Well, they don’t like it. Not one bit. One of the dangers of Seamless Acceptance is how easy it is. There’s no one checking your mail as it is deposited. At least not right away.
The whole idea of Seamless is that you don’t need to have your mail accepted – the Intelligent Mail barcode and eDocs take care of that. When all goes as it should, the mailer uploads eDocs into the USPS Postal One! system. The eDocs details each piece in the mailing and provides for paying postage. After submitting the eDocs, you can just drop off the actual mail at your leisure for the next 45 days. As the mail is processed, each IMb is noted as it passes through sorting equipment, and the system searches for the associated eDoc. “Ah,” the system says. “There’s the eDoc that verifies this piece of mail has been paid for.” (Of course, the system doesn’t literally say stuff, but that is what it is thinking. I suppose. Do systems think?) Thus satisfied, the system sends the piece off on its merry way, and all is well with the world.
But what if an eDoc cannot be found? The piece still travels on its way, but bad things begin to happen. The mail piece is designated “undocumented,” and the mailer is charged for the piece of mail, generally more than they would have paid with an eDoc. Also, a lot of tracking data cannot be obtained, so we may not know where the piece is. In addition to the system checking if the postage has been paid, it also notes what container and tray the mail piece was in, so the piece can be “nested” in the tracking data. The eDoc matches the piece to containers and trays so that when one of them is scanned, it can create an “assumed scan” for the piece. If there is no eDoc, the nesting can’t happen. The lack of an eDoc creates a number of problems:
- Undocumented mail fees
- No early tracking data
- No way to document that the mail was actually mailed, or when.
Oh no! Somebody’s not getting paid – but the Postal Service is.
Here’s the good news: If USPS cannot find the eDoc, they will give it another try in three days. If it was uploaded late, they will find it then, and all is forgiven. The undocumented flag goes away, and the tracking data makes sense. If they still don’t find it, they will check again seven days after the piece went AWOL. Still not there? They’ll take one last look ten days out. You still didn’t get that eDoc uploaded? Sorry, Charlie. You’ve got undocumented mail. You can argue with the Postal Service when you get assessed for the fee. If you really did just forget to upload the eDoc you can still get relief by contesting the assessment and providing evidence. Unlike Cher, you can indeed “turn back time.”
The point of this long description?
- Please upload your eDocs ahead of the mail. It saves all this drama and keeps everybody happy.
- If you do forget, don’t expect USPS to drop everything and go looking under the sofa cushions for your eDoc. They’ll check at 3, 7, and 10 days. The interpretive dance you need to do for your customer to explain that “Yes, we really did mail your mail,” gets more difficult with every passing day.
- If you’ve done everything else right, we can still retrieve your mail tracking for you. It’s just less impressive ten days after the mailing. Do let us know you have an issue – we can help identify the problem and reprocess the tracking, so it almost magically appears.
Forgot your anniversary? We can’t help with that. Forgot a step with your mail? Give us a call. Maybe we can help!