Link to "1 Introduction to the Publication for Streamlined Mail Acceptance for Letters and Flats" Link to contents for "1 Introduction to the Publication for Streamlined Mail Acceptance for Letters and Flats"      Link to "2 Intelligent Mail Full-Service"

1-1 Streamlined Mail Acceptance

The Postal Service has several key initiatives to streamline the acceptance, induction, and verification of commercial card, letter, and flat mailings: Intelligent Mail Full-Service, Move Update, Electronic Induction (eInduction), and Seamless Acceptance. These key initiatives leverage existing technology to do the following:

  1. Improve mail quality by sharing information on mail preparation, identification of trends, and trend-based quality measurements.
  2. Simplify the induction of mailings through automated and standardized acceptance, verification, and induction processes.
  3. Provide end-to-end visibility through scan data.
  4. Enable mailers, through an account management portal, to manage account activities, view account balances, and generate reports based on mailings.

Streamlined mail acceptance is achieved through the adoption and implementation of the Postal Service’s key initiatives, including the following:

  1. Intelligent Mail Full-Service: Full-Service uses Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb) on mail containers, handling units (trays, sacks), and mailpieces to provide end-to-end visibility into the mailstream. First-Class Mail (cards, letters, and flats), Periodicals (letters and flats), and USPS Marketing Mail (letters, and flats) meeting eligibility requirements for automation or carrier route prices (except for USPS Marketing Mail Enhanced Carrier Route saturation flats), and Bound Printed Matter (BPM) presorted or carrier route barcoded flats, are potentially eligible for Full-Service incentives. Electronic Verifications are performed to ensure mailer compliance with the program requirements. See 6-2.7, Verifications Using Error Thresholds.
  2. Move Update: The Postal Service has updated the verification of Move Update compliance from sampling at the job level on Mail Evaluation Readability Lookup Instrument (MERLIN) to census verification using Mail Processing Equipment (MPE). The Move Update standard requires the periodic matching of a mailer‘s address records with customer-filed change-of-address orders maintained by the Postal Service. Mailers are required to reconcile their mailing address list within 95 days prior to the electronic postage statement finalization date utilizing one of the Postal Service-approved methods. Census verification results can be viewed on the Mailer Scorecard; mailers are assessed additional postage on pieces that exceed the error threshold.
  3. eInduction: The electronic Induction process simplifies the induction of drop shipments and expedited plant load mailings by leveraging eDoc, Intelligent Mail container barcodes (IMcb), and handheld scanner technologies to verify the payment and preparation of commercial mail containers. eInduction eliminates the need for paper PS Form 8125, Plant-Verified Drop Shipment (PVDS) Verification and Clearance, PS Form 8017, Expedited Plant-Load Shipment Clearance, and PS Form 8125-CD, Plant-Verified Drop Shipment (PVDS) Consolidated Verification and Clearance — DSMS, and manual reconciliation at the entry facility.
  4. Seamless Acceptance: Seamless Acceptance automates the verification of commercial mailings by leveraging electronic documentation (eDoc), IMcb, Intelligent Mail tray barcodes (IMtb), IMb, and information collected from both handheld sampling devices and mail processing equipment scans.



Link to "1 Introduction to the Publication for Streamlined Mail Acceptance for Letters and Flats" Link to contents for "1 Introduction to the Publication for Streamlined Mail Acceptance for Letters and Flats"      Link to "2 Intelligent Mail Full-Service"