USPS CASS certification is necessary for address-matching solutions to add missing details and ZIP codes to addresses. It helps you ensure an address’s deliverability and validity. NCOA certification assists your organization in recognizing individuals and businesses from your mailing database who have recently moved. Without NCOA certification, a business might deliver mail pieces with medical or financial data to unknown hands.

However, CASS certification provides more information than NCOA certification. You cannot use the NCOA service if you don’t have a proper name or address. It relies on people voluntarily requesting a change of address, and the database is only limited to the past 48 months.

CASS certification is more useful if you want to update your database with the names and addresses of new customers. You should only consider NCOA certification for batch processing before mailing. CASS-certified address-matching methods are better for real-time and on-demand address verification capabilities against the USPS database.

NCOA, or National Change of Address, provides notifications to the USPS from individuals, families, and businesses to replace old addresses with new ones. This certification helps address matching software programs to acquire accurate and the latest mail delivery addresses. 

Individuals, families, and businesses can initiate an online move update request for a permanent or temporary move. The US Post Office’s NCOA database at the National Address Information Center in Memphis, Tennessee, manages the central repository of all moves and new addresses. 

NCOA certification is essential for organizations to recognize recipients who have recently moved from their database. We must use software programs with NCOA and CASS certifications to avoid the leakage of confidential information. Without NCOA information, you might deliver mailers with medical or financial data to unknown hands. 

Some businesses often face the problem of delayed delivery of forwarded mailers, such as bills and statements, to movers. This might accumulate late fees and disrupt their cash flow. 

Organizations can use two common methods to NCOA certify their mailing lists; 

1. They might send their list to a service bureau for updates.
2. Use a CASS-certified mail management software.

The USPS Address Correction Service (ACS) helps you gather post-mailing updates. However, correcting addresses after a failed or returned delivery is pointless. Post-mailing address updates could be beneficial only for future mailing operations. 

Maintaining the latest address is a major challenge for organizations. Millions of Americans move every year. Businesses might make clerical errors while entering their addresses manually. The United States Postal Service maintains NCOA data of 48 months records. 

The CASS certification from USPS helps address matching software programs to correct and standardize addresses in real time. It can also add missing address information upon having enough input information. 

CASS certification provides additional information, including ZIP codes, cities, states, and ZIP+4. It ensures that the address matches the officially accepted format. 

You must use a CASS-certified address-matching method to claim automation rates. However, we must understand that fixing an address with CASS-certified software differs from using the NCOA service. This blog will further examine the NCOA service, how it works, and its importance. 

The CASS certification converts the address into a standardized format. Intelligent Mail Bar Code is also critical to this process. 

Function of CASS Certification in the address verification process; 

• Fix misspellings of cities and street names.
  
• Ensure the correct abbreviation of roads, courts, boulevards, avenues, etc.
• Update simple 5-digit ZIP codes to ZIP+4 for accurate deliveries.

CASS-certified solutions ensure higher deliverability and reliability than any non-CASS-certified software. USPS provides mailing discounts for its automation-compatible mail service. However, businesses must consider matching and coding their address list with CASS-certified address-matching methods to access these discounts. 

USPS uses automated mail processing equipment to reduce their efforts while processing mail. It is vital to have the barcode and address in the right format. These discounts are futile as compared to saving thousands by preventing failed deliveries. CASS and NCOA certifications are lifesavers for businesses, ensuring smoother mailing operations. 

A study by Convey suggests that 87% of consumers expect brands to make arrangements when they miss a delivery date. You should also avoid undelivered packages or reshipping, eating all your profits. Always prefer a CASS-certified address-matching method. 

Software programs and services need to attain a minimum accuracy percentage to get CASS-certified with a passing score. It usually includes three categories: 5-Digit, ZIP+4/DP, and Carrier Route. 

These tools must reach a passing score of 98.5% accuracy or higher. Your address-matching method can qualify for automation scores after achieving this passing score. 

We must take a look at a live example of CASS certification to learn how it works in real-time. 

You will first input address data into the CASS-certified address-matching software program. 

Input Data 

1010 Lake 

Oake Park IL 

It is not a standard or verified address. The certification is essential to fix and complete the address according to USPS standards and database. 

Output

1010 Lake St 

Oak Park IL 60301-1102

The CASS-certified solution automatically fixes the city name, address street suffix, ZIP code, and ZIP+4 information. It also assigns the address to a business. You can avoid delivery mistakes or return mail by fetching the correct address details and standardized format.

The NCOA database by USPS manages approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address (COA) records. This database comprises information on individuals, families, and businesses who have requested a change-of-address notice with the USPS. 

USPS developed this database to secure postal consumer data and its privacy. NCOA certification helps mailers process and update their mailing lists with the updated address information before mailing. 

To access this database of updated addresses, you must have NCOA certification. The Postal Service provides NCOA data regularly only to licensed companies. 

The process ensures that there are no repeated entries by matching each data entry against other entries. Then, the NCOA service will update your address with the latest information coming from USPS. 

The system will mark the updated records to help you find them by sorting them. You can also edit the information in your system. 

USPS provides three different NCOALink licenses; 

• Full-Service Providers
• Limited Service Providers
• End User Mailers

To be eligible for presorted discount mailing lists, you must perform NCOA checks on your database every six months. It is a reliable solution for reducing Undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) in favor of smoother mailing operations. 

 Also Read: NCOA Address Validation

USPS always reaps the benefits of NCOA certification. However, it may not always be fruitful for consumers. Individuals and businesses might prefer NCOA certification when bulk mailing. It helps them reduce non-deliverables and avoid reshipping. 

They can update their address database before mailing, ensuring faster and more accurate postal journeys. 

However, CASS provides more information than NCOA certification. The service won’t work if you don’t have a name or address. Plus, the database is also limited to the past 48 months. It relies on people voluntarily requesting a change of address. 

People are often lazy and may forget to fill out these forms. NCOA providers also need to spend a huge fortune to acquire the license from USPS. The postal service will also ask for a lot of personal data from individuals or businesses who want to process and update their mailing lists with the NCOA database. 

CASS and NCOA certification plays a vital role for USPS to ensure a smooth mailing process. The postal service has to bear costs throughout different touchpoints of a mailing journey. They won’t be able to make a successful delivery if the address is incorrect or the addressee has moved. 

They will return the mailer to the sender, they used First Class Mail. Even if you use Standard or Marketing Mail, USPS has to recycle the mailer if it fails to deliver it. Any Undelivered-as-addressed (UAA) mailer requires more human intervention than mailers sent using accurate and latest addresses. 

NCOA and CASS certification ensures the postal service has fewer manual touchpoints while handling the mailers. 

USPS makes CASS certification mandatory for address-matching software programs to help your mailers earn postal discounts. However, businesses also enjoy the following benefits by updating their addresses according to USPS standards; 

• Decrease wastage of printing, postage, and processing.
• Reduce the lost opportunities of having successful sales.
• Decrease the chances of expensive extra handling of mailers due to poor address data.

Many business owners and professionals might confuse CASS with NCOA. Although both are related to the address verification process, CASS and NCOA certifications are two different USPS features with different advantages and use cases. 

CASS certification helps you add missing details and ZIP codes to your address information. It also helps verify the address’s deliverability and validity. In many ways, CASS is different from NCOA processing. 

NCOA certification won’t help you obtain new customer data. It only focuses on updating the addresses of individuals or companies that have recently moved. CASS certification is more suitable if you want to update your database with the names and addresses of new customers. 

NCOA might be ineffective if you don’t have ZIP codes for your address. It heavily depends on ZIP code data to fetch the latest updated address. In contrast, CASS certification doesn’t go through this limitation. 

The NCOA database is only reliable when batch processing is needed before mailing. At the same time, CASS certification gives you real-time and on-demand address verification capabilities against the USPS address database. 

PostGrid address verification API is an ideal solution for autocomplete, verification, validation, standardization, and cleansing your addresses to local postal standards. It verifies all your addresses in real-time to ensure higher deliverability, up-to-date records, and lower return mails. 

We have both CASS and NCOA certifications to check your addresses against the official USPS address and NCOA database. Integrate our API with your website or application to ensure real-time address verification and clean poorly formatted addresses. PostGrid also provides bulk verification and geocoding capabilities. 

Sign up now to verify mailing addresses with CASS and NCOA certifications.