CASS Cycle O FAQs
1. What is CASS Cycle O?
Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) is a certified address matching software overseen by the USPS®.
2. What’s the purpose of CASS?
The purpose is to establish new standards that all CASS Certified software products are to meet. In the CASS regulations, it details how you are to handle addresses when coding them. As the USPS found exceptions to the exceptions, it added instructions on how to handle unique addresses to be CASS Certified. CASS cycles occurred annually until a decade ago. At that time, there had not been enough changes to warrant an official CASS release to update everyone’s CASS Certified product to handle the latest changes and information.
It determines what does and does not qualify for postal discounts.
3. How often does a CASS Cycle occur?
Previously, as issues were found, a CASS cycle occurred annually. But, as the identification of additional issues and cases decreased, the USPS went to a 2-year cycle. It’s been more than 10 years since the USPS has updated the CASS standard, which dictates how CASS engines handle addresses.
4. When is the next CASS cycle scheduled to occur?
It takes effect on August 1, 2023.
5. Do rate changes affect CASS?
No. Postal rates do not affect CASS, but CASS affects postal rates. CASS determines what addresses are recognized and not recognized. If an address is not CASS standardized, it does not qualify for postage discounts.
6. What planning is required to prepare for a CASS cycle?
The first step is understanding all the changes so you know which ones you need to focus on. Some changes will affect all mailers while others may only have an impact on a few mailers. You need to remember that not all changes will affect all mailers. Also, some changes are good and some could be detrimental.
The biggest aspect of CASS Cycle O is that there will be many new data elements available. These are information about the address that I am calling “address characteristics” that you, as a mailer, can use to make smarter business decisions.
7. How will CASS Cycle O impact my business?
The features of the upcoming CASS Cycle can enable a business to save millions of dollars annually in their postal budget.
8. What’s an example of a single change that will take effect?
In this next round, the military is adding in two new special addresses to their set. Those need to be accounted for and handled correctly to ensure that addresses are presented correctly on mailpieces. Military addresses are quite different than the standard resident address. This is a change that needs to be made by companies mailing to military addresses.
9. Who within a company is usually responsible for overseeing planning for a CASS cycle?
Usually, the department overseeing mailings is responsible for CASS cycle planning. But, many times, their focus is on getting mail out and getting the biggest discount possible. They are not focused on whether the methods being used are best practices for the company as a whole.
10. What will happen if I don’t do anything in advance of CASS Cycle O taking effect?
Certain postal discounts will end, and you will pay more in postage. Your system will run but you will be missing out on opportunities to improve their operations.
The bigger impact is that you will no longer be at best practices. The goal post for best practices is moving.
Remaining within Best Practices does not affect compliance. However, for specific industries, the new data can help them meet their industries’ specific appliance needs, especially where there are restrictions around addresses and which types of addresses are and are not allowed to be used in specific cases.
11. What does the person overseeing preparations for CASS Cycle O need to complete planning?
For compliance:
The person overseeing the CASS cycle should know what changes are coming, what the new data elements are, and the meaning of those new elements. Cross referencing the CASS Cycle O changes with your industry’s specific requirements and/or your company’s compliance needs is also important. The responsible person should work with the company’s compliance department to see where there is overlap and decide how best to meet the requirements.
For best practices:
To stay within best practices, the responsible person should get the necessary data from the company, evaluate it, and talk with the mail owners to decide how they want to handle mailpieces going forward. For instance, wIth the changes from the new CASS cycle, maybe now certain records will be suppressed.
12. What is a recommended starting point for planning?
For our enterprise clients, we have recommended these three steps to get started.
We start with a detailed address characteristic analysis. Based on that, we tell them where they are now, and here are the potential issues. Here’s what the impact is going to be from CASS Cycle O. We can tell the company it may be looking at losing discounts on about 25% of its mail volume. If we are already working with an organization, it is likely we are meeting quarterly to consider all options to optimize the system and to stay in front of postal opportunities and improvements.
Our team of postal data experts is equipped to manage the required pre-work and analysis to successfully prepare for CASS Cycle O, remove the burden from internal staff that is unfamiliar with the requirements of CASS, and optimize the changes to ensure the best outcome for the organization. For many of our clients, that can mean savings of millions of dollars in their postal budget.
13. How can GrayHair help me prepare for CASS Cycle O?
GrayHair helps connect all of the dots. We don’t just talk to the person overseeing the mail operations. We also meet with the mail and compliance departments. We are aware of the industry regulations, not just postal regulations, and help a company understand where it needs to be paying additional attention. We can look at existing data and give an idea of the size of the impact on some of these opportunities around the new data.
An example would be a marketing department. The department could be missing an opportunity if it continues to use an old code and keeps suppressing certain pieces once the new CASS cycle comes in. But, if the department switches to using the new code, it can now tell the difference between those two and know which ones to suppress and which ones to mail to. Successfully reaching the recipient now offers the opportunity for the client to take advantage of the marketing offer.
GrayHair identifies the impact and the opportunities. We start by asking our clients, “Am I doing the best thing for my business?” That’s where we’re focused.
14. Does GrayHair provide CASS Cycle O support services?
We’re doing this with our current clients. We guide them, and in some cases, we help with implementation. Our clients decide what their priorities are.
If you are a GrayHair client, we are already managing much of this planning, considering how much your company can benefit based on your company’s specific needs, and how best to make the changes to meet your needs. It’s really a baked-in process for many of our enterprise-level clients.
GrayHair can project how much clients will be impacted by the rule changes.
15. What’s the biggest benefit that can come from preparing early for CASS Cycle O?
For companies who are planning now and beginning to activate some of the new requirements early, they are positioned to save millions of dollars annually in their postal budgets.
16. Is it more time/cost effective for an internal person to prepare for CASS Cycle O or to outsource it?
Having an internal person prepare for CASS Cycle O requires extensive education, weeks of analysis, and then implementation. It’s not too late to get started – or contact GrayHair for help.
