Patent ID: 7760382

Claim:
An image forming system comprising: an image forming apparatus that accepts a job for instructing an image formation and executes the image formation on a sheet based upon the accepted job; and a management apparatus that is connected to said image forming apparatus and manages information relating to a user of said image forming apparatus, wherein said image forming apparatus comprises: an accepting unit for accepting a user ID relating to the user when accepting the job for instructing the image formation; a transmitting unit for transmitting the accepted user ID to said management apparatus; a counting unit for counting the number of image formation; and a storing unit for aggregating the number of image formation for each department ID of each group to which each user belongs, and storing the aggregated number of image formation as associated with each department ID, said management apparatus comprises: a storing unit for storing plural pieces of information according to the user ID and the department ID, the department ID being associated with the user ID and generated at random; a receiving unit for receiving the user ID transmitted from said image forming apparatus; a search unit for searching for the department ID associated with the received user ID from the storing unit; and a transmitting unit for transmitting the searched department ID to said image forming apparatus, and a generating unit for generating a random number, generating department IDs of all groups to be stored based upon the generated random number, and setting the generated department IDs in the storing unit as associated with each user ID, and said management apparatus extracts a department ID of a group allowed to use the image forming apparatus from the department IDs generated by the generating unit, and notifies the image forming apparatus of the extracted department ID as a department ID for renewing so as to renew the department ID in the storing unit of the image forming apparatus, and said image forming apparatus executes the image formation when receiving the department ID transmitted from said management apparatus, and renews the department ID in the storing unit with the department ID for renewing when being notified of the department ID for renewing from the management apparatus.