New Address Correction Software from WorksRight is Suite

February 10, 2009 Alex Woodie

You’ve probably seen it before: Somebody forgets to mark your company’s correct suite number on a letter or package, but it makes it to you anyway. Usually, this is the result of an astute postal carrier who knows his route like the back of his hand. But other pieces of mail may not be so lucky. Now, AS/400 shops can ensure their mail has the correct suite number by utilizing WorksRight Software‘s mailing software, which was recently enhanced with the U.S. Postal Service’s SuiteLink technology.

The USPS estimates that nearly 1.8 billion pieces of mail are annually sent to addresses in large buildings without the correct suite number, WorksRight says. While postal carriers can deliver a large number of them without the correct suite number, many of them end up in the undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) bin.

The USPS addressed this problem with SuiteLink, a program designed to improve the accuracy of mailing addresses for organizations sending bulk mail to businesses in high rise office buildings. The program, which is a component of the USPS’s CASS Certified ZIP + 4 program, includes software and a database, and is provided free of charge.

As one of the software companies that licenses the USPS’s various address correction technologies and builds AS/400 address correction products out of them, WorksRight Software was attracted to SuiteLink. And last week, the Madison, Mississippi, company announced the availability of its SuiteLink functionality, as PER/SLK.

PER/SLK is a free add-on for WorksRight’s PER/ZIP4 CASS, which itself utilizes the USPS’ Coding Accuracy Support System program to screen addresses for errors before they’re delivered, or end up in the UAA bin. Customers must have the PER/ZIP4 CASS software prior to installing the new PER/SLK component.

PER/SLK helps mailers correct incomplete or inaccurate business addresses by using the business name to obtain the correct suite number. The USPS maintains a comprehensive database of business names and their corresponding suite numbers, and AS/400 shops can tap into this huge reservoir of institutional knowledge via WorksRight’s PER/SLK.

WorksRight’s address verification also utilizes latitude and longitude data (Z4 LAT/LON) sorting sequences (PER/SORT), validation of mail delivery points (PER/DPV), and determination if an address is business or residential (PER/RDI). More than 1,400 AS/400 customers have licensed WorksRight’s software since it went into business in 1992. For more information, visit www.worksright.com.