Matching Options

Global Address Validation uses the Matching options settings to define address validation processing.

Table 1. Matching Options
Option Name	Country Support	Description
Match mode	All	Match modes determine the leniency used to make a match between the input address and the reference data. Select one of the following match modes based on the quality of your input and your desired output. Exact A very tight match. This restrictive mode generates the fewest match candidates. When using this mode, ensure that your input is very clean; free of misspellings and incomplete addresses. Relaxed A loose match. This mode generates the most match candidates and results in more multiple matches. Use this mode if you are not confident that your input is clean and free of misspellings and incomplete addresses. Note: For USA, the relaxed match mode is only allowed for the US Database Lookup. Custom A custom match. Allows you to define the matching criteria by selecting Custom Match Fields.
Maximum records to return		The number of match candidates to return. Using a looser Match Mode setting such as "Relaxed" can result in the matching output including multiple match candidates. If an exact match is found, the single match candidate is returned. If an exact match is not found and the maximum records to return option is set to a value other than 1, Global Address Validation returns the specified number of match candidate suggestions when match candidate suggestions are available. For example, an exact match is not found. The maximum records to return is set to 3. Processing finds 8 match candidate suggestions. However, since maximum records to return is set to 3, only the three best match candidate suggestions are presented to the user to select the desired match candidate. In another example, an exact match is not found. The maximum records to return is set to 5. However, processing only finds two match candidate suggestions. In this example, only the two available match candidate suggestions are presented to the user to select the desired match candidate. Note: If you specify ON for the CASS Flag, CASS processing overrides the Maximum Records to Return to 1 (for the current processing run). Multiple candidate suggestions are not valid when CASS processing is turned ON.
Prefer PO Box over street	CAN FRA GBR	Prefer candidates matching the input PO Box over matches to the input street. The default is disabled.
Prefer postal code over city	AUS	Prefer candidates matching the input postal code over matches to the input city. The default is disabled.