The USPS is revolutionizing the way mail is prepared and paid for. You will no longer print paper postage statements. The USPS has been hand entering over 14 million postage statements a year. The USPS needs to find ways to cut costs and improve accuracy. Intelligent Mail Full Service will be available in May 2009. You can start submitting your postage statements electronically now and reduce the costs of printing and storing paper documents.
The U.S. Postal Service is revolutionizing the way mail is prepared and paid for. You will no longer print paper postage statements. The USPS has been hand entering over 14 million postage statements a year. The USPS needs to find ways to cut costs and improve accuracy. Intelligent Mail Full Service will be available in May 2009. You can start submitting your postage statements electronically now and reduce the costs of printing and storing paper documents, and be more prepared for Intelligent Mail Full Service.
USPS PostalOne!® provides an online solution for business mailers now. You can transmit electronic postage payments and mailing documents online without having to print paper statements.
This electronic revolution from paper postage statements to electronic postage payment system will yield many benefits to both business mailers and the Postal Service. It will eliminate the time it takes for postal clerks to hand enter postage statements. It gives the USPS a view into what is coming so they can better plan for the flow of mail. It reduces the time it takes you to get your mail accepted because the data will already be at the USPS facility when your mail arrives. It gives you and your mailing stakeholders (mail owner or mailing agent for example) an online view of what has been mailed and accepted.
The postal clerks will no longer have to key in postage data since they would be receiving the information electronically from the mailer. This system has the potential to save the USPS many millions of dollars per year in labor savings and improved accuracy. This will benefit mailers as well by speeding up the acceptance and verification process.
Mail owners can download their statements from PostalOne! and use them for postage accounting and reporting. You can receive your postage data directly from PostalOne! and put it into your accounting systems for postage reconciliation and budget planning. This automated system is much faster and more accurate and you will be able to benefit from postage discounts by exchanging eDocs with the Postal Service.
There are currently three ways to send eDocs using PostalOne! system: Mail.dat®, Wizard Web Services, and Postage Statement Wizard®. Mail.dat is the industry standard database set by IDEAlliance and consists of files which provide information about a mailing. Mail.dat is the most efficient way to update and edit your presort information before transmitting mailing data with the Postal Service. It is ideal for midsize and large mailers.
The Wizard Web Services option is being replaced by Mail.XML in 2009.
Postage Statement Wizard is for small mailings (less than 10,000 pieces) that do not need a qualification report. It is accessed through your web browser and does require you to hand enter most of the data.
Please get going with eDocs and PostalOne! now. It takes time to go through the steps of getting your Mailer ID(s), getting your PostalOne! User ID and password, going through the PostalOne! CAT and parallel testing. You will also need time to train your staff on the new processes and procedures.
It is not a question of if mailers will go to eDocs, it is just a question of when. Now is the time to start and get your approvals. eDocs will help you save time with speedier mail acceptance and verification, give other stakeholders in your mailing (mail owners or mail service providers for example) access to valuable data, reduce tedious manual labor by automating procedures, benefit from improved postage data management, and help USPS reduce its costs (remember we are in a work share cooperative environment).
This revolutionary mailing system will benefit everyone in the long run by enhancing automation, reducing costs, and enabling valuable discounts.
To best prosper from these eDoc solutions, it is best if you have post Presort software to edit your mailing data before you upload it, maintain a database of all postal activity, download the verified postal statements after processed by USPS, manage the data, report on mailing activity, and transmit the data with others in the mailing supply chain.
Mail.dat® or Mail.XML™? Why Not Both!
Which file format should I choose? The answer is really quite simple. Both!
Three Reasons Why You Should Use Mail.dat®
Mail.dat is one of the database file sets that is accepted by the USPS for exchanging electronic mailing information. The information in Mail.dat files is extremely useful in mail verification and acceptance, electronic data storage, transportation planning, and postal document preparation and reporting.
Mail.dat® File Validation: How to Make Sure Your Files are Valid
Good post-presort software will import the files and provide detailed reports of any errors detected. Post-presort software should also allow you to easily locate these errors in the Mail.dat files to make corrections without having to regenerate them.
