An expense recovery system for a digital MFD in the form of a modification to the application program interface of the MFD to allow input of identifiers for the user, the client and the job and to transmit this information and other transaction data to a host computer for billing purposes. Data entry is made faster and more accurate by minimizing keystrokes. The information is transmitted over a network and, optionally, the host computer may be located remote from the MFD.