The U.S. Postal Service, like most organizations lately, has been having a tough time making ends meet. Earlier this month, John E. Potter, postmaster general, testified before the Senate about an expected 13 percent decline in volume in 2009 and a loss of $2.4 billion for the quarter ending June 30, 2009.

Potter mentioned several plans designed to staunch the red ink, including cutting a day of service — Saturday, to be precise. Such a move would save about $3.3 billion yearly, the USPS estimates.

For treasurers, one less day of mail delivery each week will impact, at least slightly, operations and cash flow. For starters, the current Saturday delivery means that incoming payments usually are ready for processing on either Sunday or early Monday, says Mike Gallanis, CTP and partner with Treasury Strategies, Inc. “Logically speaking, it will alter the distribution of incoming funds slightly.” That means you’ll need to adjust, for instance, computer models that tell you when to concentrate cash, and that use algorithms based on the historical patterns of funds coming into your firm.

Say the model figures that deposits will equal X on Monday, 1.25X on Tuesday, and so on. Those assumptions will no longer hold. “All these things built off historical patterns could be impacted,” Gallanis says. That includes cash forecasting models, as well.

Similarly, staffing schedules may need some fine-tuning. For instance, your operation may staff up on Monday morning, anticipating a full day’s work processing the weekend’s mail delivery. Now, that workload will be delayed a day. The employees’ schedules will need to shift, as well.

At this point, it’s hard to say whether the proposed change to the USPS’s delivery schedule will go through. While some politicians — who ultimately would have to sign off on any changes to existing law — say they support cost-cutting measures, they tend to back off when their constituents are affected.

However, most Americans seem to be OK with the proposed cut. About two-thirds of respondents to a June survey by Gallup said they either favored or strongly favored five-days-a-week delivery. ###