In response to a fee payment request issued from an applicant apparatus via
a communication network, a payment acceptance server makes a payment
credit inquiry of an applicant to a financial institution server. When a
payment acceptance server judges that a payment by the applicant is
quaranteed, the payment acceptance server transmits to an applicant
apparatus, an electronic payment certificate corresponding to a stamp, or
an inspection sticker. A document with the payment certificate is
transmitted from either the applicant apparatus or an agent apparatus to a
document acceptance server via the communication network. Before a main
body of the document is received, the document acceptance server receives
from the document transmitting apparatus, compressed data which is
acquired by applying one-way cryptographic function, and sets this
reception timing as acceptance day/time this document.
