Team Technologies
Team Technologies

PAFinder

Team Technologies is a Royal Mail PAF (Postal Address File) Solutions Provider.  The PAFinder Application Programming Interface (API) we have created searches for accurate addresses from postcodes or partial address details using the Royal Mail's UK PAF data and has been built to automatically pick up PAF data updates every month.

What are the features and benefits of using Royal Mail's PAF data?

  • PAF data is an affordable solution using "Per Click" pricing.  It is no longer necessary to buy expensive Server or Client licenses for certain types of application, potentially saving a significant amount of money.
     
  • PAFinder lets a user enter the minimum amount of data needed to search for an address (typically just a house number & postcode) making entering a full Royal Mail valid address much faster and more accurate.
     
  • PAFinder allows the user to search for addresses in various ways.  If you know the postcode, just enter that and select the actual address from the list provided.  Optionally enter the house number with the postcode to get straight to the address you need.  If you don't know the Postcode you can use other parts of the address such as street name and postal town instead.
     
  • When a new customer record is created in a Business Application (such as our GoldSTAR  and Enfold systems) the application can use PAFinder to look up a valid address. This ensures that only good, clean address data is entered into the database. If an address does not show up (usually because the residence has only recently been built), then users can still enter the full address manually.
     
  • Having valid address data in your Business Applications means that you can reduce the number of undelivered letters, meet contractual and GDPR obligations and also ensures increased accuracy when running reports on customer residences e.g. for Marketing or Operations purposes.
     
  • The PAF data used in PAFinder is automatically updated every month, and this service is included in the annual maintenance cost from us.  This means that you get the latest updates as soon as the Royal Mail issue them.
     
  • For some Business Applications, in addition to customer addresses being entered manually, they may also be imported from other systems such as websites.  In order to make sure this data is also kept clean, the application can offer a background process that runs daily and, using the PAFinder API, checks all new addresses added this way. 
     
  • Customers have flexible licensing options depending on whether they require full UK wide coverage or just local postcode area coverage helping to further reduce the cost.
     
  • PAFinder provides both a web based User Interface (UI) designed to be integrated with other Business Applications or Web Applications and an Application Programming Interface (API) to allow more sophisticated integrations with other business systems.

More about 'Per Click'

The ‘Per Click’ option, is a cost effective option, enabling customers to use PAF data to lookup an address, for example when adding or editing an existing customer address.  PAFinder automatically tracks the number of clicks you use and provides regular reports on click usage to help you meet the Royal Mail terms and conditions of use.