Patent ID: 7475031

Claim:
A communication interface between an accounting application and a printer agent application executing on a computer network, the interface comprising: application programming interface (API) functions exchanged and bound between applications that provide accounting support services, wherein the accounting support services are directed to a print job, and the print job is directly received by a printer agent from a print client, the printer agent and the accounting support services reside on a server within a network, and wherein the accounting support services include tracking production of the print job and computer network resources consumed by the job, the API functions comprising a first print service API that is called by the printer agent before the print job is created and sent to a printer and that enables the accounting application to one of reject the print job, accept the print job and instruct the printer agent to place an accounting hold on the print job, and wherein the accounting support services are separate and apart from the printer agent and the printer agent is separate and apart from the printer.