A method for franking packages individually supplied from a stack on a conveyor line to a franking machine, such as envelopes, mailing bags, sleeves, cards, labels, printed products, or the like, which are removed at the lower side of the stack for separation and which are supplied on the upstream conveyor line to a printing mechanism of the franking machine and which, after printing of the packages, are discharged from the franking machine. The packages are supplied on the conveyor portion via a switch to the franking machine and after printing are supplied counter to the supply direction from the printing mechanism of the franking machine via the transposed switch of a depositing device which is provided therebelow for printed packages.

A system for printing an imprint on a flat material includes a cartridge holding a consumable (e.g. ink) and at least one material processing device (MPD) (e.g. franking machine) having a printer and a data processor connected to the printer to control use of the cartridge to produce the imprint. The MPD is configured to detect insertion of the cartridge into the printer and generate current consumption information representing the use of the cartridge by the printer since insertion. The cartridge can include a first non-volatile memory that (unchangeably) stores a unique cartridge identification of the cartridge. The data processor is configured to: cause, based on a predeterminable usage-relevant event occurring, a current use-information, generated based on the current consumption information logically linked to the cartridge identification, to be stored in a second memory, and write to an irreversibly writable memory area of the first memory when the event occurs.