All You Ever Wanted To Know About Franking Machines
All You Ever Wanted To Know About Franking Machines
The first postal franking machine was developed by Pitney Bowes in the 1920's, with the first franking machines sold in the UK from 1922 by agents UPF Ltd. In 1924/25 British Neopost Ltd began selling their new machine called Neopost.
Currently in the UK there a 4 licensed franking machine manufactures Frama UK Ltd, Francotyp Postalia Ltd, Neopost Ltd, and Pitney Bowes Ltd; with franking machines sold both directly by manufacturers and through strictly authorised dealers.
All franking machines have to be licensed so there is no market for second hand franking machines sold via eBay for example.
Franking machines come in all shapes and sizes, and are designed for the small business doing a only a few items of mail per day, through to the largest of companies and professional mailing services. The modern day franker has come a long way from the original Pitney Bowes Postage meter, and even the electro mechanical ‘brick’ I had to struggle down to the post office with, to refill with postage credits.
Now days even the smallest of franking machines looks like a slick piece of computerised modern office equipment, and gone are the days of having the take the thing to the post office, as you can now refill the units electronically. Though I did enjoy the opportunity to get out the office, and I always said the queues at the post office went on forever, even when they didn’t!
The basic concept of a franking machine is that it puts a mark or ‘frank’ onto either the letter directly or onto a label that would then be stuck to the item of post. The reason for the strict licensing of franker’s is that they contain money, the credit within a franking machine may be hundreds or even thousands of pounds, and the Royal Mail do not want any illegal trading in either stolen franking machines or indeed people forging frank marks to steal postage value.
The other major consideration for the business mail user is getting the right postage value on their mail or parcel, under paying results in a surcharge for the recipient, which though a minor indiscretion can destroy profitable business relationships. So every business mail user need to be able evaluate the correct postal charge dependent on the size and weight of each individual item!
This task is now made simple with the use of electronic postal scales that contain a changeable prom card that gets changed every time the Royal Mail changes their tariffs.
And for the real heavy duty postal user add machines that fold and insert your documents (such as invoices) into envelopes, and then weigh frank and stick the envelop as it speeds through the complete mail room system, and you start to see what efficiencies the modern franking system is capable of.
And though the Franking Machine is seeing, challenges from e-trading and paperless invoicing, it’s far from obsolete, and with the Royal Mail incentivising business users to use franked mail over stamps with generous discounts, the future looks rosy for the humble franker.
To see how much you can save by switching to franked mail please follow this link.
