Full Service invoicing is scheduled to begin on November 11, 2016. Have you been monitoring your Mailer Scorecard and meeting the quality thresholds that have been set? While the first invoice date is yet to come, the reality is that Full Service invoicing has already started. The November invoice will be based on your October Mailer Scorecard data. So in reality, invoicing started October 1st.
Do You Know Your VAE?
VAE stands for Verification Assessment Evaluator. With the official start of Full Service invoicing, the VAE for your company is the person that will be responsible for either paying or disputing the monthly invoices that the Postal Service will be generating. On September 12th, the Postal Service did their first invoicing test, which included sending an email to all VAE’s. If your Mailer Scorecard exceeded any of the Full Service thresholds, the test email would inform the VAE that there is an invoice that is available to review or dispute. If no Full Service thresholds were exceeded, then the email would inform the VAE that there is no assessment for the month.
Your BSA Knows Your VAE
BSA stands for Business Service Administrator. Every company has someone that has been assigned the BSA role. This person controls all the permissions and access to your company’s Mailer Scorecard. The BSA can assign the person that will have the VAE role for your company. If your BSA has not assigned someone to the VAE role, then they will be the VAE by default. It will be important to verify that the VAE role has been assigned, a correct email has been setup in their profile, and that the VAE is correctly receiving the test notifications. The Postal Service has created a document that provides mailers step by step instructions to review, change, and add user roles.
If you have checked and verified your VAE role, confirmed that the email in their profile is accurate, and they are not getting the VAE email notification, they should contact the Mailer Scorecard Hotline and report the problem. (Make sure they have checked their junk or spam folders first).
Test and Final Re-test
The USPS had an issue with the first automated notification VAE test email on September 11th, so the VAE emails did not actually send until September 12th. These automated notifications are for test purposes only and no action is required by your VAE other than ensuring you are receiving the test notification. A second test notification was scheduled to occur on October 11th, which also experienced issues; they were not sent until October 13th and 14th. That was the final test before Full Service invoicing officially starts on November 11th. While the USPS has experienced issues with both tests associated with VAE notification, the USPS remains committed to starting Full Service invoicing in November.
Where to go for More Information
If you or your VAE is looking for more information on the invoicing process that will be starting, the Postal Service is recommending the following resource. The assessment process can be found in section 6.0 of the Publication for Streamlined Acceptance for Letters and Flats.