CASS certification is a postal certification for software used in the mail industry. Using CASS certified software ensures address hygiene and can lead to discounted rates from USPS, reducing costs for businesses. Programs must pass USPS tests to achieve certification.
Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) certification is one of several types of postal certification offered by the United States Postal Service (USPS) and applied to software developed for use in the mail industry. The purpose of using CASS certified software is to maximize efficiency and minimize unnecessary expenses. A company that does a lot of mailing, for example, has a large database of addresses it will ship to, and those addresses will end up on labels that are received and interpreted by the USPS. If the labels exhibit poor address hygiene—that is, if they are in a format inconsistent with what the USPS needs to deliver them easily—they will cost the USPS additional time and effort to get them delivered. Using software that meets CASS certification requirements allows the company to evaluate the hygiene of addresses in the database to ensure they can be delivered by the USPS with minimal difficulty.
The fees associated with using the postal service are a significant expense for a business to consider. Using CASS software, either on its own or through a third party, a business can receive discounted rates from the USPS, which developed the certification system to reduce its costs. Indeed, CASS is an incentive for companies to develop measures that promote consistency and reduce errors to help the entire process, from database to customer mailbox, run more smoothly and efficiently. Doing this requires an initial investment in the form of in-house software development or sourcing the software outside the company, but in theory, using a certified program will save everyone money in the long run. The USPS calls savings made by companies using CASS-certified software a “workshare rebate”.
An extremely observant person might be able to do the job of verifying the acceptable hygiene of addresses against a large database, but CASS certified software programs can do it much faster and without the risk of fatigue. To achieve CASS certification, a program must pass tests designed by the USPS to ensure compliance with its addressing system. This involves feeding the software a list of 150,000 addresses in various address hygiene states and monitoring the program’s effectiveness in correcting the problems. Depending on the type of submission, acceptable results range from 98.5% to 100% accuracy.
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