Previews of new USPS programs, procedures

A big part of NNA’s participation in the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee (MTAC) is getting a preview of new programs and procedures proposed by the Postal Service. The theory is that the representatives from the mailing industry will provide feedback to the Postal Service on the workability of these changes, and we do see where sometimes USPS modifies a proposal based on comments.
Some of the items of interest to NNA members from the most recent MTAC meeting in late January follow.

By MATT PAXTON,
National Newspaper Association

 
SEAMLESS ACCEPTANCE
The Postal Service published a notice in the Federal Register on January 8 proposing that mail customers entering mail at Detached Mail Units (primarily large mailers with these acceptance units inside their business) and all mail claiming full–service Intelligent Mail Barcoding (IMb) entered at Bulk Mail Entry Units (BMEU) — maybe as small as your local post office of entry — will be placed into “Seamless Parallel” by March 1. 
The goal is to reduce the amount of verification steps, once approved, saving USPS time and money.
What this means to you: If you have adopted Full Service IMb and you submit your mail forms electronically via PostalOne, verification of your piece weights will continue to be done by your BMEU clerk where you enter your newspapers. 
But there will be spot checking of piece weights done downstream from your entry post office. That spot checking will generate a Per-cent Accuracy Factor, or PAF. We’re not sure what percentage that will be, but it’s probably in the range of 2 to 3%. 
Seamless Acceptance  verifications do not result in additional postage during Parallel, and auto-finalization of postage statements do not occur. This will provide mailers the opportunity to start reviewing Seamless Acceptance data in the Mailer Scorecard, according to USPS.
The notice goes on to state that Full-Service mailers will be entered into the normal Seamless Acceptance program as of Feb. 1, 2021, and that mailers submitting over 90% Full-Service volume as of July 1, 2021, will no longer receive manual verification at the BMEU level. 
How this will affect the average NNA-member newspaper is a bit hard to say. As of now, USPS has not said that it plans to do away with local BMEUs or the clerks that weigh your newspapers and verify presort. If your paper has not adopted Full Service IMb barcoding and electronic document submission, it will have no effect at this time. 
If you are Full Service — but like most community papers, circulating primarily in-county — I don’t see how Seamless Acceptance will affect those mailed copies. Certainly, at the DDU level, there is no down stream. Even for those newspapers doing Exceptional Dispatch within their county, I don’t see how this will change how those copies are verified.  
The main impact will be on mail going out of county. USPS claims that there have been very few mailers found in violation of stated piece weights since it began downstream spot checking. The Postal Service is allowing up to four strikes before imposing penalties for weight violations, and it has not sanctioned any mailer to date. 
NNA has been concerned with how Seamless Acceptance will affect our members, and right now, we can’t tell. We don’t think the Postal Service itself has considered how small mailers, particularly in-county periodical and marketing mail shopper mailers, fit into the seamless scheme. We will be monitoring this closely as it rolls out. 

ENTERPRISE PAYMENT SYSTEM MANDATORY FOR CAPS USERS
CAPS, the old online USPS payment system, is going, going, gone. If you have a CAPS account and have not migrated to the newer Enterprise Payment System, or EPS, you have just a few months to move over to EPS. May 1 is the deadline. 
If you fail to act and have an active trust account with money on deposit, the Postal Service will open an EPS account on your behalf, transfer any funds in the CAPS account to the new EPS account and advise you of the new account number(s). To continue mailing, you would need to fund the new EPS account. 
If you have a CAPS debit permit, where the USPS drafts your bank account for payment, and you don’t migrate to EPS by May 1, you will lose the ability to mail until you set up a new EPS trust or debit account and perform micro-debit transactions.

BUSINESS CUSTOMER GATEWAY
If you do any kind of electronic payments or electronic filing of postal forms, you’re familiar with the Business Customer Gateway, the Postal Service’s website for accessing many of the digital services of the USPS. The BCG is getting a redesign, making the home page more intuitive and putting the most-used services front and center. A pilot redesign is being tested by a small group of volunteer users beginning this spring, and the final redesign will be unveiled later in 2020. 
From what we’ve seen at MTAC, mainly screenshots of the new homepage, this looks like an improvement.    

Matt Paxton is NNA Postal Chair and a member of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee for NNA, along with Brad Hill of Interlink and NNA’s Tonda Rush.