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Introduction and payment question

January 03, 2012 09:47PM
Hi everyone! I am new here, and fairly new to mystery shopping. I started about 3 months ago. smiling smiley

Disclaimer: I hope posting this question is acceptable in regards to the contractor agreement policy.

My question is - if a company notes a payment policy of appx. 60 days from the last day of the month in which you shop, how soon after that would one expect payment? What is a reasonable expectation and at what point should I start emailing the company?

Thanks!
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More About Payment
January 03, 2012 10:12PM
Lets say I did a shop today (1/3) or even during the last week of the month (1/30 or 1/31). If the shop is reported and accepted, I would expect payment 60 days after the end of January. (Feb has 28 days most of the time.) I would be looking for payment on or before April 2. This of course means that for a shop done today I would be waiting almost 90 days for payment.

Payment dates vary by company and adherence to payment dates varies. I have companies that state 60 days from shops that I usually see payment in 2-3 weeks and then there are companies that state 90 days and you still aren't paid at 100.

I generally keep my spreadsheet by month, closing it out once everything is paid. The companies that always keep my spreadsheet open tend to be Ath, Service with Style and Service Sleuth. If there is another company keeping the month open it is time to check the pay cycle and see if follow up is needed. There are other slow paying companies that pay within their pay cycle, but I just am not working with them because there is nothing interesting in my market. At the moment I am awaiting only one company to be able to close out November 2011 and I have had a nice smattering of payments already from December 2011.
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January 04, 2012 02:18AM
Thank you for the response.

If I had a spreadsheet, October would not be closed out yet due to one of the companies you mentioned. This was the first shop I performed for them, on 10/22, and I have yet to see payment. But I considered the fact there were alot of holiday periods in these last two months, so maybe payment has been slowed by the reduced number of business days?

I guess I will start emailing them soon if I don't see anything by the rest of the week.
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January 04, 2012 09:06AM
Karen, you're right (maybe) about the intervening holidays; they may have put some wrinkles into the schedule. On the other hand, it's not like Thanksgiving and Christmas snuck up on anyone, so that's not much of an excuse, either. I'd be polite, but firm, and clear. Good luck!

D'Agosto


"What does it mean? You ask. I answer not/For meaning, but myself must echo, What?/And tell it as I saw it, on the spot."
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January 04, 2012 02:55PM
Holidays generally screw up the count primarily when a company states 'X business days'. I believe BES is the only one I am aware of who counts only business days in their calculation.
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