What is CASS? The USPS Coding Accuracy Support System

CASS Certification

Before processing your NCOA update, TrueNCOA must first verify, validate, and perform hygiene on your input records with USPS address standardization. The USPS Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) corrects and standardizes addresses, adds missing address information such as ZIP codes, cities, and states to ensure the address is complete, performs delivery point validation to verify whether or not an address is a deliverable address, and checks against the USPS Locatable Address Conversion System, updating addresses that have been renamed or renumbered. Because this process saves the post office time and money due to reduced sorting and undeliverable mail, mailers who use it can qualify for bulk mailing discounts. Please see the "About NCOA" section of our FAQ for additional information regarding the NCOA process.

An example of what CASS address standardization software will correct in an address

Input

1010 Lake
Oake park IL

Output

1010 Lake St
Oak Park IL 60301-1102

It corrects city name, address street suffix, ZIP code, and ZIP+4 add-on, and it identifies the address as a business. You can read more about identifying Residential vs. Business addresses here.

NCOA Delivery Point Validation

Delivery Point Validation or DPV checks addresses against the USPS database to determine deliverability. Matching records are marked valid. If they have no matching entry, they are marked invalid with a corresponding note and cannot be delivered. The process also cleans up and formats the address according to USPS standards to ensure deliverability and qualify mail for bulk discounts. You can read more about how to identify invalid addresses here, and to see more detail on DPV notes, check out our data dictionary here.

CASS Errors and Warning Codes

Even if CASS determines a record is valid, it may still alter or add part of the address. When this occurs, an error or warning code is entered.  Please see our data dictionary for a complete list of errors and warning codes that could be attached to a record during the validation process.

USPS address validation details from sample complimentary TrueNCOA report

CASS and NCOA Summary Reports

If your mailer requires CASS or NCOA Summary reports for your processed file, you can print these from the file display page. Once you have exported your file, a "CASS Report" and "NCOA Report" button will be appear at the top of the file display page to the right of of the export button. You can click these to view either report. To print, just right click and select print, or click control + P. You can then select print as PDF if you would like a PDF version of the report.

Sample CASS Report

Give us a try...

Upload, Paste, or Drag & Drop your data file today for our all-inclusive NCOA services and receive your complimentary TrueNCOA Report - no credit card required

For fully automated hands-off data updates try TrueGivers' CRM Data Hygiene and Enhancement Services.