Patent ID: 8027441

Claim:
A method of automatically accounting for activities in a system comprising a telephone handset, comprising: automatically associating use of the telephone handset with a first user; allowing the first user to perform a call through use of the telephone handset without providing billing information relating to the call; automatically collecting data concerning the nature of the call; automatically determining a cost for making the call, defined as unbilled call cost information; communicating the unbilled call cost information related to the cost of making the telephone call automatically to at least one computer associated with the first user through a network, the at least one computer and telephone handset being without restriction with respect to physical proximity to each other; and prompting a billing user, who may or may not be the first user, to input billing data into a billing database, which billing data is related to the cost information which was automatically communicated to the at least one computer associated with the first user and which automatically communicated cost information is made available at least in part to the billing user for input of the billing data.