The introduction of the nine-digit zip code in 1983 ushered in a substantial improvement in mail delivery. The additional 4 digits allow each street (and sometimes each house or apartment building) to have its own unique zip code, dramatically improving the accuracy of both automated mail processing and sorting at the local post office.

As mail delivery has gotten increasingly automated, the U.S. Postal Service has become more stringent about requiring addresses to follow specific formats. For example, while addresses such as “Rural Route 1” used to be fine, today the USPS wants all addresses to use modern street names.

Fortunately, using CASS Certification software makes this easy. CASS, which stands for Coding Accuracy Support System, standardizes the addresses on your mailing list by fixing street and city misspellings, confirming the carrier route, checking zip codes, appending ZIP+4 codes as necessary, and creating an accurate delivery point barcode.

This pre-processing is considered so crucial that in order for your mailing to qualify for reduced postal rates, the USPS requires your list to be CASS Certified no more than 180 days prior to the mailing date. And to obtain the maximum CASS discounts, your list should be run every 90 days.

Using CASS also helps your company save money in another way. Because it standardizes all addresses, duplicate addresses are more likely to be identified during merge purge operations after CASS processing.

Your postal logistics company can process your list through CASS for you or you can do it yourself by purchasing CASS-Certification software. If you’d like to learn more about how working with MMI Direct would save you both time and money, please call (310) 372-9010.

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