Tracking Shops

What method do you use to track your shops and if they have been paid? I realized recently that I had a few shops that hadn't been paid (because I forgot to submit them), and have started working on figuring out how to best track my shops.

So far, I have an Excel spreadsheet that I have set up with the following columns:
Shop ID | Date Shopped | Location | Submitted | Invoice # | Paid | Rate | Incentive | Reimbursement | Expected Pay Date | Check Number

I feel like there has to be a better way though... Anyone have any tips? I realize now that I should have also been tracking my mileage from the start, but that should be easy enough to determine as I can Google Map it and add it later.

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Personally I have always found a spreadsheet was the best way to do it since payments arrive in various manners. I'm not seeing a company name of who you did the shop for on your list. Are you relying on memory?

I have payments coming in 3 ways--check, direct deposit and Paypal. I usually get an email from Paypal that the money has arrived and even if that goes astray, when I next open my Paypal account I will see the money and the date it arrived so that I can go mark it paid for the appropriate shops on my spreadsheet. The same holds true for direct deposits--the dates and who paid show up on my online banking. When a check comes in I mark the appropriate shops paid and do a remote deposit.

What I find helpful is that when a job is paid I highlight the entire line on my spreadsheet. Currently I am using blue for that highlight (though any color will do) and those line entries that are not blue I need to watch for and maybe start asking about payment.

So far, all of my shops have been with one company. I just signed up with another company yesterday, but haven't scheduled with them yet. I'm looking at what they have available, and trying to determine which shops will best work with my schedule (I have a FT non-MS job as well).

Build your spreadsheet to provide you with future flexibility. So indeed mileage and MSC should be a part of it. I find it easiest to schedule shops directly onto my spreadsheet so that I don't mistakenly have two shops at the same time in opposite ends of town. Fee, bonus and offered reimbursement are added at this time. It then gets updated as may be needed and once I have reported the shop it gets updated with mileage, actual amount of reimbursement I am expecting, shop reported date and invoice information (if required) or report confirmation number.

I use the spreadsheet that Mert posted on the "New Mystery Shoppers" page. I just tweaked it a bit so that the unreimbursed expenses don't show up on my pending payment column and added a column for the MSC's Shop # (because I learned the hard way that that's not a bad thing to keep track of). It works great for me.Thanks Mert!

Of course, everyone has their own system and needs to do what works best for them -- everyone's brain works just a little bit differently.

@sweetsilence wrote:

What method do you use to track your shops and if they have been paid? I realized recently that I had a few shops that hadn't been paid (because I forgot to submit them)

When you say that your forgot to submit them, do you mean that you forgot to actually submit the report?

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Tracking Shops

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