US Patent 7904394 Documenting mail work flow

Exemplary systems and methods for documenting mail work flows are provided. A mailing label is read and the label information stored in a database. Additional information about the mailing service may be added to the database. Billing and/or delivery information is added to the database. A mailing label is read at a postage machine and postage information including a rate is associated to the mailing label. The label information from the mailing label and the associated postage information are compared so that records having matching information can be reported together for billing of the mailing services. The records are updatable as well to provide for article tracking.