Mailers that are participating in Seamless Acceptance have their postage statements automatically finalized after a successful job submission. The postage statements are finalized by the PostalOne! system on the Postage Statement Mailing Date that was submitted in the eDoc at which point balance checks are performed. Postage Statements auto-finalize after the job is submitted on the designated Mailing Date listed in the eDoc. It is the responsibility of the mailer to ensure that their account contains sufficient postage funds for all Permit numbers they submit for auto-finalization.
When the eDoc is uploaded to PostalOne! before the Postage Statement Mailing Date, the available balance of the permit or Account Numbers is checked beginning two days before the mailing date. The postage statement auto-finalizes on the postage statement mailing date for containers that are set to Ready-to-Pay (UPD) status during the next auto-finalization processing run.
When the eDoc is uploaded to PostalOne! on or after the Postage Statement Mailing Date, the postage statement auto-finalizes. This step is part of the postage statement generation process for containers, which occurs when containers are set to UPD status, and there are sufficient funds in the account(s).
If there are insufficient funds to cover the postage, a negative balance email is automatically sent to the Verification Assessment Evaluator (VAE) as listed for the CRID of the payment account in the BCG. If a VAE has not been assigned to the CRID, the emails is sent to the Business Service Administrator (BSA) listed in the BCG. A negative balance email is also sent to a Postal Service Acceptance Employee. The mailer and Postal Service employee must then ensure the impacted account(s) is funded. PostalOne! continues to attempt to auto-finalize the mailing until the account(s) is funded or the 14-day auto-finalization period has passed. After the 14-day auto-finalization period, the mailing must be manually finalized by a Postal Service Acceptance Employee after funds have been added.
The system generates a negative balance warning when the balance check is performed 2 days before the Postage Statement Mailing Date, if the postage statement would require the account to have a negative balance but would remain within a configurable allowable error threshold for that CRID. If the account is still negative but within the error threshold on the day of the Postage Statement Mailing Date, the postage statement is added to an Override Report and auto-finalized. Postal Service Acceptance Employees receive an email notification of negative balances that fall within a specific threshold on the day of finalization and after a statement is auto-finalized with a negative balance. It is important to note that Negative Balance Warnings are not given for jobs uploaded on or after the postage statement mailing date. Negative Balance errors are logged for these mailings.
The system generates a negative balance error when the balance check is performed each day starting a configurable number of days (currently set to two) prior to the Postage Statement Mailing Date if the postage statement would require the account to have a negative balance and is outside of a configurable allowable error threshold for that CRID. Postal Service Acceptance Employees and the mailer’s VAE receive a system-generated email to follow up with the mailer to resolve the potential negative balance. If the account is still negative and outside the error threshold on the day of the Postage Statement Mailing Date the postage is not auto-finalized. The appropriate Postal Service personnel and the mailer’s VAE receive another system-generated email to follow up with the mailer to inform them that a postage statement was prevented from being auto-finalized due to a negative balance outside of the error threshold. The mailer has a configurable number of days (currently set to 14) to add the appropriate funds to the account so that the postage statement can be auto-finalized. After the configurable period, the postage statement requires manual finalization by an Acceptance Employee.
