Patent ID: 8306877

Claim:
A method for managing prepaid consumable return refund programs for at least one document processing device configured to allow customer initiated operation based on available print units applied to the device, the method comprising: storing account information in a data store for a plurality of accounts, the individual accounts being associated with a corresponding customer, the account information for individual accounts comprising an available credits value indicating an amount of account credits currently available to the account; using a computer processor, determining an association of a consumable with a particular customer account; and using the computer processor, automatically adding credits to the particular customer account and adding a corresponding number of new credits to the available credits value for the particular account for a full or partial return refund associated with the consumable; wherein the account information for individual accounts further comprises current pricing information including at least one conversion factor for converting account credits available to the account to print units for specific document processing devices registered to the account: the method further comprising: using the computer processor, determining an association of the consumable with a particular document processing device, and using the computer processor, automatically applying print units to the particular document processing device associated with the specific account by converting a number credits currently available to the specific account into a number of print units according to the specified document processing device and the current pricing information for the specific account for a full or partial return refund associated with the consumable; wherein the computer processor determines the association of the consumable with the particular document processing device at least partially based on the account information; and wherein the account information for individual accounts further comprises registered device information including device subaccount information for a plurality of device subaccounts individually associated with a particular document processing device registered by the customer to the account, the device subaccount information for individual device subaccounts including document processing device identity information identifying the particular document processing device registered by the customer to the account and total print units used information indicating the number of print units used by the particular document processing device, and wherein the computer processor determines the association of the consumable with the particular document processing device at least partially based on the total print units used information of the account information.