What does “You are charging to a restricted account” mean?

The full message is “You are charging to a restricted account. Please wait until previous jobs charged to this account have finished.”

PaperCut MF users might see this message on the copier’s panel when a restricted user starts a new job (copy, scan, or print) while a previous job — charged to the same user or Shared Account — is still in progress or has not been fully cleared from the device.

Generally, this behavior is by design. It helps to better control how much your organization can print or copy and manage account balances.

Setting up restricted users and accounts, stops multiple tasks from running at the same time, which makes sure everything is tracked correctly and prevents users from using more credit than you have.

Why stop users from charging?

Common scenarios when this message is displayed include:

• Another job in progress: Sometimes, a job might not be fully completed or cleared from the device’s job list. This can happen due to device errors, paper jams, or a user logging out before job completion. When a job is stuck, the system still considers the job ‘in progress,’ preventing new jobs from starting until the previous one is cleared." Users may need to wait, re-login, or manually clear the job from the device panel. This behavior is intentional to prevent overdrawing the account and to maintain accurate job tracking.
• Restricted user limitations: A restricted user tries to initiate a new action (for example, a scan) while another action (for example, a print) is still running. Restricted users or accounts are not allowed to have multiple jobs in progress at the same time, so the device will block the new job until the previous one is finished. This is a control mechanism to help with accurate tracking and quota management, especially for users with low balances.
• Shared account lock: This can happen when multiple users attempt to use the same restricted shared account at the same time. Only one job can be processed at a time for restricted accounts, so subsequent users will see this error until the previous job is completed.
• Firmware or device issue: In rare cases, device firmware or the PaperCut embedded application might cause jobs to remain “active” longer than expected, leading to this error. Upgrading the device firmware or PaperCut MF version may resolve such issues. If the issue is not resolved with an upgrade, please work with your PaperCut Reseller, Authorized Solution Center, or Partner to reproduce the issue and collect logs from the device for review.

Let restricted accounts go negative

In some cases this behavior can be overridden, allowing restricted users or accounts to go into a negative balance. Some device models allow you to override this restriction by setting a configuration key for the device in the PaperCut admin interface.

Allowed values:

• Default (Defaults to “N”, multiple transactions not permitted. Recommended to ensure restricted users’ account balances do not drop below zero)
• N (Multiple transactions not permitted)
• Y (Multiple transactions permitted)