Abstract: An asynchronous two-dimensional limiting cost recovery system includes an expense activity sent from a client computer to a server computer. The extracted data is sent to a central message queue, where the client computer reads the data and graphically notifies the user of unbilled expense activity. An administrator defines a quota which determines how many unbilled expense activities can exist for a given user before a mandatory billing interface is displayed regardless of how much time it took to complete those activities, or defines a maximum time duration which determines how much time a user is given before a mandatory billing interface is displayed regardless of how many expense activities were completed, or both, whichever occurs first. A “snooze” option works in conjunction with the quota and maximum time duration limitations.

Abstract: The disclosed print tracking software takes the process of asynchronous print analysis currently available in the prior art in which the final print tracking events, such as billing and enforcement, occur in a nonlinear, non-sequential or non-temporal fashion, and expands on this model by achieving similar non-linearity at the front-end analysis phase by re-arranging the timing in which the printing and print analysis takes place within the print software. A print stream extraction component places print stream data from a print job in a known cache location. The print job continues to a printer while independently a software monitor component checks for new cache data and if new cache data is found, invokes an analyzer component which writes print related statistics to a data store for subsequent billing and reporting purposes.