Understanding PayPal e-Check Payments

When a PayPal customer uses their bank account (check) as the funding source for their order, the payment is not instantly cleared.  This means that the order needs to sit in a pending state for a few days to wait for PayPal to notify UltraCart that the order actually cleared.  Let's look at sample response from an API call for a credit card order.  The response is instantaneous and in the following example is logged as Completed due to a successful transaction. 

Now let's look at the response to the e-check (ACH) payment.  Notice that the payment_type is echeck and the payment_status is Pending.  This means that we need to wait for the check to clear before shipping the purchased item(s) since the transaction could still fail.   

UltraCart receives notifications from PayPal via their Instant Payment Notification (IPN) feature.  As notifications are received, they are added to the transaction history.  Once the status is completed the order will automatically move from the Accounts Receivable section to the Shipping Department.