 What’s
the Latest Low Down on CASS Processing?
The U.S. Postal Service® recently reminded vendors
and users of CASS Certified™ address correction
software that mailings will receive CASS-related
discounts only if the DPV™ (delivery point
validation) process confirms the address, beginning
in August 2007. Learn what CASS processing does and
how to qualify your mailings for postal automation
discounts.
The hope is that the new system will wipe out the
need to manually process the mail because of wrong
primary numbers, which in turn, will improve
addressing for mailers.
There are 145 million confirmed delivery points in
the USA today.
CASS processing was originally implemented by the
USPS® to govern the preparation of bulk mailings. In
the simplest terms, CASS is responsible for address
hygiene and routing information that lowers postage
costs, speeds delivery and reduces undeliverable
mail.
What exactly does CASS processing do?
1. Cleanses and standardizes each element of an
address to meet USPS standards for format and
content.
2. Verifies input addresses and adds the proper
postal information to produce a USPS compliant
address. This includes ZIP CodeTM, ZIP + 4® code,
carrier route code, delivery point and Line of
Travel (LOT) information. These codes are required
to print the POSTNET™ on each mail piece necessary
for your Automation discounts.
3. Adds some missing address information, corrects
misspelled misspelled street and city names and
standardizes addresses into a format that's readable
by USPS automation equipment.
4. Results in the production of a CASS Form 3553
postal report which is submitted with your mailings
that qualified for automation discounts.
In order to qualify your mailings for discounts, you
must use a current address-matching search engine
from a vendor that is CASS Certified by the USPS,
such as Melissa Data.
The database of the ZIP + 4 codes in the Melissa
Data Address Object expires every 90 days. Once the
expiration date has passed, you will not be able to
append the +4 code or produce the CASS form. You
will need to purchase a new update of the CASS
Certified Object with a refreshed database.
According to the USPS, there are about 25,000
5-digit ZIP Code changes on a monthly basis. It’s
easy to understand why you need to update the
software or Object for CASS certification.
Melissa Data has a method called GetCassForm() which
allows developers to generate the form as an HTML
file. Also, all the individual properties are
available from PS3553, which allows developers to
populate their own CASS form.
What doesn’t CASS processing do?
It doesn’t guarantee that your mail will be
delivered because the address was only verified to
be accurate for a street range, not a specific point
of delivery.
For instance, if the address you’re mailing to is
123 Main Street, Everytown, Calif. 90210 – you will
get the ZIP+4 Code for the “street range” of the
address. The CASS system validates that the address
falls within the range from 100 to 199, but it
doesn’t identify that it is an actual delivery
point.
So what’s the solution? According to USPS, using DPV
in conjunction with ZIP + 4 processing can identify
individual addresses in your mailing list that will
not be delivered as addressed. In a nutshell, only a
DPV-enabled CASS address matching software program
will be able to determine if the actual address is a
valid delivery point.
Click here for more information on CASS Certified™ address
correction tools
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