Mailing W-2s, 1099s, and/or Charitable Giving Statements?

Tax Forms with Glasses

It’s January, which means it’s time to send out 1099‘s, W-2‘s, Charitable Giving/Contribution Statements and other tax related documents for the current tax year.

If you are still trying to figure out how to get your documents mailed without mandatory all-night stuffing parties, we might be the right people to call.

With our hi-tech production facility and knowledgeable staff (friendly staff, too), we can take the burden out of printing, folding, stuffing, licking, stamping and mailing your critical documents.

Call us today and get some expert assistance no matter how many (or how few) documents you have.

Toys for Tots Update

Toys for Tots

We had a great time at the Toys for Tots drop in North Scottsdale this year. LetterStream’s toy giving was up quite a bit from last year.

I am continually amazed at the generosity of our team… Thanks guys!

However, due to the wet-est cold-est day in Scottsdale, the total number of toys retrieved by the Marines was only about 12 jumbo boxes full. But those who dared to experience our winter wonderland heard great holiday tunes, were warmed by hot chili, and were greeted by Santa.

For you locals, be sure to put this event on your list of to-dos for next year. It’s a wonderful family outing and it benefits kids who appreciate a few more gifts under the tree.

*Picture provided by dasFOTOhaus.com. (More pictures of the event can be found on their website.)

Toys for Tots – Scottsdale

LetterStream is participating in a local Toys for Tots event this year in North Scottsdale.

The event includes food, live music, Marines and the big-guy wearing a red suit. Yes, Santa will even be there and available for pictures.

pinnacle peak-santa-2

It’s at the Pinnacle Peak General Store and Village, in the courtyard between 11:30 AM and 2:30 PM, Saturday December 15th.

It will be a great outing for family and friends.

Pinnacle Peak General Store and Village

If you join us, be sure and bring a toy or two for the Marines to distribute to children.

*Pictures in this post are from the event last year.

Saving Trees and Securing Data

While reviewing our bills today, I noticed our Certificate of Destruction receipt from our shredding service. It now includes a nice little notice of how many trees we’ve saved by our shredding efforts.

shredding receipt
36.4 trees saved!

The receipt shows 36.4 trees saved so far this year. I’m not exactly sure how they calculate it, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the weight and/or volume of paper that we present to them for onsite shredding.

The primary purpose of our shredding efforts is to protect private data from falling into the wrong hands. Shredding helps us comply with HIPAA and PHI rules and keeps our data private.

Our internal policies state that everything we print and even documents that we receive be shredded unless we are mailing them. As an extra precaution, all shredding takes place at our facility with our staff supervising the process.

That’s good for clients…and good for trees too, it seems!

 

Now where did I put that green card?

If you send Certified Mail, you know what sort of pain it is when the attorney asks for the green card (PS Form 3811) and it can’t be found.

green card - certified mail receipt

I know, I know….we all like to put our highest paid employees on the task of filing the green cards so they are always where they need to be. Well, ok…..that’s not exactly true. In reality, they stack up on the receptionist’s desk, then they get moved to the mail room, then they may make it back to the collections department, with each department attempting to file a few whenever they get an idle moment.

Sound familiar?

Wish there was a better way? 

Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t need to worry about hanging on to those pesky green cards? Instead, what if the green cards were electronically delivered to us with the name and address of the recipient and the signature of the person who received the certified letter. Then, what if the signature was instantly and accurately filed, just the way we like.

While we are dreaming, let’s make it one better. What if, when the green card is needed — even if it’s years down the road —  all we need to do is type in the name or the address of the person who was sent the letter and we’d immediately see the certified letter, the tracking information and the signature, all available to be printed and handed over to the person who needs it. Now that would be ideal!

And it would also be an explanation of how our Certified Mail process works.

Don’t file green cards, use LetterStream.

Neither snow nor rain… But Hurricanes…

There’s a reason the postal slogan doesn’t mention hurricanes when talking about the conditions in which they deliver mail.

It turns out that Hurricane Sandy is already effecting postal deliveries all along the eastern shores.  As we write this, most retail (post office counter) and BME (business mail entry unit) centers in Long Island, New York and along the New Jersey shore are closed. Many other states are reporting retail operations being affected and/or closed along the coast.

Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy impacts US Mail Delivery

For the latest information about current mail delivery status, visit the United States Postal Service (USPS) Mail Service Updates page.

And, in case you wanted to know, the saying “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” is not a motto or creed of the post office, but it is an inscription from the James Farley Post Office in New York City.

Sending Mail on Postal Holidays

Can you send mail on USPS postal holidays? Sure you can!

Let’s face it, we don’t all get the same paid holidays that the United States Postal Service (USPS) employees get. In 2012, the USPS is closed for 10 holidays.

However, if you are working and you need your mail to go out, LetterStream has the ability to mail your letters on many postal holidays.  While the post office front counters are closed and mail carriers are off, there are some holidays that the post office back office is still on duty.

So, “Yes”, the USPS accepts and processes our mail on President’s Day (Washington’s birthday), Columbus Day, Veterans’ Day, MLK Day and Juneteenth.

If you are like us and are working those days, feel free to send your mail to us and we’ll get it mailed on the Holiday for you!

Certified Mail by the Thousands!

Certified Mail Job

We were contacted the other day to help one of our customers with a fairly large Certified Mail job.

It wasn’t our largest USPS Certified Mail project, but with more than 23,000 certified letters, it was still a lot of certified letters (see actual picture).

In addition to printing, folding and inserting the certified mail for our client, we also licensed a cobranded version of our website so their clients could log in and check the status and retrieve signatures of any piece of mail.

The job went out quickly and easily and provided everyone involved complete USPS tracking information as well as electronic signatures, matched with the mail piece.

Big or small, whether you’ve got a single certified letter or thousands, our automated processes will make it easy.

Copier – Death by Crane (Video)

I just received this video from our friends at ProCopy Office Solutions. It shows a copier that they dropped from a 75 foot high crane in 2011. Pretty awesome!

This year, they are doing it again, and are having a contest for a free copier and a trip to the Bahamas if you can tell them why you have THE worst copier. You can see the details at http://www.procopyoffice.com/.

They are also allowing local businesses to drop their worst copiers for a $25 donation to the local Big Brother Big Sister organization.

Did LetterStream want to drop a copier? Absolutely! But not because we have any bad ones… all of ours make excellent copies and we don’t want to lose any of them. So instead we made a donation as though we were dropping our 8 biggest and best copiers… we can’t wait to see the ProCopy video for this year!