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
like
DAT-MAIL™ 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.
Window Book has an 'Intelligent Mail On-Ramp Service' that will take you through
the whole process easily and efficiently. I look forward to helping you get going
with the eDocumentation.
Jeff Peoples
CEO & Founder
Window Book, Inc.
300 Franklin Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
www.windowbook.com
800-524-0380