Overview


Accurate addresses are necessary to get your mail delivered.  Inaccurate addresses waste your time and money. Accurate addresses are required in order to mail at Marketing Mail (Bulk) or Presorted First-Class rates, which give you substantial postage discounts. To help you maintain address accuracy, printers and mail service providers offer customers certified address matching software service (CASS or NCOAlink), which will improve your addresses as well as certify them for Marketing Mail (bulk) mailings. This software is for U.S. addresses only and checks every address against the U. S. Postal Service National Address Database. The software validates addresses and Zip Codes (CASS and DPV), as well as matching names to addresses (NCOA Link). It will also automatically arrange your addresses for presorting when printing labels saving you time, check for duplicates and, if you desire, it will provide for preprinting the required Intelligent Mail barcode for automation mailings and even bigger postage discounts. 

Address "Move Update" Requirement

As indicated in the Bulk and Presorted First-Class Mail link of this guide, U. S. Postal Service “Move Update” regulations require that addresses used by UWF offices, organizations and departments must be updated within 95 days  prior to a mailing in order to use and qualify for Marketing and Presorted First-Class Mail (bulk mail) discounted rates. There is no exception to this requirement. In fact, the Postage Statement submitted with the discounted mailings must be signed certifying, under penalty of law, that the addresses have been updated as required. UWF Postal Services does not provide this service, but maintains a list of providers if needed for automated mailings. Off-campus print shops and mail service providers will provide this service at a cost to the mailer.  Manual, non-automated, bulk mailings by departments must also meet this requirement and can use endorsements on the envelopes to qualify as described in the Bulk and Presorted First-Class Mail link.  When departments receive new or updated addresses from the USPS the address database must be updated as well with the changes. Departments must set up a process for making changes to the database, to continue to qualify for discounts. Call UWF Postal Services for more information at 474-3211 or 474-2437.

CASS Certification

The use of Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) and Delivery Point Validation (DPV) certified software is an approved method of updating ZIP codes and addresses. While using a manual method of updating ZIP codes and addresses is authorized within the last 95 days of a bulk mailing, as described in the Bulk and Presorted First-Class Mail link, mailers may find it less time consuming and more accurate to use CASS/DPV to verify address lists using a mail service or print shop provider.  This software is updated every 3 months to insure addresses are current and accurate. UWF mailers may submit their address lists to these providers in an email MS Excel attachment in order to have the addresses and ZIP Codes updated and “cleansed”. Cleansed means that the street addresses will be matched to the ZIP codes and checked for validity, that the street names, directional indicators, suffixes, spelling, punctuation, abbreviations, format, etc. will be checked for accuracy and updated, names and addresses will be matched and validated, and that duplicate addresses will be identified. Addresses will be automatically corrected if necessary.

Address Data Base Specifications

When submitting your address list to a provider for updating, CASS/DPV certification, and NCOA Link verification of your mailing addresses, you should provide the following: 

  1. Submit it as an email attachment (MS Excel format preferred).
  2. Identify on the first line on your list standard address fields. Examples of standard fields are: Company, Salutation, First Name, Middle Initial, Last Name, Full Name, Street, Unit,
    City, State,  ZIP and ZIP+4.
  3. Provide the name of your file type - MS Excel file preferred. The following file types can be used if necessary, but are not preferred:
    1. ASCII Comma Delimited.txt
    2. ASCII Tab Delimited.txt
    3. DBF
    4. Excel 2.0, 3.0, 4.0,  5.0
    5. Lotus  1.0, 2.0, 3.0
    6. Symphony  1.0,1.1, 1.2
  4. Provide the name of your file and total number of addresses in the file.
  5. Make sure that your list will have at least 200 validated addresses for Standard Mail and 500 for Presorted First-Class Mail.
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