When It Comes To Postal Codes, Who Do You Trust?

There has been an interesting case in the news recently about Canada Post asserting its intellectual property rights over postal codes. You may have read [1][2][3] that Canada Post is suing an Ottawa-based company called Geolytica, which operates the website GeoCoder.ca. At issue is whether anyone has the right to sell or give away lists […]

Getting A Statement Of Accuracy Report With nCode

One of the requirements for getting volume postage discounts from Canada Post is to have your mailing list certified by address quality software that is recognized by Canada Post under their Software Evaluation and Recognition Program (SERP). You need to provide Canada Post with a Statement of Accuracy Report (SOA) that shows your mailing list’s […]

Invalid Excluded Address Transition Period

On November 2, 2011, Canada Post announced changes to the transition period for invalid excluded addresses. Background In January 2011, Canada Post introduced Point of Call reference data (“PoCAD”) for use in generating Statement of Accuracy reports. An important feature of the PoCAD data is that it includes much more granular information, in particular, unit […]

What Is A “Questionable Address”?

A Questionable Address is one which is not complete or fully accurate, but in most instances will still be deliverable according to Canada Post’s SERP rules. Apartment building addresses are questionable if the mailing addresses do not have a unit number and there are no unit numbers available in the Canada Post reference database. Rural addresses are […]

Point Of Call Reference Data

Point Of Call Canada Post publishes data that lists the official valid mailing addresses in Canada. The most recent version of this data is referred to as “Point of Call”. What is Point of Call data and what does it mean for your organization? Read on to find out… Two Views Of Address Reference Data Prior to January […]

What Organizations Should Do To Handle Rural Street Addresses

One of the challenges that most organizations face when working with address data is how to handle street addresses in small towns and out in the countryside. Canada Post maintains the official list of all Canadian mailing addresses, but in rural areas, these addresses are rarely street addresses. Instead they are PO Box, Route Service (RR) or […]

Does Canada Post Provide Competitive Comparisons On Their SERP list?

In the past, Canada Post provided a three-tier rating system (A, B, C) for products on their SERP list. For the past several years, they have discontinued this practice and now simply list products as being SERP recognized without making quality distinctions amongst them. Canada Post still does note whether the products listed are capable […]

What is SERP recognition and why is it important?

Canada Post’s Software Evaluation and Recognition Program (SERP) is your guarantee that an address quality solution meets Canada Post’s minimum standards for validating and correcting addresses. In order to obtain SERP recognition, products such as nCode must successfully process test data provided by Canada Post. In order to qualify for postage discounts based on address […]

Why is address data so hard to get right?

Address data is everywhere.  Approximately 80% of databases and 25% of business documents contain address data[1].  What’s more, a lot of this data is lacking in quality.  Gartner has estimated that more than 25% of critical data in large corporations is flawed[2].  Data quality in general is an issue for most organizations, but address data […]

What Is An “Excluded Address” Or An “Excluded Apartment Address”?

An Excluded Address, also called an Excluded Apartment Address, is one which matches a known apartment or business building, but which has obvious problems with the suite number. In particular, these addresses have a suite number which is not part of any of the known valid suite number ranges found in the Canada Post reference data. […]