Let's review the benefits and varieties of choice available to your small business when choosing a postage meter to boost your mailing efforts, including some important questions related to deciding if your company is ready to automate the mail effort and also the main features of a postage meter system.
Even if you send what you think to be only a little amount of mail, a postage machine is an enhancement to just about any office environment. Metered mail is more polished looking, is more convenient and can often lead to great savings. It also conveniently requires less trips to the post office if you have office building late day pickup.
A good estimate on whether your business might benefit from a postage meter is if you have more than $40 per month in postage costs. The capability to being able to print correct postage on demand has also been shown to shrink company costs. When reviewing the correct postage meter for your company requirements though can be difficult. To help, think about the following:
1) What does the company payout per month on average in postage?
2) What is the volume, how many unique pieces of mail are sent on a weekly basis?
3) Do you send mostly average sized letters, or are there a substantial of packages of different dimensions or weights?
How you respond these will benefit you in figuring the features that are very critical in choosing the right model postage meter for your small company.
Let's review a quick tour of the basics of metered postage. The meter itself is the extremely vital aspect of your mail system. It eliminates the place of the lone separate stamp, printing what is known in postal lingo as the "indicia," and also stores the old postage amount(s).
Note that you can't buy your postage meter, rather it must be leased. You can purchase other pieces of the overall system, however,but owning of machines themselves is controlled by the federal government.
While most meters are similar in basic function and handle up to one thousand dollars in postage, and all models are able to prepare first class, priority, and express mail, and packages. Postage machines may also be able for reduced bulk mail, but this requires a permit from the US Postal Service.
Where postage machines begin to differ is in individual features such as:
1) Accounting codes, 2) Automatic postage reset, 3) Automatic date advance, 4) Password-protected access and 5) Saved presets for common mailing jobs
In addition, digital machines add an added level of safety by implementing the printing of a two dimensional bar code which determines the sender as well as the intended receiver. Some digital postage meters are able to be updated electronically, keeping them current with changing US Postal Service costs. Non-digital machines on the other hand depend a expensive upgrade to the chip inside when the rates inflate.
This is a basic outline of some of the major features of an automated postage machine system and I hope it helps you in your decision making process in finding what kind of meter might be right for your small company.
Even if you send what you think to be only a little amount of mail, a postage machine is an enhancement to just about any office environment. Metered mail is more polished looking, is more convenient and can often lead to great savings. It also conveniently requires less trips to the post office if you have office building late day pickup.
A good estimate on whether your business might benefit from a postage meter is if you have more than $40 per month in postage costs. The capability to being able to print correct postage on demand has also been shown to shrink company costs. When reviewing the correct postage meter for your company requirements though can be difficult. To help, think about the following:
1) What does the company payout per month on average in postage?
2) What is the volume, how many unique pieces of mail are sent on a weekly basis?
3) Do you send mostly average sized letters, or are there a substantial of packages of different dimensions or weights?
How you respond these will benefit you in figuring the features that are very critical in choosing the right model postage meter for your small company.
Let's review a quick tour of the basics of metered postage. The meter itself is the extremely vital aspect of your mail system. It eliminates the place of the lone separate stamp, printing what is known in postal lingo as the "indicia," and also stores the old postage amount(s).
Note that you can't buy your postage meter, rather it must be leased. You can purchase other pieces of the overall system, however,but owning of machines themselves is controlled by the federal government.
While most meters are similar in basic function and handle up to one thousand dollars in postage, and all models are able to prepare first class, priority, and express mail, and packages. Postage machines may also be able for reduced bulk mail, but this requires a permit from the US Postal Service.
Where postage machines begin to differ is in individual features such as:
1) Accounting codes, 2) Automatic postage reset, 3) Automatic date advance, 4) Password-protected access and 5) Saved presets for common mailing jobs
In addition, digital machines add an added level of safety by implementing the printing of a two dimensional bar code which determines the sender as well as the intended receiver. Some digital postage meters are able to be updated electronically, keeping them current with changing US Postal Service costs. Non-digital machines on the other hand depend a expensive upgrade to the chip inside when the rates inflate.
This is a basic outline of some of the major features of an automated postage machine system and I hope it helps you in your decision making process in finding what kind of meter might be right for your small company.
About the Author:
Christopher Ulrich is the operator for Postage.ws Postage Meters site. Get $100 free postage from Pitney when you order a new meter.
