Data to be printed in accordance with a print instruction is acquired by referring to management information on data containing the storage positions of the data which are managed on storage media and managed in image forming apparatuses on the network including the image forming apparatus and an external image forming apparatus. The acquired data is printed. The first print count when the image forming apparatus acquires the data to be printed from the external image forming apparatus and prints the data in the print step is compared with the second print count of the data in the external image forming apparatus. The data acquired from the external image forming apparatus is stored in a storage device as master data to be managed by the storage device in the image forming apparatus on the basis of the comparison result.