Royal Mail Price increases from 6th April 2010

It’s that time of year again when Royal Mail ‘review’ their prices inline with the advice given by the Postal Regulatory Body Postcomm, which normally means an increase or re-structure and possible confusion on how they would like us to prepare and segregate the 1000′s of items we post out to our clients every day.

Prime Secretarial largely rely on Royal Mail to collect, process and deliver our client’s mail.    Only 5% of our outbound mail is sent via a 3rd party such as UPS, TNT or DHL etc.

So how will their new prices affect our clients?

Royal Mail announced that the price of First and Second Class stamps for standard letters weighing up to 100g would rise by 2p from 6 April 2010.  The other weight bands beyond 101g also increase by approx 7p -10p.

For clients having mail sent by Special Delivery, their minimum charge for Special Delivery will now be £5.05 up to 100g.    Their Record Delivery fee is now 74p PLUS the cost of the postage.

Although Royal Mail have increased their rates, for the average mail volume client, the increase is going to be hardly noticeable overall.  

For example if you receive upon average one letter per day from us weighing under 100grams, with a 2p increase from April, your postal costs per month are going to be approximately 40p per month higher.   

Clients receiving larger daily volumes of mail may notice a marginal difference in their postage statements from us.

As a final point, when we forward mail Prime Secretarial charge clients postage at cost with no handling charge.   You simply pay the cost of the postage, and a few pence for envelope and label. (typically 10-15p per consignment extra).

5 differences between a Royal Mail PO Box and an Accommodation Address

Prospective clients often compare our services to the traditional Royal Mail P O Box service.    We are very often asked what are the differences between a Royal Mail P O Box and an Accommodation Address and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each.    By Accommodation Address, we mean our Street Address / Virtual Office address for business or private use.  

A Royal Mail PO Box and an Accommodation Address are very different services and to enable prospective clients to have a clear understanding on how the services differ, we have compiled a summary of the differences in the key areas you should be looking at when considering taking out an Address service.

1. LOCATION

Royal Mail :  A Royal Mail P O Box can only be rented in the same area where you live or work.   For example, if you live or have your office in London NW1, then your Royal Mail P O Box would also have a London NW1 postcode.   If you moved out of the area, then you would have to change your box number and postcode.

Accommodation Address:  With both our Accommodation/Street Address and PO Box services, you can be located anywhere in the world and still use one of our addresses.  For example, perhaps you have a business in Manchester , but you want a London address to target a different market.    You may want to retain a UK address because you are emigrating.  This is all possible with our Accommodation Address service.

2. CONFIDENTIALITY

Royal Mail:  Going back to the days of the General Post Office (GPO), the ownership of a Royal Mail P O Box is still made available to the public.  Anyone can make enquiries to ascertain who owns a Box Number and where their ‘real’ address is.

Accommodation Address:  This is a totaly anonymous service. Whether you use our service for private or business, there is no public register of our client list.  We are not obliged to release any ownership or contact information to any third party unless we are required to by law. 

3. COURIER ITEMS

Royal Mail: Only items that are sent through the Royal Mail system will be accepted at your Royal Mail PO Box.  They do not accept Courier items such as UPS, DHL or TNT.    Couriers cannot find a PO Box as there is no ‘physical’ location.

Accommodation Address:  Any letter, packet or parcel can be delivered to an Accommodation Address regardless wherter it is sent 1st class, Special Delivery, by Motorbike, DHL, TNT or in person.

4. SETUP

Royal Mail:  Generally take around 10 working days to set-up, which is OK if you you are not in urgent need.

Accommodation Address:  Usally set-up completed the same-day, and certainly within 24 hours.

5. SUMMARY AND COSTS

Royal Mail:  A Royal Mail Box is ideal if you are looking at a very basic and low cost alternative to your home address.  The extreme low cost reflect certain restrictions and limitations we mentioned above.

Accommodation Address: Although an Accomodation Address would cost you approximately 50%  more over the course of a year in comparison to a Royal Mail PO Box but it does have greater flexibility and a far more genuine and superior appearnce to the address and comes with total confidentiality.

You can read more about our Accomodation Address service here

The Internet has changed the way @primes

The Internet has changed the way @primesec operates from how we used to back in 1962!. Final part of “The Virtual Revolution” screens tonight at 8.15pm on BBC2.http://ow.ly/19rOH

Have just read “Twitter is not just abo

Have just read “Twitter is not just about Cheese Sandwiches” by @markshaw . A must for any business looking to use Twitter effectively.

Post Room Internal Move – Day 2

Day 2 of the Post Room move consisted of putting the Accounts Department back together and cabling all the PC’s and equipment with over 100 metres of CAT5 cabling so that we were ready to run on Monday morning, take payments and deal with queries.

The Post Room needed the re-indexing the mail filing units to be finished in preparation that we were due to re-open the following day (Monday 4th).

Items 'belonging' to the Post Room start appearing and need to be put into place

Items from the Director's Office are moved into their new home, although they are not going to live on the floor like that!

Files and crates are brough back into the new Accounts Department ready to be sorted through. These all had to be in order ready to run the following day.

The Post Room and Counter is finally ready to welcome clients

Some of the client files in their new home

Post Room Internal Move – Day 1

Over the two weekends between Christmas and New Year, the old Management Office was transformed in to a new Post Room at our Head Office North London, and our old Reception at the front of the building became the Accounts and Management Department.

The change was made to enable us to continue to efficiently index and sort the thousands of client letters we process daily.

Prime Secretarial has grown quite rapidly in the last 2 years and the Reception area was out grown and started to take over the Management Offices thus meaning that Mail Room Personnel were indexing and filing client mail across two rooms in the building.

Our New Post Room will enable us to have all of our Mail Index Units in one office meaning a much quicker sort and pick of the Mail.

Day 1 of this task was the painstaking task of removing client files from the units and storing them carefully in order to move the index units into the New Post Room, and then re-filing the units in reverse alphabetical order. Not as easy as it sounds with several thousand clients!.

Loading up some the Index Units with Client files

Entrance to the new Post Room where the Counter now lives

At the end of Day 1 we were ready to dismantle the Reception Counter to move from the old Reception to the New Post Room

Dismantling the Counter in the old Reception Dismantling the Counter in the old Reception

Do you really need a London Office…or

Do you really need a London Office…or just a better address?. Get all the benefits of a real office from just £125 a year. http://ow.ly/YLuN

File your Tax Return by 31st Jan to avoid a £100 penalty

HM Revenue & Customs  is urging customers to submit their 2008/09 tax returns by January 31st or face a £100 fine.

A reminder on the upcoming online self-assessment tax returns deadline has been issued by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

People who missed the paper return deadline of October 31st have the opportunity to file online in order to avoid the penalty.

Dealing with unwanted / ‘junk’ mail.

PRIME Secretarial clients often ask us questions relating to ‘junk’ mail.   Our Mail Room Operators are only too used to hearing questions such as  “Can you stop sending me junk mail?” or   “Am I being charged postage on these heavy catalogues?”

I am sure we have all been there….amongst our letters, bills and general correspondence are flyers, adverts, special offers, brochures, magazines and catalogues.   The latter often referred to as ‘junk’ mail.

Firstly, one does not attract any more junk mail by using a Mailing Address than you would by using your own address, as there is no public record of our addresses and client list.    If you are receiving ‘junk’ mail, it is as a result of you either being mailing lists from past or present services or products you have bought, or perhaps your name is being sourced from lists bought-in by marketing companies.

It is very hard for the Mail Room team at Prime Secretarial to filter out your ‘junk’ mail, as the definition of  ’junk’ mail varies from one person to another.

In simple terms, if our Post Room Operators are able to determine from first sight that something is clearly an item of ’junk’ mail, we will not forward this to you as standard.  However, if we have to look at something twice or unsure, then it is more than likely going to be sent to you.    We’d rather send something on to you for you to decide whether you want it or not, rather than for us to dispose of it, only to find out a few days later, it was the latest copy of a periodical you had paid £4.99 for!.

So why do we get ‘junk’ mail?

Perhaps you have made a purchase from shop or a purchase from a website and have overlooked to tick the very important box indicating that you do not wish to receive special offers or communications or that you do not wish to be contacted by other companies who offer services they think may interest you.

In addition, sometimes your information can be passed onto or sold to third parties if you have not indicated your preference when using a service or making a purchase.   Many companies source and buy lists of consumers who have shown an ‘interest’ in a particular service or product, and then bombard you with flyers and marketing material.

It is very often easy to get on to a mailing list, but at least twice as hard to remove yourself.

One way to alleviate this problem is to register yourself FREE with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS).   This can be done online at http://www.mps.org.uk .  The MPS can remove your name from up to 95% of Direct Mail lists.  It can take up to 4 months for the Service to have full effect although you should notice a reduction of the mail during this period. 

At Prime Secretarial, we do all we can to keep your postage costs as low as possible when forwarding mail, however, no guarantees can be made that some ‘junk’ mail may still filter through to you.

Directors – Protect your Home Address!

Prime Secretarial client’s who are Directors of a Limited Company may not be aware that changes in Company Law have enabled Directors of UK Limited Companies to protect their home address.  

Prior to 1st October 2009, the public record at Companies House held details of both the Registered Office (where official documents could be served and delivered upon the company), plus the individual private addresses of the Directors.

However, from 1st October 2009, if a Director of a Limited Company does not wish their home address to become public knowledge, then an alternative service address can be given to Companies House to be displayed on the public record.   The Director’s home address will be therefore be held by Companies House as confidential information, whilst the service address will be displayed on the public record instead.

For £35.00 per year, the Prime Secretarial Director’s Address Service enables Directors to protect their home address by using our North London N13 address as a Director’s Service address.

Sign-up today and protect your home address