I received a work order for final approval from NJSB today, and had to make some small changes to it. I have updated the run to a total of 100 blades, one up from 99, by adding two more Prevex units and removing one Mini Insomniac. Empire ordered 10 of them and I wanted a few extras as a buffer, but failed to note that the "batch x", i.e. multiples that NJSB would cut it in is 6, so I dropped it down from 13 to 12, which is widely recognized as a multiple of 6.
And there was a few other discrepancies to resolve as well, so that took a bit of time. But that is done now and I have sent the corrections and updated printouts for Peters' Heat Treating, one of which I have edited into the post above to replace the slightly uglier and no longer correct one.
Also something interesting happened. This is perhaps my most ambitious run yet, and due to the increased PayPal activity on my account, I received an interesting message that I have never seen before about approaching a threshold of allowable cash flow within a certain time frame, and the email said something about adding tracking numbers to transactions and other best practices to prove that I am actually sending products out, or any further transactions coming in (once I hit the threshold) would be placed on hold. Now there won't be tracking numbers for these transactions for at least a couple months, so you can imagine my concern about that.
I called PayPal and asked an agent to help me understand. She explained to me that I had reached 75% of the threshold, so I don't have holds on any funds at this time. I asked her, if I were to go above the threshold what would happen? She explained that as long as I provided tracking numbers to prove that my goods are going out, I could go above the threshold and funds would not go on hold. I said these are deposits, so I may not have tracking numbers for quite a while. She said that when a transaction is for a deposit, the process to use is to go into the transaction, click "add tracking" and instead of selecting "shipped" and providing a tracking number, instead select "order processed", and this functions in the same way to alert the system that that particular transaction is not pending a change in state. Previously what I had done once an item was ready that someone had paid a deposit on was add tracking to both the balance due transaction,
and the original deposit transaction. She said that is not the correct way to do it.
So I will be updating my practice now to the process she prescribed, and applying the "order processed" state to deposits from now on, so those of you who have placed orders on this run may see email notifications from PayPal to the effect shortly.
I've also created a sticky post in my sub forum to give a bit more info for people about what to expect when placing an order:
I was kind of stressed when I called PayPal today, but Cierra, who I spoke with was understanding and took the time to answer all my questions, and frankly this threshold process sounds like a very good way to protect buyers and sellers alike. And that threshold can be raised if a seller is consistently doing sales above that range. I read stories about how people hate PayPal, or PayPal screwed them over, etc. but any time I have had a concern they are always willing to educate me, and I always come away with a renewed sense of validation for using their service these past fifteen years.