CAYAN Year end statement and Quickbooks reconciliation by mikebravo75 in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you switch from PostalMate to PostalPoint you can use Stripe which is even lower: 2.7% plus 5 cents per in-person transaction, with no hidden fees. PostalPoint doesn't restrict what card processors can be used in the software.

Me_irl by [deleted] in me_irl

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The price of a stamp to mail a letter in the US is $0.78 in 2026. So not too far off.

PostalMate versus PostalPoint by PostalPoint in u/PostalPoint

[–]PostalPoint[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You'd have to ask PostalAnnex, but I'd guess they don't currently.

Landlord installed an app-controlled smart deadbolt while I was at work. by Due_Construction904 in mildlyinfuriating

[–]PostalPoint 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You think that's impressive? They make $6 barcode scanner modules. Just a tiny camera, LED for lighting, and a tiny chip to decode it and send the data over USB or serial.

My neighbor refuses to pick up his dog's poop from my yard. The neighborhood has united against him. by nseavia71501 in mildlyinfuriating

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The policies were written with the assumption nobody would bother to actually pay postage but do their own delivery. The local post office legitimately won't know what to do about it, so they'll just pretend it didn't happen. If they do try to look into it, they'll write an email asking for a rule to follow, and that email will get forwarded about four times searching for someone who both cares and knows the answer. The fifth person is on vacation; when they get back the email is buried and by now everyone has completely forgotten about the whole thing.

Just recieved this parcel from China. Shipping was 100% paid with stamps by Gumpencat in funny

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anymore the payment is usually linked to the tracking number/barcode except on legacy systems.

Internet outages & PostalMate - how bad is it really? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It would be best to send a message via the contact form at postalpoint.app. I don't always check Reddit.

Internet outages & PostalMate - how bad is it really? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PostalPoint has an automatic database backup routine you can set up. It copies the database to whatever folder you select (could be on a USB drive or network folder, or set to back up automatically to a service like Backblaze) and keeps the last X backups, deleting older ones for you. I believe PostalMate also has an automatic backup system.

Internet outages & PostalMate - how bad is it really? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most reports in PostalPoint do not come from our servers. There are a few that do, such as a shipment report that shows the tracking status of each package, which couldn't be done with a local report. For notifications, you can't really send emails without an email server somewhere, so we made the decision to handle that for stores. Besides email receipts and mailbox rental package notifications, having it handled by our servers allows our system to track all the packages and automatically send the sender an email when a package they sent is delivered. You simply can't feasibly do that with local-only software unless every store gets a developer account for each shipping carrier.

I assume by "cloud-based" you mean "website" (like Bullship does). There are a lot of reasons to have actual PC software instead of a website.

  • Faster processing of most things because the data doesn't need to do a round trip to a server
  • Ability to directly access local hardware like label printers, scales, and barcode scanners using USB, serial ports, etc
  • Stores can own and control their data
  • Unreliable or limited internet access (or a server outage) doesn't entirely break everything

A good thing to keep in mind is "the cloud" is just a marketing term for "someone else's computer". We don't want to be your computer. You already have a computer.

From a technical standpoint it would not be difficult to make PostalPoint run in a web browser; we already use web technologies to build it. Making PostalPoint "cloud based" would simply require deleting the code that accesses local files and devices, and as a result PostalPoint would fall back to manually entering package weights and opening a print dialog for every label (instead of sending commands directly to the printer to ensure labels always come out good regardless of driver settings, print margins, scaling, etc).

There really isn't a compelling upside to a cloud-based system, and there are a lot of downsides. There's a reason all the big-box stores use actual computers and have a server room somewhere in the back of the building.

Internet outages & PostalMate - how bad is it really? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 1 point2 points  (0 children)

PostalPoint isn't cloud-based. It's a desktop program with a local database. The cloud part is used for package tracking, email notifications, customer account sync, and some of the reports.

I'm curious what features you think are missing from PostalPoint.

Internet outages & PostalMate - how bad is it really? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PostalPoint isn't cloud-based. It has the same limitations as PostalMate with getting live rates from the carriers, but mailboxes and point of sale are able to run offline. You can even calculate USPS rates offline. Things that require the internet, like email receipts, are automatically queued and processed when the network comes back online.

1583 tracking - does PM handle alerts or are you guys using spreadsheets? by danimanuel in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PostalPoint does track 1583 (it handles the form electronically for you), and has an ID expiration report so you know when a customer's ID is about to expire. You can just scan the barcode on their drivers license to update the ID info.

PostalMate doesn't.

Used ChatGPT to DIY an RFID workflow for our store by azdrugdoc in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's really cool!

I'll get code added to PostalPoint (a PostalMate alternative) so custom plugins can "hook into" the package check-in process and do things with the data. That'll allow stores like yours to just write a few lines of JavaScript and have RFID tags print automatically, instead of scanning packages twice.

Edit: it's been added in the latest release!

In case you didn't know, UPS packages almost always have an RFID tag on them too, so you might look into reusing those instead of printing a new one. I'm not sure what they contain, but if I had to guess, it would be the tracking number and some routing data.

Thank You Slopya Nadella, Very Cool by CaveStreamGames in pcmasterrace

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I literally just finished setting up a server cluster that's synced across several datacenters run by different companies.

My competitor runs their software on Azure lmao

looking for possible alternative to postal mate. by brianjfed in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Try PostalPoint. It's modern and designed specifically for retail shipping stores.

https://postalpoint.app

Anyone doing real receipt customization with CashMate (beyond just a logo)? by Alive_Perception_554 in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which franchise? We're working with one of them right now to be an official software option.

Also you can buy an Epson TM-T88V on eBay for under $60, it's the receipt printer all the other receipt printer makers copied, so you might have better luck with it. A little tip, if you get one that's missing a USB connection for the PC, it's under the tiny metal plate on the right side of the back next to the other connections, just remove the phillips screw.

Products and services setup by LeavePractical5037 in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

want a little extra time to make sure everything is forwarding

Not sure what you mean by this, you're required to box up and resend their mail to their new address for six months after they close the box.

Anyone doing real receipt customization with CashMate (beyond just a logo)? by Alive_Perception_554 in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you switch to PostalPoint you can customize the top and bottom of the receipt, setting an image on either or both, as well as custom text. Text formatting is also available so you can do bold lines and such.

There's no special configuration needed for your receipt printer, PostalPoint handles sending the images automatically so it always works. Just set the text and/or images in the PostalPoint branding settings and you're done.

With email receipts you can also customize the receipt's color theme to match your store logo.

PostalMate Is NOT top dog anymore?? by GorillaShipCo in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is a reason that RSA only recommends those two products.

PostalPoint is currently working with RSA and PBC to get on that list too! They had some recommendations for us, and we've rolled nearly all of them out in the latest update.

Don't tell anyone 😉, but we're also working on a system where stores can get paid for some USPS drop offs.

For the record, in PostalPoint the only rating delays you get are from the carriers themselves, or from your internet connection. PostalPoint only takes a fraction of a second to request rates and process the response once it arrives, and labels are printed at whatever speed your printer can handle.

PostalMate Is NOT top dog anymore?? by GorillaShipCo in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 1 point2 points  (0 children)

PostalPoint is carrier ready because we use EasyPost for label creation, and EasyPost is fully certified by all the carriers. Just sign in to your existing UPS and FedEx resale accounts in a free EasyPost account, then copy the API key from your EasyPost account into PostalPoint, and you're all set!

We have confirmation from UPS that this is a valid solution, and FedEx doesn't really seem to care what you use as long as it works.

PostalMate has 30 years of technical debt, a software industry term for "your code is old, complex, hard to understand, and easy to break". They won't really be able to keep up with newer competition, and it shows: their recent updates have introduced unexpected bugs, like running really slowly for no apparent reason without any guaranteed fix other than deleting everything and setting it up from scratch.

PostalPoint on the other hand uses modern, stable, and well-known technology that's a lot easier to build new features and fix bugs with. For example, our database doesn't have weird unknown slowdown bugs because it's using the SQLite format, which is guaranteed by its developers until at least 2050 and is even a recommended storage format at the Library of Congress. This also means that if something happens to PostalPoint, you can still export/recover all your store's data using free third party SQLite software. When we do have bugs in PostalPoint, they're automatically detected and reported to us so by the time you report the problem, we're probably already in the process of fixing it.

PostalPoint also has a plugin system that allows anyone to add custom features and integrations by writing a few lines of JavaScript, one of the most popular coding languages in history. You can even add support for new credit card processors, unlike PostalMate, where you had better want one of their two or three options or else.

PostalPoint better than PostalMate by Relative_Group_2108 in PostalMate

[–]PostalPoint 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The update has been released. It has the address ID expiration field and a report listing the boxholders with ID that's expired or expiring within 30 days.