a notification system adapted to notify a user of the system when a level of a first type of mailpiece inventory is below a predetermined level, based upon a comparison of one of the plurality of mailpiece counters to the predetermined level for the first type of mailpiece stored in the administration system, said one of the plurality of mailpiece counters being assigned to the first type of mailpiece and incremented when the first type of mailpiece as identified by the mailpiece identification system is franked by the franking machine.