The extra balloons have been created but are unpaid – so they’re inactive. Usually the buyer returns and sets up a new balloon. See inactive balloons post for why these are created.
You can see all the inactive balloons by clicking “administer the balloons” in your admin area.
Extra balloons are also created when the ‘back’ button is used to change details before paying.
In the above example there are 166 active balloons. We can check this by clicking on the “Top 10” leaderboard on the front page to get to the main leaderboard. If we drill down we can see there are 166 active balloons on the leaderboard. The balloon price has been set to £3 per balloon –
166 x £3 = £498 so the total is correct.
To save confusion I could hide the “Total Balloons” count and hide the inactive balloons. I feel it’s better to be transparent plus you can take cash payments for the inactive balloons and make them active.
Always be careful accessing the “administer the balloons” section when your sales are busy. If a balloon has just been created it will show on your list as “inactive”. Whilst you’re looking at your list the buyer completes their payment and on the server their balloon is now active (but on your screen it’s inactive). If you then save your changes you’ll save the newly paid balloon as inactive. If you hit “refresh” the newly paid balloons will change from inactive to active (or simply don’t save the page before you exit).
Also – be careful accessing this page when the balloons are moving. The balloons move at 25 minutes past and 55 minutes past every hour. If you login at 24 minutes past and save 2 minutes later you’ll save over the latest movement.