What information does the Address Key DataPlus (AKEY) Provide?

Introduction

An Address Key is a unique 8 digit number that the Royal Mail assign to each address on PAF. This Address Key alone however is not always sufficient to uniquely identify an individual delivery point. This is because there can be more than one delivery point at the same address. An address may contain a residential delivery point, and one or more small user organisation delivery points. The delivery points at an address will usually, but not invariably, have the same postcode.

What Information is Returned

QAS’ Address Key product returns:

1. The 8 digit “address key”, together with 2 additional fields…

2. Organisation Key – an 8 digit number assigned by Royal Mail which uniquely identifies a small user organisation

3. Delivery point type – this 1 character field distinguishes between, residential delivery points, R, small user organisations, O, and large user organisations, L.

Changes to Address Key

According to the Royal Mail, an Address Key can never be re-used once deleted. Address Keys can, and quite often do, change by up to 50,000 delivery points a quarter. The main reasons that an Address Key might change are:

1. When a Large User delivery point has its postcode recoded. This is because the Address Key for a Large User delivery point is the Postcode key.

2. When an Organisation is added to a Small User Residential delivery point so that it becomes a Small User Organisational delivery point. The delivery point will now gain an organisation key and may have a different Address Key.

3. When an Organisation is removed from a Small User Organisational delivery point so that it becomes a Small User Residential delivery point. The delivery point will now lose its organisation key and may have a different Address Key.

4. When the Premise on a Small User Organisational delivery point is amended and other Organisations exist within the Postcode on the old or new Premise. The Address Key and organisation key will be changed.

For example:

If two companies share the same address, they would have the same AddressKey but will have different Organisation keys. Similarly, if a company changes address, its AddressKey will change accordingly. Here are two examples:

As can be seen the AddressKeys are the same. Note, however, that if QAS Systems Ltd wished to name the building in which it was based to QAS House, then the AddressKey would change. AddressKey 26285614 would indicate 7 Old Town, London, and the new AddressKey would indicate QAS House, 7 Old Town, London. AddressKeys may be deleted or added, but the addresses they correspond to cannot be changed (i.e.: a deleted AddressKey will not be reused).

Note that the Royal Mail differentiate between small organisations (who have an address key and an org key) and large organisations (who just have an org key, but this is stored in the address key field!).

In principal, organisation keys are constant. Thus 711809 represents QAS Systems Ltd. If the company name changed, the organisation key should not change. The Post Office would of course have to be aware of the change. However organisations have different keys for each branch they have.