The present invention is a configurable binary BCH encoder having a variable number of errors. The encoder may implement a universal multipole block which may be configured for receiving an error number input, which may include a maximum error number limit for the encoder, and for calculating a plurality of error coefficients based on the error number input. The encoder may be further configured for receiving a plurality of information bits of an information word. The encoder may be further configured for transmitting/outputting a first (ex.—unmodified) subset of the information bits as an encoder output. The encoder may be further configured for calculating a plurality of parity bits based on a second subset of the information bits and the error coefficients. The encoder may be further configured for transmitting/outputting the calculated parity bits as part of the encoder output.