When to use job accounting

These methods help you determine whether you should use job accounting and when to use job accounting.

Additional information supplied by job accounting

Job accounting has all the information supplied by CPF1164 plus:
  • Accounting code
  • Number of print files, lines, and pages created by programs
  • Number of database read, write, and update operations
  • Number of communications read and write operations
  • Actual lines and pages printed
  • Time the job was active and suspended
  • Actual number of bytes of control information and print data sent to the printer

The job accounting function is more effective for gathering job accounting statistics if:

  • The resource information regarding database, printer, and communications use is important.
  • Accounting codes are assigned to users or jobs.
  • The information for printed output is important.
  • Job accounting must be done on an accounting segment basis in a job rather than on a complete job basis.
  • The active and suspended time information is needed.
Note: Some statistics recorded in the CPF1164 message and the JB journal entries will not match exactly. This is due mainly to two factors: (1) CPF1164 statistics are recorded slightly before the JB journal statistics and (2) each time an accounting code is changed, rounding occurs for some fields, while rounding occurs only once for CPF1164 messages.