American Reprographics Company (ARC) has announced a major upgrade to its AbacusPCR print cost recovery software. Used for keeping track of printing costs and reimbursable print jobs in an office environment, the Company highlighted the software's new features and functionality while maintaining the easy-to-use interface that has been a hallmark of the application since its general release in 2008.
"Once users see how much money they can recover by tracking reimbursable print costs, demand for expanded tracking capabilities spikes quickly," said Jonathan Styrlund, product manager for AbacusPCR. "While simplicity is the key to Abacus's popularity, once users see the potential for greater profitability, they want to capture more and different kinds of data from a greater variety of other systems. Our new functions go a long way toward addressing those needs."
ARC's CTO, Rahul Roy, said, "Our technology objectives are completely aligned with our goals as document management partner: to relieve our customers' pain points in print cost recovery, and to deliver the best solutions in the market place. Every enhancement of AbacusPCR was requested by customers and is designed to increase their profitability and reduce their costs."
New features in the latest release include:
¬Print Retrieval—allows administrators to hold print jobs in a printer's queue until the recipient is physically at the printer to retrieve them in order to avoid forgotten or wasted printing, and to increase security for confidential documents.
—Rules-Based Printing—sets permissions and parameters for print jobs to limit device access or to redirect large jobs to lower-cost devices.
—Color Recognition—detects color vs. B&W print jobs, improving tracking accuracy and potentially increasing reimbursables.
—Print Validation—gives print network managers the ability to mandate print tracking as a part of each print request, prior to the print production, raising awareness and minimizing unnecessary printing.
—Cisco Call Manager & additional device integrations—allows the ability to track job-related phone calls and other non-printing functions such as laser cutters and other production equipment.
—Third-Party Integration—includes the ability to assign project information from applications such as Newforma or when submitting using PlanWell EWO to reduce redundant data entry and enhance the level of detail assigned to a print job.
—Additional embedded support —Embedded copy-tracking solutions are now available for equipment from Oce, KIP, Canon, Ricoh/Savin, Xerox, Konica/Minolta and Sharp expanding AbacusPCR's capabilities and improving ease-of-use for users. External touch pad solutions are available for most other manufacturers.