Ok. I've been doing mystery shopping for a few weeks. I've been paid by 1 MSP already. I read all the agreements the first time when I signed them, and I understand that I won't be paid for most of these jobs for a time around 6-8 weeks.

That's fine, I'm not planning on seeing much money from this until around the new year. But what I didn't think to do was mark down when I do a job what that particular MSP's pay schedule is. I have a spreadsheet that I'm using to track all of my gigs; actually, it's a spreadsheet that I downloaded from a thread on this page. But I'm signed up with so many MSPs now that I can't possibly remember which ones pay on which schedule.

Is that something you guys do? How do you know when you should be paid? I definitely want to figure out some way of tracking all this so I know if payment is overdue BUT I don't want to spend a ton of time on it unless i actually have problems getting paid.

The first thread under the Mystery Shopping Companies section is about pay dates. Check it out. I don't keep up with when each invoice is due. I understand many shoppers do and they mark each job paid on the spreadsheet. I don't do that. I have a job folder on each job and I keep it in an open file until it's paid. Then I send it to storage. I know roughly when everybody pays, but you can't depend on a certain date with most of these companies. Just know about when they pay you and realize it can vary a bit. I have been doing this since December 2009 and I haven't been stiffed yet but I believe there were three jobs that were overlooked for payment until I called it to someone's attention. So, yes, they do a really good job but you still need to keep up.

In my spreadsheet I create a page for each month. When I am paid for a job I note it and highlight the row in blue. When a page is all blue, I move it to the back of the 'stack' so that the currently open months are the tabs closest to the left. When there is a 'straggler' keeping a month from closing out, it is time to take a look at it. I know from experience that Service Sleuth is the slowest to pay company I ever work for, followed by Service with Style. I don't worry with them much because eventually they will pay. If some other company has not paid, it is time to do some checking. I have one shop left unpaid from September that I have inquiry in on. October has 'the usual suspects' not having paid yet, but they should be within the next week or two.

What I am saying is that most companies do a darn good job of paying within a reasonable period. Rarely do I have a shop that is not paid 'in a timely manner'. So it is far easier to go investigate a straggler than do the research for each shop as I go.

There are a couple of companies who claim to have sent payment that the payment does not arrive 50% or more of the time so I have to chase payments. I just stop working for companies that make me jump through hoops to get paid. One goof on their part in 5 years is acceptable, one every 3-4 months is absolutely not.

Ok , thanks. That's similar to what I was thinking of doing.

I just mark it on my spreadsheet when they pay me--the date and what form of payment. If a company is all alone as unpaid in their section of the spreadsheet, I take a closer look. Last time I did that, it turned out I hadn't sent in a required w-9, so it's definitely worth keeping tabs.

I take a more hands on approach than most of the responses so far: When I add a job to my spreadsheet, I put the expected pay date and the payment method. I have 3 sheets in my exel workbook to track jobs: "To Do", "Payment Pending" and "Paid". When a job is paid I replace the expected payment date with the actual payment date, and cut the whole row out of "Payment Pending" sheet and insert it into the "Paid" sheet.
If I want to know how long a company usually takes to pay, I just check my "Paid" sheet and sort by that MSC name. I mostly know when and how the companies I work with all the time pay, so that's easy to fill in. But if it's a new (to me) company, I'll look at the thread that Mary referenced above and put in an expected payment date based on that sheet if I can't find the payment terms easily on the MSC's site.
My spreadsheet is very in depth: I have formulas to calculate the fees I've earned this year (and earned but not been paid yet, and haven't earned but have scheduled, etc.). I also track mileage on this sheet, so I have formulas that take into account the mileage deduction for each job so that I can see what my approximate net income for the year is (I don't bother adding in other expenses besides mileage since I don't have many, but if I want to add it in the future, it could be easily done... I do track those expenses on... you guessed it! Another sheet on the spreadsheet). The mileage calculations are good because I can enter the job info including payment amount and mileage to get a ballpark idea of what my net would be before I take a job if I want.
Everyone's got their own method, but I like being able to look and see "Oh, I've got about $200 that should hit Paypal this week, cool" (By sorting the "Payment Pending" Sheet in ascending order by expected payment date). But I guarantee that there are some people who would find my method insane, and I'd be just as unhappy with their's. Good luck!

I keep meaning to add a mileage column to my spreadsheet, and not doing it. Think I'll do it right this second, thanks for the reminder @CaliGirl925.

Spreadsheets are second nature to me so Ive been thinking of tweaking the one I'm using. I got it from a thread on this forum the newbie section. I just don't know if i want to do the work of backfilling all the expected payment dates.

I would not do the backfilling at all. If it is something you want to track, as you set up your sheet for 2016 you can add a column to do that. Since you are comfortable with spreadsheets you may want to make a workbook out of it with a page for each month, a recap page to accumulate year to date totals, a page for who shops whom, a page for shop expenses (purchases made for your business, like equipment or office supplies), etc. etc. I also have added a column to give jobs my own job number, which if I have resorted my sheet by company, for example, allows me to re-sort by my job number and have the shops back in the sequence completed (which is when I give them their job number).

@CaliGirl925 wrote:

I take a more hands on approach than most of the responses so far: When I add a job to my spreadsheet, I put the expected pay date and the payment method....
...Everyone's got their own method, but I like being able to look and see "Oh, I've got about $200 that should hit Paypal this week, cool" (By sorting the "Payment Pending" Sheet in ascending order by expected payment date). But I guarantee that there are some people who would find my method insane, and I'd be just as unhappy with their's. Good luck!

We share a similar insanity, CaliGirl925. I have an expected paid column and I also have a "days open" column that automatically calculates once payment is received. I like to see at a glance how much I can expect in and when.

@CeciliaM, I've only been MSing for three months now. I have a master list spreadsheet with the MSC, my username, pw, payment method (Paypal, direct deposit, etc.) and approximate pay schedule per the ICA.