Put It In a Box

Payroll taxes are due again next month. I used to be able to play the float – I’d just keep the tax money in checking and worry about it a few weeks before the bills came due. But cash flow doesn't permit that anymore. Starting in Q4, I’m going to transfer the appropriate sum into my business savings account (interest rate: 0.5%!) every two weeks as a payroll tax lockbox. It cuts my liquidity but saves me the quarterly scramble. Blindingly obvious? Sure. Al Gore was supposedly going to do that with Social Security’s surplus receipts. But my lockbox won’t involve sleight of hand and I don’t need the Supreme Court to appoint me president.

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Well, this is unexpected. I’ve had four international sales since I turned my Product Specific bidding over to Google. I’m not sure yet whether I like that or not. On one hand, I’m in no position to turn my nose up at any business. OTOH, foreign shipments require more work for less markup (thanks to higher payment processing costs), and the risks of fraud and loss or damage are higher. If this turns into a trend I'll have to see if Google lets me restrict my advertising to North America.

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As reluctant as I was to pay for another Sunshop 4.x upgrade with version 5 coming early next year, this latest patch finally fixed the PayPal checkout loop that has afflicted my site for at least three years now. I’m quite sure that I lost sales when some would-be customers got frustrated and left. In time, this upgrade will pay for itself.