- How does a meter benefit my business?
A meter is convenient and saves you time. Here's how:
- Eliminates trips to the Post Office to purchase postage
- Provides access to credit services
- Postage on demand, 24/7
- Mail box drop off
A meter increases the efficiency and speed of your business communications:
- Faster mail handling, boosts mailroom productivity
- Exact postage calculations ensures timely delivery
- Provides tracking, cost control and cost-centre accounting
Increase brand awareness and differentiate your business
- Meter offers an opportunity to promote your business on the envelope
- Meter indicia reflects professionalism and gives small and medium businesses a larger, corporate image
- Date stamped mail boosts quality
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- What Canada Post products can I use my meter for?
A meter can be used for all of your lettermail, Regular Parcel, Priority Courier, Xpresspost, Expedited Parcel and more. Please refer to the Canada Postal Guide for more information.
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- What are Canada Post's requirements for digital postage meters?
In order to protect the financial aspects and to better understand its postage meter business, Canada Post has been working with the meter suppliers, for several years now, to introduce new meter technology, that incorporates encrypted data by means of a two-dimensional barcode, and the use of product menu selections for all commonly used metered products.
Canada Post's three major requirements for meter manufacturers are:
Security - The technology evolution has exposed some very sophisticated tampering and security issues that reveals the importance of security of data. Data integrity and security are paramount with today's electronic transactions. Canada Post has an obligation to its customers to ensure data integrity and security are key postal requirements. Customers do not have to be concerned about meter tampering with the Postal Security Device (PSD) found in all new meters. The PSD maintains purchased financial values. All new meters have security access protection, through passwords and lock-outs, providing added ease and greater user control.
Product capture - Canada Post gains a better understanding of customer usage patterns, resulting in improving existing offerings and identifying new product opportunities. This is achieved through ensuring that each digital meter contains the postage rates for the most commonly used letter mail and some parcel products. Meter customers select the product they are mailing from the postage meter menu. The data on the products used is stored by the meter and then sent to Canada Post in an aggregate form from the meter supplier. The type of information collected is the meter serial number, meter model, product selected (e.g. domestic letter mail under 30 grams) and destination.
Digital impression - The use of a two-dimensional bar code reduces the risk of fraudulent duplication of meter impressions and provides Canada Post with the mechanism to verify that each mail piece is correctly paid, and was printed from a valid postage meter. The two-dimensional barcode contains a total of 32 elements of encrypted data, such as meter serial number, creation date of the meter impression, product type ( e.g. domestic letter mail under 30 grams), postage amount, as well as a unique digital signature that allows Canada Post to confirm the validity and status of each mail piece.
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- What was the Postage Meter Replacement Program?
Canada Post and meter suppliers worked for a number of years to define and develop technology and standards, which are better able to meet customer, supplier and postal requirements. The Postage Meter Replacement Program was intended to create an orderly transition of customer postage meters from older electronic technology, which did not meet these requirements to a new generation of digital technology.
The initiative was to convert all meters, which were not fully compliant with Canada Post's high security, postal indicia and product capture requirements, by June 30, 2007.
Once converted to compliant requirements, meters are one of the most secure methods of payment.
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- What are the consequences if a customer uses a decertified postage meter?
Beginning January 1, 2008, impressions from decertified meters will not be accepted as valid postage and mail bearing invalid postage is subject to being returned in accordance with Canada Post Regulations. It is also important to note that postage meter suppliers are no longer filling decertified meters.
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- Why can a customer not manually enter a postage amount with fully compliant postage meters?
An element of Canada Post's digital meter security and product capture requirements is to have every meter calculate, at a minimum, current and accurate pricing information for letter mail products. Digital meters are required to automatically calculate the price, based on the service selected, the weight of the item, and the destination.
To ensure accurate pricing, Canada Post requires that meter suppliers restrict the ability to manually key in postage. The manual key restrictions vary depending on the meter size and type of model. Generally, low-volume meter models allow customers to manually enter postage amounts for products and services that are not already calculated by the meter. Low-volume meter models allow customers to enter a price (obtained from a Price Chart from the Internet or from EST) using the "Other" key. Currently, all postage between $0.52 and $3.75 cannot be entered manually. This is referred to as the “block-out range” which will vary according to current downloaded Lettermail rates. For high-volume meter models, the "Other" key is generally not available since these meters would include a parcel rate package
Customers who have questions about how their specific meter model functions should contact their meter supplier for more information.
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- Do customers need to purchase a digital weighing scale or platform with their postage meter?
The weight of an item being mailed, along with the destination address, are factors that determine the correct postage amount for both letter and parcel-sized items, however, a scale or weighing platform attached to the postage meter is not a mandatory Canada Post requirement. Customers can either use an integrated scale, which transfers weight to the rating module to obtain the correct price, or enter the weight manually. When designing and manufacturing a postage meter, the meter suppliers determined whether a scale would be optional or not and whether an integrated scale would be required for the particular meter model.
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- Are postage meters able to print a correction meter impression?
All digital meters have the functionality to use a correction mode to manually key in an additional postage amount. Currently, the amount keyed for this corrected or additional postage cannot be between $0.52 and $3.75. This is referred to as the “block-out range” which will vary according to current downloaded Lettermail rates. It should be noted that an additional or correction meter impression is not a valid impression by itself but must be affixed to the mail item. Depending on the mail item, the impression could be affixed under or beside the original impression, or printed or affixed on the backside of the mail item in the upper right-hand corner.
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- What is the fuel surcharge that is to be applied to metered parcels?
Meter pricing for parcels includes an annual fuel surcharge amount. This amount is set by the pricing group, and is added to the base price for all applicable products. These prices are then provided to the three meter suppliers and suppliers program these rates and distribute them to their meter customers. The fuel surcharge amount for meters does not change until the next scheduled rate increase (generally the following year). Over the course of the year the fuel surcharge in meters may be higher or lower than the floating fuel surcharge, however, it is felt that in general it averages out over the course of the year.
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- Why must a customer connect to their supplier's server?
All digital meters are required to connect to the postage meter suppliers' Internet server a minimum of every 90 days, or the user is locked out. This requirement is essentially a security requirement and it allows the supplier to validate that the meter is still with the same customer, that the register readings are correct, and that the meter is functioning properly. When meters connect, the data collected by the meter is transmitted through an interface to the supplier and the product information is then sent to Canada Post. If the meter is locked out, the meter is forced to connect to the suppliers' server before the customer can continue printing postage.
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- Can a customer advance date a meter impression?
Postage meter impressions require a current date to be printed in the meter impression, however, meter models allow the user to advance the date to the day they intend to deposit the item. The advance date range is generally restricted to a thirty-day period. It is important that the mail actually be inducted into the mail stream on the date on the impression, or the mail may be treated as "stale-dated". The only exception to the requirement for a day/month/year to be included in the impression would be for Addressed Admail. This product can be metered with only a month and a year in the impression, however, Addressed Admail does require a specialized meter indicia and must be accompanied by a Statement of Mailing.
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