Interlink Circulation provides annual Statement of Ownership report

The USPS Statement of Ownership, Management, and Circulation, also known as PS Form 3526, is required by the post office annually to show proof of continued eligibility for mailing under a periodical permit.

Interlink Circulation includes this report and can automatically fill in most of the required information. You can find the statement of ownership with the other reports in the periodical mail delivery report category. If you have not printed this report from Interlink Circulation before, some setup is required to ensure all parts of the form are complete and accurate.

To configure the 3526 form, open your periodical publication in Interlink Circulation then:

  1. From the File menu, select Configure List…
  2. Select the Periodical Mail tab
  3. Click the Contact Information… button
  4. Select the Form 3526 tab

The first six sub-tabs shown provide space to enter contact information for the various areas on Form 3526. Each tab has room for one contact—additional contacts should be specified on a separate sheet and attached to the form when filing.

Additional required information can be specified under the Misc sub-tab, such as the number of annual issues published, the filing date for PS Form 3526, and the date it will be published in the paper.

It is helpful to have a blank copy of the form in front of you in order to correctly enter the proper information for each line on the form since they are referred to by line, letter and number. A current copy of the form can be downloaded here.

The real magic happens under the Totals sub-tab. The second page of PS Form 3526 requires circulation statistics from the issue published nearest to date of filing, in addition to circulation statistics averaged across the previous 12 months of publication. Clicking the Estimate Values button will cause the program to automatically determine what the counts should be based on the information it has available. If you like what you see, click the Use Estimates button to copy the numbers into the form. You also have the ability to enter your own numbers, if needed.

The beginning date for the year must be within a 12 month span, or the Totals sub-tab will not calculate and a window will pop up stating there is no data for the report. The issue date for data must be a valid close issue date in Circulation.

It is important to note that circulation statistics are only available from parts of Interlink Circulation that have been actively and accurately used during the previous 12-month period. This means that non-mail delivery figures for racks, dealers and carriers will only be accurate if you have been using these parts of the program. If not, you can always enter your own values prior to printing the report. Note that C1 is an average from the past 12 months and C2 is from the issue closest to the filing date.

Once you are happy with the setup for PS Form 3526, click the OK button to save your changes then OK again to exit Configure List. You can now print the completed PS Form 3526 any time and as often as you like. For anyone who may be interested, a blank copy of PS Form 3526 with instructions is available for download from the USPS here.

If you ran the ownership statement last year from Interlink, this will be an easy process:

Open your list:

  1. Select File
  2. Select Configure List…
  3. Choose the Periodical Mail tab
  4. Click Contact Information…
  5. Select the Form 3526 tab

Verify information on each tab and:

  1. Update the dates on the Misc tab
  2. Select the Totals tab
  3. Enter the Beginning Date for Year (the start of this year’s numbers, likely October 2014)
  4. Enter the Issue Date for Data (the most recent close issue you processed, e.g., 9/30/2015)
  5. Click the Estimate Values button (this will put new numbers in both of the estimates columns)
  6. If the numbers are what you would expect, click the Use Estimates button; but if NOT, you can manually enter the numbers you would like to use
  7. Click OK and then OK again to save your changes

To run your Statement of Ownership report:

  1. Select Reports…
  2. Select the Current Reports tab
  3. Check the box for 3526 Statement of Ownership (should be first report, right column)
  4. Click Print All…

If you have any questions while completing the Statement of Ownership, please contact client solutions at 888-473-3103 for assistance.