Effective January 26, 2015, Value Added Refunds (VARs) were discontinued at the retail window unless dated January 24, 2015 or before. Enhancements have now been made in the PostalOne! system through PostalOne! Release 40.0, which allow mailers to submit their requests for VARs totaling $50 or more through the PostalOne! system. Based on this new functionality, VAR refunds at the retail window will be eliminated and the manual AIC 541 account entry disabled. All Value Added Refunds are required to be entered through the PostalOne! system.
VAR requests for combined and single statements which meet certain conditions will be automatically generated by PostalOne! when the statements are entered into PostalOne!. Value Added Refunds will not be generated for combined mailings when the VAR amounts from all metered statements within the mailing total less than $50. However, multiple postage statements in a combined mailing are eligible for a VAR as long as the sum of all Metered statements totals $50 or more.
All refund requests that are successfully processed will be sent from PostalOne! in a daily batch file for processing on the same business day for all refunds that have been processed that day. Payments will be sent directly to the customers. Mailers are still required to submit PS Form 3533, Application for Refund of Fees, Products and Withdrawal of Customer Accounts. Retail and Business Mail Entry Unit sites will maintain PS Form 3533 on file at their locations. PS 3533 should not be forwarded to Scanning and Imaging for processing. The E-2 Quick Reference Table in Handbook F-101, Field Accounting Procedures, will be updated to reflect the change in the next revision.
— Revenue and Field Accounting,
Controller, 2-5-15
