Settings and Setup

Once PostalPoint is installed, it's time to do the setup. Connect your label and receipt printers, barcode scanner, and postage scale, then open "PostalPoint Retail" from the system launcher (Start menu on Windows).

Click the Settings button in the bottom-left corner (on smaller screens, you might just see an icon with sliders).

After making changes, remember to save! Click "Save Settings" in the top-right corner to do that.

You'll see several tabs across the top. We'll go through each one in order.

Business

Origin Address

Fill in your business name and address under "Origin Address". Don't worry about the city and state; that's filled in by your ZIP code.

Receipt Branding

Put your business name and any other info (phone number, website, etc) in the "Receipt Branding" section. You can customize the top and bottom of printed receipts.

You can also set an image to show at the top or bottom. Use a PNG file, and keep in mind it'll be printed in black and white. Images are not resized on the receipt, so you might need to use an image editor to change the image width until it looks right. In our testing, 573 pixels wide will make the image go all the way across the receipt, but different printers might behave differently. You might want to leave some blank space at the top or bottom of the image so it won't be cut off or overlapped by text.

The receipt branding text will be shown on email receipts, but the images will not.

Label Branding

There is a small area in the bottom-left corner of USPS shipping labels available for your custom branding. For best results, use a black and white image (no gray, only pure black and white) that's 300 pixels wide and 150 pixels tall (for a 300 DPI printer) or 200 by 100 pixels for a 200 or 203 DPI printer. Images of other sizes can be used as well, but they will be forced to black/white and 300x150 pixels, which could make them ugly.

You can convert a color or grayscale logo to black and white in an image editor such as GIMP, which has a dithering feature to simulate shades of gray with only black and white pixels. If your image uses dithering and your label printer is 200/203 DPI, you should resize it to 200 by 100 pixels before converting for best results.

After saving your changes, test your logo's appearance by using the "Print test label" button on the Devices tab under Shipping Label Printer.

Customer Screen Branding

If you're using a customer-facing display, you can customize the logo and background color to match your brand. The logo will be displayed whenever there is not a transaction in progress.

Devices

This is where you set up hardware devices with PostalPoint. If you purchase a hardware package from us, these settings will be preconfigured for you.

If you're buying your own equipment, you should also read the supported hardware page.

Shipping Label Printer

Select the type of printer you're using for 4x6 inch shipping labels. You probably want to use ZPL, TSPL2, or EPL2; most label printers support at least one of those languages. Check your printer's documentation for info. Generally, Zebra branded printers use ZPL, while older Zebras and Eltron printers use EPL2. Generic Chinese printers often use TSPL2, but they usually won't mention this or will call it something else.

Set your printer's DPI (dots per inch). If you pick the wrong one, your labels will print too small or too large. If that happens, pick the other option.

Use a metric ruler to measure the labels and input the dimensions as closely as possible. The width and height are measured to the edges of the label excluding the backing or liner. The label gap is the distance between two labels on the roll. The label darkness tells the printer how much heat to use. You want it high enough the labels print a nice dark black, but don't go higher than that because it'll wear out the print head and waste power. If label images go off the top or bottom edge of the paper, adjust the label vertical offset.

When you've set the label printer settings, press "Save Settings" in the top-right corner of the screen and then click "Print test label". If the test label doesn't print, you probably picked the wrong printer type. If it prints but doesn't look right, check the other settings.

Windows Setup

Windows makes printer setup difficult. You need to configure the printer with the "Generic/Text only" driver. Contact us or a local IT person for help with that.

Stamp Label Printer

This printer is used for smaller postage labels without an address. It can print USPS First-Class Mail postage on small stamp-like labels. You can use a Brother QL label printer with DK-1201 "standard address" labels when using EasyPost. For Stamps Endicia, you'll want to use Dymo 30915 labels.

You'll see several of the same settings as in the Shipping Label Printer section. The main difference is there is no option to set the label size, as the stamp label specifications are pre-programmed for you.

We recommend buying generic labels online; they're a fraction of the price of "genuine" labels, but perform the same.

Receipt Printer

You probably want the receipt printer type to be "Thermal printer". Most receipt printers use Epson's ESC/POS (a.k.a. ESC/P) language. Set the printer's name or port as well.

For Windows users, see the Windows Setup information for label printers above, as it applies to receipt printers too.

Barcode Scanner

Select the type of barcode scanner you've connected. USB scanners are automatically detected and configured. For serial barcode scanners, enter the port and speed.

To test a barcode scanner, click "Save Settings" and close PostalPoint. Re-open it, go to the Ship or Prepaid page, and scan any barcode. You should see some sort of message about a barcode. If you don't, check your settings.

USB scanners are usually configured to emulate a keyboard from the factory. Check your scanner manual for instructions on programming it to USB HID or USB Serial mode.

Postage Scale

If you have a scale that communicates over USB, there's no additional setup needed.

If you have a scale that communicates over serial or a serial-to-USB adapter, change the scale type to "Serial" and enter the port name and scale protocol. "Toledo" will work for most Mettler-Toledo and Pitney Bowes scales.

If your scale uses a PS-IN202 indicator, you'll need to configure it to output continuously instead of when a button is pressed. Check your scale's manual for instructions.

Customer Display

If you have a second monitor facing the customer, select it here. If you pick the wrong one and your main monitor is "taken over", click anywhere in the window and press Alt-F4 to close it.

Integrations

The settings on this page are the most important; without them, the software will not function.

Several integrations require an account with another company. Setting up those accounts are outside the scope of these instructions.

PostalPoint

Set your PostalPoint location key, which we provide to you. This code acts as a license key and authentication password for the PostalPoint network.

EasyPost

To print postage with EasyPost, enter your API key here. To get your API key, click here or log in to your EasyPost dashboard, click Account Settings, then click API Keys.

Stripe Terminal

If you're using Stripe to accept card payments, enter a Stripe secret key here.

Address Autocomplete

To suggest street addresses while entering info on the Ship page, open the address database file here. Download a database file from this site and unzip it first.

InvoiceNinja

If you use InvoiceNinja for accounting and invoicing, enter your server address and API key here. PostalPoint will automatically create expenses and invoices for you. A new InvoiceNinja client will be created for "holding" transactions; you can instead set a preexisting client ID to use.

If you set the ID Number of an InvoiceNinja client to their PostalPoint account ID (found on the Point of Sale page in the Customer card), all future transactions you have with that PostalPoint customer will be linked to their InvoiceNinja client account instead of the default "cash" client.

Merchandise

To sell non-postage items with PostalPoint, add them in this tab's spreadsheet. Use the Help button to view detailed instructions.

Reports

You can run reports against the PostalPoint cloud servers to see a revenue overview and list of transactions for a specific date range. The date range picker uses UTC, not local time, so to ensure you see the most recent data, set the end date to the day after today.

Advanced

You probably don't need to use most of the settings in Advanced, but we might tell you to if you're having problems. Here are the ones you should be aware of:

Settings Lock

Set a password here to prevent unauthorized access to or tampering with the settings.

Reload Price List

PostalPoint refreshes the USPS price chart (Notice 123) every 24 hours. If a postage change has just occurred, use this button to download the new prices immediately.