University Services -- Mail Services: CASS Certification

The best postage rates available are for mail that is "automation-compatible" or "carrier route-sorted." You can save as much as 4-7 cents per piece (in a few cases even more) when your mailing falls under one of these categories.

"Address correction and enhancement," commonly called "CASS certification" is the first step in realizing these postage savings. CASS stands for Coding Accuracy Support System, and is a program the postal service set up for testing software that performs this function. Our software is CASS-approved, so when we process your list, the corrections that are made (e.g. verification of ZIP codes, standardization of street names and abbreviations, assignment of ZIP+4, barcode and carrier route numbers) qualify it for the automation and carrier route discounts (when properly sorted). A special document, the "CASS Certificate," is generated and must be submitted with the mailing as proof that the process has been performed.

CASS certification also increases the deliverability of your mail, and improves the results of any duplicate-elimination operation that must be performed.

CASS-Certification usually goes hand-in-hand with postal presorting, but can also be performed by itself for certain situations.