Measure Your Mail & Avoid Franking Machine Surcharges

Franking machine technology has changed the way UK businesses handle mail. The latest Mailmark technology has helped make businesses and the Royal Mail more efficient when handling mail. A franking machine is one of the most common pieces of equipment in a mail room, and a franking machine can help deal with sending mail volumes of all sizes. If you didn’t know already, franking mail is more cost-effective as they can be used to reducing the risk of over paying as each item can be accurately weighed with the correct postage being applied.

Mailstart Plus Franking Machine

Even with a franking machine, the Royal Mail may still send your business a letter informing you of under or over paying for a mail item. These letters can be quite confusing as understanding the problem can become difficult. This is due to the amount of letters the Royal Mail send out regarding surcharge payments.

It used to be that franking mail items was rated only by the weight of any given item. This meant multiple pieces of mail could be franked at one time with no issue of the postage being correct. However this is no longer the case as postage now accounts for the length, width and thickness of items – as well as the weight.

Measure Your Mail

Not a lot of franking machines actually have the capability to measure your mail items accurately. The Royal Mail therefore advise is to measure any mail item when you are unsure about the size. A helpful chart can be found online regarding the mail sizes of different mail formats.

Royal Mail Size Guide Ruler

Underpaying or overpaying for a mail item will result in a Royal Mail surcharge so it is very important that you accurately pay for all outgoing mail items. This threat can be quite daunting, so we advise you to always measure your items before franking them, just to make sure. To help assist with this we can even offer you our very own Royal Mail Size Guide Ruler. Find it here – https://www.mailcoms.co.uk/product/miscellaneous/pricing-in-proportion-mail-size-guide-ruler/

Another recommendation is to make the use of envelopes and boxes when sending your mail. For example, there is no need to use a large letter envelope every time for sending an A4 document when the document can easily be folded in half and fit into a C5 envelope. Providing the envelopes is below the correct thickness of 5mm, the mail item will qualify as a standard letter, incurring a less expensive postage rate and ensuring accurate payment occurs.

Don’t Let Your Customers Pay For The Bill

One final thing to always remember is that the Royal Mail will still delivery your mail to your customers, even if you have under or over paid for the item. This will result in the customer paying the surcharge payment, leaving them a unhappy customer. No business wants this. If you keep underpaying for your mail then eventually a letter will come to your business requesting the surcharge payment as well. The last thing your business wants is to spend more money on your postage as a result of a surcharge payment. So our advice is to make sure you accurately weigh and measure your mail items by using a franking machine and a Royal Mail Size Guide Ruler.

If you are interested in getting a franking machine or upgrading to a Mailmark franking machine with even lower prices available, then please view our franking machine page here or call us today on 01543 572 776.

We are a Royal Mail Authorised Independent Inspector & Maintainer of Franking Machines with over 20,000 customers nationwide and we can supply you with our very own range of models.

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