On January 17th, the Postal Service issued a reminder that mailers need to migrate to the new Enterprise Payment System (EPS) as the CAPS system is being retired. Effective April 1, 2019, eligible CAPS accounts must be migrated to EPS. The Postal Service has launched a new payment processing platform called Enterprise Payment System (EPS).… Read More

Following the Release of the President’s Task Force report, the American Mail Alliance issued the following statement: Now that the President’s Task Force on the United States Postal System has issued its report, the question naturally arises: Where do we go from here? As the report makes clear, there is a need for a comprehensive examination of… Read More

Informed Delivery® was launched by the USPS® to reengage a tepid mailing audience and curb its declining revenue. Consumers who sign up for the service are able to preview mail on their mobile device before it arrives, allowing the “mail moment” to become more interactive. The problem is, the vast amount of the American public… Read More

This is a guest article from Ricoh, a valued BCC Software partner. Discover how Ricoh drastically improved one company’s operations by creating a seamless workflow and focusing on efficiency.  The Background An auto insurance company was printing and mailing approximately 500K company correspondences, like renewals, letters, notices, etc., each month to policy holders. Their host… Read More

On December 4th, 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department issued its much anticipated report from the President’s Task Force on the United States Postal Service®. The report, titled United States Postal Service: A Sustainable Path Forward, has since received a myriad of reviews, of which most have been negative. At best, it will be viewed as… Read More

It has been argued that direct mail has made gains on digital advertising due to digital fatigue, the phenomenon of consumers ignoring digital ads, including social media and email, because they are constantly exposed to them. And it seems like advertisers agree. Last year, over half of the Postal Service™ mail volume was Marketing Mail,… Read More

As we announced back in November, we have added the ability for customers to send COMPLIANCE+™ jobs for NCOALink® only processing. Since this announcement, we have seen more and more of our NCOALink users transition over to COMPLIANCE + to take advantage of the process’ additional address cleansing capabilities. This has been exciting for our… Read More

BCC Software’s Customer Support department often fields questions about address correction results and how these explain mail piece deliverability. While parts of this process are very straightforward, others are obscured by unclear descriptions, which is why we want to take the time to focus on the different return code and address correction result combinations, and… Read More

Have you ever mailed something out only to have it returned, adorned with a big yellow sticker? Have you ever wondered exactly what that yellow sticker is? Covered in a cryptic slew of codes with little to no information about how to proceed, few things are more frustrating than Undeliverable as Addressed, or UAA, mail.… Read More

Postal carrier routes are the lifeblood of direct mail. A postal carrier route includes a group of mailing addresses that have been grouped together to aid in efficient mail delivery. Carrier Route R777 is one of those routes, but it’s unique: it’s the code given to physical addresses that exist but are ineligible to receive… Read More

BCC Mail Manager™ is a robust program, but like any software platform, there are simple maintenance steps that need to be performed regularly to maintain a consistent performance level. This articles delves into basic steps that can be taken within the software to maintain and improve performance. All of these focus on files and folders… Read More

The Postal Service™’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 Integrated Financial Plan (IFP) was filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission on November 20, 2018. As anticipated, the USPS® expects continuing financial challenges and loss of volume. The IFP projects a controllable loss of $3.1 billion and a net loss of $6.6 billion. Volume is projected to decrease… Read More

As the end of the year approaches, many people are preparing for the USPS® rate changes that will go into effect on January 27, 2019. Anything that mails before January 27 must be prepared with the old rates and anything that mails on or after January 27 must be prepared with the new rates. This can cause… Read More

BCC Software’s Data Marketing Services (DMS) team has been receiving many questions from customers regarding the necessary steps for submitting Process Acknowledgement Forms (PAFs), so we wanted to take the opportunity to break down the different steps for submitting an ePAF vs a hardcopy PAF. The ePAF (electronic) is a paperless option for adding and/or… Read More

This is a guest article from Crawford Technologies, a valued BCC Software partner. There is widespread agreement that automating a production workflow has numerous benefits. Automation reduces errors and lets you do more with fewer resources. It supports increased throughput, allows you to make better use of your equipment, and gives you the tools and… Read More

On November 13, the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) approved the Postal Service™’s proposed prices for both Market Dominant and Competitive products as filed. Also approved were the promotions the USPS® proposed as part of its Market Dominant filing. Both sets of rates will be implemented as planned on January 27, 2019. In its order, the… Read More

BCC Software Is pleased to announce the next significant piece of functionality for Integratec® API — postage statements. The latest release of Integratec (18.23) includes the ability to produce your postage statements directly to PDF as part of your integrated workflow. The statement functionality is inspired by the broad features in BCC Mail Manager™, with… Read More

The USPS® released the following Industry Alert on October 25, 2018: USPS Representatives will be hosting Open Line calls to discuss the technical specifications in support of the proposed January 2019 Price Changes. The calls are scheduled for Monday’s and Wednesday’s at 1:00pm Eastern and will occur weekly  beginning Monday, October 29, 2018 through Wednesday,… Read More

The USPS® announced promotions for 2019 and released the following Industry Alert on October 22, 2018: The Postal Service Governors have decided to move forward with the 2019 Mailing Promotions which are listed below and were filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) on October 10th, 2018.  Implementation of the promotions is contingent on approval… Read More

On October 17, the President announced his intentions to withdraw from the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and adopt self-declared rates for terminal dues, no later than January 1, 2020. For more details of the actual announcement, please check out this statement from the Press Secretary. The Universal Postal Union, established in 1874, sets fees that… Read More

On October 10, 2018, the Postal Service™ announced their intent to raise both Market Dominant and Competitive Products prices effective January 27, 2019. The mailing industry had anticipated a mid-October filing but expected a rather plain-vanilla proposal since the recently confirmed Governors had little time to review the proposed rates. Unfortunately, some mailers will see… Read More

Many of us in the print and mail industry follow the updates from the United States Postal Service® (USPS®) like some stock brokers track the Dow Jones. This is because postage costs, and the programs offered by the USPS that affect them, can significantly change a printers  or mailers operational plan. And due to the… Read More

BCC Software has recently upgraded the job transport method to continue to meet today’s security standards. BCC Mail Manager™ products now have the ability to use HTTPS protocol for sending and receiving Data Marketing Services jobs, making your security audits and discussions with customers that much easier – and keeping valuable data safe at the same… Read More

This time of year, getting catalogs and promotions out to as many holiday shoppers as possible becomes a goal for many mailers, which is why the holiday season brings a focus on quantity mailings. There are many processes to implement for these mailings, but often the simplest is Simplified, or EDDM®, which stands for Every… Read More

It may be hard to believe, but it’s already November. Election campaign mailings are winding down and right around the bend there’s Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah, to name a few holidays on the horizon, all bringing their fair share of direct mail. To top it off, staff will inevitably… Read More

BCC Software is pleased to announce that as of today customers with a COMPLIANCE+™ subscription are able to run NCOALink® processing only. To do so, however, you will need to have installed both the full release of BCC Mail Manager™ for October 2018, as well as the web update from October 25. Why wait? Upgrade… Read More

On August 23, 2018, the Postal Service™ issued an advanced notice of proposed rule-making in the Federal Register that stated that the USPS® was considering revising content standards for all Marketing Mail. The proposed change would limit all USPS Marketing Mail, regular and nonprofit, letter-size and flat-size, to content that is only paper-based/printed matter; no… Read More

With the holiday season around the corner, our Customer Support team has been getting more and more questions regarding the coverage and dates of the Presort and Encoding Tables. Many mail shops know this time of year brings high-volume mail, and they’ll begin to receive orders much earlier than normal. To avoid the time crunch… Read More

Ready to revolutionize your business and upgrade your current NCOALink subscription? Get started using COMPLIANCE+ today!    Now that we’ve been offering COMPLIANCE+™ for a few weeks, BCC Software’s Data Marketing Services department wanted to share some FAQs with our customers. Q: What is the sequence of processes used for this service? A: Address Resolution… Read More