Effective March 15, 2010, the United States Postal Service (USPS) plans to discontinue the process of placing the red round date stamp on hard copy postage statements presented at postal facilities equipped with PostalOne!. For facilities not yet equipped with PostalOne!, the USPS will continue to round-stamp hard copy postage statements.

Proof of Mailing
For many mailers, the round stamp is the definitive “proof of mailing”, used to provide mail owners, auditors, accounting departments, etc. with the proof that the mail was accepted by the USPS and the date the mail was entered into the mailstream. Now that this red round stamp will be going away, what will you provide as proof of mailing?

USPS Options
For sites equipped with PostalOne!, mailers will need to access the documentation for their mailings through the Business Customer Gateway. On the PostalOne! dashboard, mailers can access a receipt file that contains details about their mailing. (Mailers can also request a copy of Form 3607-R ”Mailing Transaction Receipt”.) Mailers can also access transaction reports, which allow them to view the finalized postage statements on PostalOne!. (Note: the statements on PostalOne! do not follow the format of the actual postage statement forms, so it may be difficult to fully understand the information the first time you see it.)

e-Round Stamp
Window Book is providing their clients with an alternative to the manually-applied red round stamp.

Once the postage statements have been processed through PostalOne!, the pertinent information from the receipt file may be extracted and applied as an electronic round stamp (e-Round Stamp) using Window Book’s DAT-MAIL software. The e-Round Stamp will then appear on PDF files of the finalized postage statements and on any hard copies printed from the PDF’s. This allows mailers to continue providing an easily recognized proof of mailing, regardless of whether hard copy or electronic postage statements are used.
For more information on the e-Round Stamp, visit: http://tiny.cc/DlEG6.