How CASS Certification And Software Can Help Your Business
What Is CASS Certification And How It Helps Us
Generally speaking, CASS or Coding Accuracy Support System is a software which helps the Postal Services to measure the efficacy of the software which maintains the hygiene of addresses. All vendors and mailers who would like to be enabled to have the USPS evaluate the efficiency of their software which matches addresses, can be offered CASS Certification.
CASS software also helps promote and improve the accuracy of the mailers’ Zip+4 carrier route along with the 5-digit coding. It enables the vendors or mailers to test the capability of their address-matching software packages. After a certain modicum of compatibility is achieved, it is ready to be certified by the Postal Services.
The CASS Certification has to be certified annually with the USPS so as to be able to meet the requirements of the current CASS Certification. The results are then returned to the mailers/vendors to enable them to correct inaccuracies by providing them with useful diagnostic methods.
To go into the detailed workings of this software, one must first look at the benefits offered by the adoption of this software. The advantages of this software are many.
CASS software corrects and standardizes addresses and also adds the missing elements like zip codes, cities and states to make the total address complete.
A ‘delivery point validation’, which means, that the software can verify whether a given address is deliverable or not is also possible with this software.
It can also bring the addresses which have been renamed or renumbered up-to-date by accessing the USPS ‘locatable address conversion system’. The correct address saves the Postal Services a lot of time, money and effort.
The futility of non-deliverable mail, unsorted mail is reduced. Also, mail which can be delivered but requires that extra push to locate the exact location is also taken care of by this software.
The debugging and cleaning of the mailing list is possible with this type of software.
The USPS offers discounted postage tariffs to those who use the CASS software.
However, to be eligible for the discounted postage packages, the mailer’s address list has to be verified against the Postal Services USPS database. This verification is termed “CASS Certification” and it ensures that every address on the list can be delivered to. This certification requires some points to be cleared before being accredited by the CASS certificate. Some of them include getting the mailing list checked by the Mail Preparation Services, signing a declaration that each address on the mailing list has been checked by the USPS or the address has been mailed to within one calendar year. All addresses on each list are also required to be corrected.
A major point to keep in mind while wishing to have the mailing list totally updated and current, is to send a mailing First Class or Standard with the endorsement ‘address service requested’. In case of any addresses being incorrect, information will come from the Postal services.
CASS has certainly simplified the mailing process and the tedium and futility of incorrect or undeliverable addresses has been reduced to a large extent.