The Rules & Regulations You Need To Know When Sending Franked Mail

Franking your mail and sending it is important. It can increase your sales whilst saving you money in comparison to stamps. However, if you get this wrong it can result in your mail not even arriving at its destination. Here is what your business needs to know when sending franked mail.

The Address

Sometimes being a little strict is good, for example in the case of the address. How a company or individual’s address is laid out is fairly strict with the Royal Mail. But in this situation it means everyone will know which parcels will or will not get through the depot.

– There is no need to add England, England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland etc. when sending to anywhere in the United Kingdom when sending from the United Kingdom.

– Every part of the address must be on a new line. Do not try to squeeze the apartment complex name and street name onto the same line.

– No room for punctuation. You do not need to add punctuation between the different lines of the address.

Return Address

If your mail item gets lost in the post it is important that it is returned to you. Losing items can cost your business money and frustrate your customers, even when the fault is not your own. A return address on your mail items helps Royal Mail identify you as the sender. This means any lost mail items will not be thrown away and forgotten about, but it will return to you.

The rules for a return address can vary, but the general rules to follow are:

– Royal Mail prefers the return address to be on the back of the mail item, no more than 40mm from the top. The front is acceptable however and a franking machine will frank this as standard onto the front.

– The return address must start with the words “Return Address”.

– Accepted fonts are: Lucida Console or Letter Gothic.

– Accepted font sizes are between 10-12pt.

Blue Is The Colour

When using a franking machine, the franking impression must be placed in the right hand corner of the envelope and printed in blue so it is more easily identifiable by the Royal Mail.

The Date

It is vital that you get the correct date franked on to the front of your mail item. This may not be today’s date however, especially if franking in advance. If you are doing some late night franking or it is reaching the end of the working day, anything franked and sent after 5PM needs the following day’s date.

All the franking machines that we stock, such as the Mailbase, come with the latest franking technologies. Both Smart Meter and Mailmark are integrated into our franking machines. This means that the date can automatically change to the following day if you try to frank a parcel or letter after 5PM. Never frank the incorrect date again.

If you are franking in advance, not for the same day, you will still need to adjust the settings accordingly yourself to set this up. A franking machine is not a mind reader after all.

Using A Label

Sometimes franking straight onto your mail item is not ideal or practical. If you use manilla envelopes or brown packages, then franking straight onto these items will not be ideal – the smart blue ink will not stand out. Therefore a franking label will be more ideal. We stock both single cut and double sheet franking labels to suit all franking machine needs.

Sending Franked Mail May Seem Complicated

It may seem very complicated, but in actual fact many of the Royal Mail’s rules and regulations above are automatically set for you on all modern franking machines. There is no need for you to become an expert in Royal Mail guidelines overnight. Many Mailmark franking machines now even connect to Wi-Fi and have USB ports, allowing you to add credit without having to leave the office.

A Mailmark franking machine can help massively when sending your mail. 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.