JPH0626430B2 - Equipment - Google Patents

Description

Description: TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to an improvement of a facsimile device.

[Technical background of the invention and its problems]

In recent years, in offices and the like, facsimile machines have come to be used more and more with the promotion of office automation. As a usage pattern, one facsimile machine is shared by a plurality of sections in an office, or a plurality of sections are used. It is common to share it in the office.

However, conventional facsimile machines generally have service functions related to transmission operations such as speed dial and redial, but none have communication management functions such as communication charges. Therefore, as described above, when jointly using in multiple sections or different offices, for example, the sender or the operator in charge writes the destination and the communication time for each transmission, and these are recorded. You have to calculate the telephone charges for each sender from the data,
The management was extremely troublesome. As a technique for solving such a problem, for example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-139565 discloses a management device which automatically calculates and manages communication charges and the like.

In the public telephone network, the communication time per unit charge varies depending on the distance between unit charge areas (MA). Therefore, the management device in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 58-139565 prepares a data table in which the communication time per unit charge is registered in association with the MA, and the communication charge is calculated with reference to this data table. . The data in the above data table is related to each of a large number of MAs, and
Since it is necessary to set the communication time per unit charge when communicating with the device, it has a huge amount of data. Therefore, it is necessary to use a large-capacity memory or the like for the data table, which causes an increase in cost and an increase in complexity and size of the device.

[Object of the Invention]

The present invention provides a facsimile device which simplifies charge management by eliminating the work of calculating communication data such as communication charges, thereby reducing the burden on the operator and saving labor, and which can be realized with a simple configuration. The purpose is to

[Outline of Invention]

The present invention relates to at least a telephone number and a storage means for storing a unit communication time at which a predetermined unit amount of money can be used for communication with a communication partner corresponding to the telephone number, in association with each speed reduction dial number for each communication partner. A communication time measuring means for measuring the communication time during communication, a communication data calculating means, and a recording control means are provided, the communication data calculating means, and the communication time obtained by the communication time measuring means after the communication is finished, At least communication based on the predetermined unit amount of money when communicating with the communication partner of the communication and the unit communication time stored in the storage means corresponding to the speed dial number given for designating the communication partner of the communication. While calculating the fee, the recording control means,
The calculation result by the communication data calculation means is recorded and output in a predetermined form.

Example of Invention

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing the configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. This apparatus includes a reading unit that reads and scans a document by, for example, a line sensor, and an encoding unit 2 that encodes an image signal output from the reading unit.
And the image signal encoded by the encoding unit 2 is modulated by the modulation / demodulation circuit (MODEM) 31 and then the network control circuit (N
CU) 32 to the line 4 and the line 4
A transmission / reception unit 3 that demodulates the encoded image signal that arrives via the network control circuit 32 and then the modulation / demodulation circuit 31; and a decoding unit 5 that decodes the encoded image signal output from the transmission / reception unit 3. The recording unit 6 records and scans the image signal reproduced by the decoding unit 5, and further includes an operation input unit 7, a storage unit 8 and a control circuit 10. Incidentally, 9 is a telephone.

The operation input unit 7 inputs a speed dial number and identification information of a sender at the time of making a call, for example, an identification code for identifying a section such as a department or office, an office, and the like, and a unit amount of a communication fee ( For example, 10 yen),
The telephone number of the transmission partner, the name of the transmission partner, and the unit communication time at which the communication with the transmission partner can be performed with the above unit amount of money are input.

The storage unit 8 is composed of a RAM, stores the unit price of the communication charge input from the operation input unit 7, and stores the telephone number of the transmission partner, the transmission partner name, and the unit communication time in association with the speed dial number. To do. FIG. 3 shows an example of the storage state. The storage unit 8 temporarily stores the communication data calculated by the control circuit 10 described later with the identification code of the sender input at the time of making a call by the operation input unit 7, and also controls the same. The total result of the communication data calculated by the circuit 10 is also stored.

The control circuit 10 has, for example, a microcomputer as a main control unit, and as shown in FIG. 2, in addition to the line control unit 11 and the reading / recording control unit 12 for controlling the operations of the reading unit 1 and the recording unit 6, respectively. A storage control unit 13 that controls writing and reading of various transmission partner information to and from the storage unit 8, a communication time measuring unit 14 that measures the communication time during communication, and a communication data calculating unit 15
It has and. The communication data calculation means 15 calculates the communication frequency and the communication charge, respectively, from the communication time obtained by the time measuring means and the unit communication time and the unit amount of money stored in the storage means 8 each time transmission is completed. Periodically or when a recording output instruction is input by the operation input unit 7, the communication frequency and the communication charge of the transmission performed up to that point are calculated for each sender.

Next, the operation of the device configured as described above will be described according to the control procedure of the control circuit 10. 4. FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing the control procedure of the control circuit 10.

The control circuit 10 uses the steps 4a and 4 during standby.
In step b and step 4c, it is determined whether or not a fixed period (for example, one week or one month) has passed since the previous communication data output time, and whether or not a communication data recording / output instruction operation has been performed on the operation input unit 7. Determining and operation input unit 7
Repeatedly determines whether or not the speed dial operation has been performed.

In this state, for example, when the operator of the sender A operates the speed dial number "1", this speed dial operation is detected by the control circuit 10 in step 4c, and the operator further determines the identification code of the sender A to which the operator belongs. When input, this identification code is input in step 4d and temporarily stored in the storage unit 8 in step 4e. When the storage of this identification code is confirmed, the control circuit 10 first reads out the telephone number (FIG. 3) stored in the storage section 8 in correspondence with the speed dial number "1" in step 4f, and reads this telephone number. Is transmitted to the line 4, and then it is determined in step 4g whether or not the line 4 is connected. When the line 4 is connected, a timer as a communication time measuring means is executed after step 4h. To start. Then, in step 4i, the well-known image signal transmission control is performed, and when the end of transmission is detected in step 4j, the process moves to step 4k to disconnect the line 4, and in step 4l, the timer is stopped to measure the time count. The data is temporarily stored in the storage unit 8 by 4 m.

Then, when one transmission control ends, the control circuit 10
Next, the process proceeds to step 4n, where the frequency is calculated. This frequency is obtained by dividing the communication time measured by the timer by the unit communication time (60 seconds in the example of FIG. 3) corresponding to the transmission partner stored in the storage unit 8. When the calculation of this frequency is completed, the communication charge is calculated by subsequently multiplying the frequency calculated above in step 4o by the unit price stored in the storage unit,
These frequencies and communication charges are stored in the communication data storage areas of the storage unit 8 in step 4p, and the standby state is restored. The frequency and the communication charge are stored with the sender identification code input in steps 4d and 4e at the time of calling. Similarly, the control circuit 10 repeats the transmission control operation each time the speed dial operation is performed, calculates the frequency and the communication charge at the end of each transmission operation, and outputs these calculation results as the sender identification code. It is also stored in the storage unit 8.

When it is detected in step 4a that a certain period of time has elapsed or when a recording output instructing operation is detected in step 4b, the control circuit 10 proceeds to step 4q to perform the total calculation here. . That is, the frequency and the communication charge calculated for each transmission stored in the communication data storage area of the storage unit 8 are added up to the identification code attached to these calculated data, that is, for each sender, and this totalization is performed. The result is stored in the total result storage area of the storage unit 8. still,
At this time, the storage unit 8 stores the frequency of each transmission and the communication area, as well as the total value thereof. Then, when the tabulation calculation is completed, the control circuit 10 proceeds to step 4r and outputs the tabulation result to the recording unit 6 at step 4r to print it on the recording paper as shown in FIG. 5, for example.

In this way, according to the present embodiment, the operator simply registers the unit communication time and the unit amount of money together with the telephone number of the transmission partner at the time of registering the speed dial, and the communication frequency and communication time for each transmission can be easily made as necessary. It is possible to know it, and moreover, it is possible to know the frequency and the communication time in the state of being aggregated for each sender. Therefore, charge management can be greatly simplified compared to the conventional facsimile machine, which has to manually calculate the frequency and communication charge, thereby reducing the burden on the operator and saving labor. Can be achieved. Moreover, in this embodiment, since the communication charge is calculated based on the unit communication time per unit charge, which is registered in association with the speed dial number, each of a large number of MAs communicates with other MAs. In this case, there is no need for a data table in which the communication time per unit charge is set, and therefore a large capacity memory is not required. As a result, it is possible to avoid an increase in cost and complexity and size of the device. Also, since the unit communication time can be easily found based on the speed dial number,
The processing of the control circuit 10 also becomes easy.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment. For example, when the unit communication charge is different between daytime and nighttime, both the unit amount of money and the unit communication time are stored for each transmission partner or area code, respectively, and each of the above two items is stored according to the transmission time. It is also possible to select the appropriate one from the unit price and the unit communication time, and use it for the calculation of the frequency and the communication charge. Furthermore, the tally cycle of communication data may be set arbitrarily according to the user's request,
Moreover, the calculation may be performed in a plurality of cycles.
In addition, various modifications may be made to the types of communication data, the form of recording and outputting of the counting result, the types of information stored and set in the storage unit, the control procedure and control content of the control circuit, etc. without departing from the scope of the present invention. Can be implemented.

〔The invention's effect〕

As described above in detail, according to the present invention, by providing the function of calculating and storing the communication charge, the operation of calculating the communication data such as the communication charge can be unnecessary, and the communication management can be simplified. As a result, the burden on the operator can be reduced and labor can be saved, and in addition, the communication charge and the like are calculated based on the predetermined unit charge and the unit communication time stored in association with the speed dial number for each communication partner. It is possible to provide a facsimile device that can be realized with a simple configuration.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit block diagram showing a configuration of a facsimile apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of a control circuit of the apparatus, and FIG. 3 is stored information stored in a storage unit. FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing an example, FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing a control procedure of the control circuit shown in FIG. 2, and FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram showing an example of a recording result of the aggregated communication data. 1 ... reading unit, 2 ... encoding unit, 3 ... transmission / reception unit, 31
...... Modulation / demodulation circuit, 32 ...... Network control circuit, 4 ...... Line, 5
...... Decoding unit, 6 ... Recording unit, 7 ... Operation input unit, 8 ...
... storage unit, 9 ... telephone, 10 ... control circuit, 11 ...
Circuit control section, 12 ... Read / write control section, 13 ... Storage control section, 14 ... Communication time measuring means, 15 ... Communication data calculating means.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Storage means for storing at least a telephone number and a unit communication time at which communication is possible with a predetermined unit amount when communicating with a communication partner corresponding to this telephone number, in association with each communication partner with a speed dial number. , A communication time measuring means for measuring the communication time during communication, a communication time obtained by the communication time measuring means after the communication is completed, the predetermined unit amount of money when communicating with a communication partner of the communication, and the communication Communication data calculation means for calculating at least a communication charge from the unit communication time stored in the storage means corresponding to the speed dial number given for designating a communication partner, and a calculation result by the communication data calculation means. A facsimile apparatus, comprising: a recording control means for recording and outputting in a predetermined form.