Patent ID: 7099779

Claim:
A system for monitoring a plurality of printing apparatuses and for unitarily performing management associated with consumables which are used for recording onto a recording medium with respect to each of the plurality of printing apparatuses, comprising: a receiver that receives information on a residual-amount of a consumable from any one of the plurality of printing apparatuses; a selector that selects a residual-amount evaluation method corresponding to a residual-amount outputting method of the consumable that is used by the one printing apparatus based on the information received by said receiver; and a stock manager that manages the number of stocks of the consumable based on an evaluation result obtained by the residual-amount evaluation method selected by said selector, wherein methods available for use as the residual-amount outputting method include a first residual-amount outputting method of outputting residual-amount information detected by residual-amount detecting means provided for the one printing apparatus and a second residual-amount outputting method of outputting residual-amount information based on residual-amount history information stored in a non-volatile storing portion provided for the consumable, wherein said selector selects a first residual-amount evaluation method if the residual-amount outputting method is the first residual-amount outputting method and selects a second residual-amount evaluation method if the residual-amount outputting method is the second residual-amount outputting method, and wherein the first residual-amount method evaluates an interval of toner-low and toner-high statuses and the second residual-amount evaluation method evaluates change in residual amount without evaluation of the interval.