Machine incorporating an accounts verification system

Abstract

The postage meter incorporates an accounts verification system which ensures that an authority, such as the U.K. General Post Office, is provided with regular and accurate readings without the need for a meter, such as a postage meter, to be read by the authority's inspector. The account verification provides for a system in which the meter is disabled at preset intervals and in which operation of the meter for the next interval is conditional upon the user providing an accurate meter reading to the authority. The meter includes a funding register and a machine inhibiting system. The machine inhibiting system is operable to inhibit operation of the meter following a predetermined period of time or a predetermined number of machine cycles of operation of the machine. A processor system is provided for generating a code dependent on the accounting data stored in the funding register. The processing system is also programmed for comparing said internally generated code with an independently and externally generated code and for resetting the inhibiting system to allow operation of the meter for a further predetermined period of time or predetermined number of cycles of operation of the meter when the internal code and the external code correspond.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.