Catalog Postage

To avoid any delays in processing the catalog for mailing at USPS, here is how we should handle sending a check for postage from now on.

Marketing Director writes the PO for the estimated amount of postage needed and gets it approved, and then gives Staff Accountant a copy. The PO should be written and approved no later than 8 business days before the catalog is to be mailed.

As soon as Staff Accountant gets the approved PO, she prepares a check for the amount of the PO and gives it to Bobby to take to the PO to deposit to our account. The check must always be deposited at the PO no later than 7 business days before the mailing is scheduled to be mailed by the USPS.

We also don’t need to keep lots of extra $ in the bulk mail account. We should have about $300 in there to cover any fluctuations in the cost of mailing the catalog. Staff Accountant will check the balance of the USPS Bulk Mail account before preparing the check, and if there is more than $300 in that account, reduce the check to the PO for that month’s catalog by the amount over $300.

If for any reason the actual cost to mail is going to be more than $300 from the estimated PO, Marketing Director will contact Staff Accountant immediately to send a supplemental check to the USPS bulk mail account. Otherwise, no additional check is sent to the bulk mail account for the difference between actual cost versus the estimated cost.

Staff Accountant will login to the USPS bulk mail account online the following day and verify that the check was credited to our account. If it was credited, she sends an email to Marketing Director to confirm with him that the funds are available for mailing. If Marketing Director doesn’t hear from Staff Accountant the following day, he follows up with her the next day and the next day until it has been confirmed that the funds are in the bulk mail account and available for mailing. It is ultimately Marketing Director’s responsibility to ensure that funds are available in the USPS bulk mail account to mail the catalog on time every month.

If the check was not yet credited to our account the following day by USPS, then Staff Accountant will check again the next day. If it still has not been credited, another check is immediately prepared and taken to the USPS, and then Staff Accountant will contact the USPS to track down the whereabouts of the original check. But we do not wait to find the original check – we take another check to the USPS, in order to avoid delaying the mailing of the catalog.