Why do I get a warning 'Increase over Standard Tariff' in my Mailsort report?

Why do I get a warning message saying, “Increase over Standard Tariff…” in my Mailsort report file?

Summary

This document describes why the warning “Increase over Standard Tariff” may occur in a Mailsort report.

Solution

QAS Mailsort is designed to provide reports to the customer on the total costs of mailings, as well as the total discount that is being applied to the sort in question. To calculate the applicable discount Mailsort will subtract the discounted scheme price from the equivalent Royal Mail standard tariff for that number of items, at that weight and at that speed of delivery (i.e. first class, second class). Under this system, a positive number will indicate a discount.

A problem can arise when there is no equivalent Royal Mail standard tariff. In this case, the Royal Mail price is recorded in Mailsort as 0 (zero). Obviously, when subtracting the discounted pricing scheme from the Royal Mail tariff in this case one will always end up with a negative number i.e. no discount, prompting the warning message to appear.

For example, at the time of writing (Sep 2002) it is not possible to send items heavier than 750g by standard 2^nd class post. This is shown in the ‘Standard Tariffs’ box within the ‘Royal Mail Parameters’ screen in the Mailsort setup dialogue:

In this case, any scheme that will send items of over 750g in the same time as standard 2^nd class post will receive the warning message on the Mailsort report. Also note that any sort of items over 1kg will receive the warning (as there is also no first class price at this weight).

In these situations, the warning message can be ignored.