I have a similar spreadsheet with a tab for each month. I record the jobs I do, mileage, expenses and reimbursements and then I highlight the rows after getting payment.
I try not to ever get behind a month or two. Its much easier to keep up than to catch up. Helps a lot at tax time.

@MMMM wrote:

For payment tracking:

I track all of my completed shops on a Schedule C Excel worksheet. As payments are received, I enter them throughout the month. I have a calendar reminder every month to look at the shop from three months prior to that one to see if all the payments were received.
Each calendar year gets a new sheet. It helps at tax time.

Hi there, any chance you can say which companies offer USPS mystery shops?

@MsJudi wrote:

I use sheet cheats for shops i do repeatedly such as gas station brands and USPS. They help to zip through the shops w/o missing anything. I add/delete info as shop guidelines get updated.

Would you mind sharing which companies offer USPS shops?

Some MS companies require shoppers to confirm, under threat of prosecution (or firing), that they have not made any recordings (audio or video) of the interaction during the shop, so you might want to be careful.

@Susan L. wrote:

Some MS companies require shoppers to confirm, under threat of prosecution (or firing), that they have not made any recordings (audio or video) of the interaction during the shop, so you might want to be careful.

Interesting. Another twist.

@ServiceAward wrote:

I've not run across that, but the MSC has no authority to have anybody prosecuted. That would take a complaining witness, namely the "victim."

In a practical sense, nobody will know you are recording unless you tell someone or decide to do something stupid with the recording. Loose lips sink ships.

I have observed a lot of absent-minded behavior lately. (There's a better name for this than "absent-minded." ) If people can accidentally upload the same photo to two different shops, or a totally wrong photo, they might also accidentally upload the wrong mp3 file to a report.

That's why I suggested to be careful.



(Edited to delete an emoji that showed up!)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2024 03:37AM by Susan L..

I am adding my solution to a problem I was encountering.

I moved my store into its current location almost 14 yrs. ago. As shopper's desires changed, I was spending far more time and money traveling to restock than it was economically sensible; fortunately for me, Kroger changed MSC. The fees increased, the hrs. expanded, the communication improved and the bonuses became more frequent.

As all shoppers eat, if one has an area that is traveled for any reason during 8 store hrs., unless there is an aversion to Kroger, consider defraying expenses.

To the narrative averse, Kroger requires zero and add, if possible, a fuel for an extra $10+$2.

Here's one I forgot to mention; I you are someone like me who is always chasing airline miles, sign up for all of the (free) affiliate programs they offer. The AAdvantage dining program, for instance. I have all my credit cards attached to that. I did a dinner shop a few month ago and got an email that restaurant was offering promotion for double miles on all $$ spent there, so I got a decent bonus out of a dinner I was completely reimbursed for.

I am not good with making the spreadsheet and i think i could trust my self to keep it up to date if there is anyone that can send me their spread sheet. Also, is it easier to do a hand held ledger spreadsheet thing?

@melysz wrote:

I am not good with making the spreadsheet and i think i could trust my self to keep it up to date if there is anyone that can send me their spread sheet. Also, is it easier to do a hand held ledger spreadsheet thing?

I'm not sure how I'd send you a spreadsheet but I have it set up with the
date, time, business, reimbursement, actually expenses, pay, total for reimbursement and pay, date paid, additional expenses (travel or parking), notes, MSC, address for shop, mileage

So for Kroger I might have
7/15/24, 11am-7pm, Kroger, $9, $9.42, $9, $18, 8/15/24, n/a, n/a, MSC, 123 main street, 5.8 miles

I have it set up to add by the month as well as by the year.

I hope that helps some.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2024 06:43PM by olympia tennenbaum.

I'm laughing right now at how the "Which companies shop (business name)" question has been completely ignored. Twice! Hahahahaha.....

@LV_MysteryShopper wrote:

@MsJudi wrote:

I use sheet cheats for shops i do repeatedly such as gas station brands and USPS. They help to zip through the shops w/o missing anything. I add/delete info as shop guidelines get updated.

Would you mind sharing which companies offer USPS shops?

No one can share which MSCs shop which businesses. It is a part of your IC contract that you will not divulge info such as clients.

The best advice is to read a ton here and try to learn. Also, sign up for as many companies as you can to get as many opportunities as you can in your geographic area.

I'd be a better person if I had Olympia's patience! But, alas, I was apparently AWOL the day they handed out that quality.

@sestrahelena wrote:

I'd be a better person if I had Olympia's patience! But, alas, I was apparently AWOL the day they handed out that quality.

Now that is a joke because I basically have none.

I remember being brand new and it's frustrating feeling like you want to jump in but have no clue. Personally, I feel like reading a ton on here helped me get started. I also tried to follow the advice about signing up for all companies but didn't quite complete that goal.

I guess the only other hint I'd have would be to read the company thread. Sign up for the companies being discussed at a bare minimum. And take heed of any warnings over there, especially about non payment.

My Spread Sheet column headers.

Shop Date/ Job ID/ MSC/ Job Type/ Job ADDRESS/Pay Date /check amt/ fee /reimbursed /MILES ow/ COMMENT

I'm not sure this is a hack:

When I'm doing something new or something that has a lot of things to note and timings to take, I text myself a shorthand note (in the order I'd expect things to occur) of everything I need to time and watch for. If somebody happens to see my screen, it's only a messaging app open that's not likely to draw attention.

I do this too....similarly, I go to my notes tab on my phone and just add a quick note, usually a name because I never forget a face.

RE: Secretly recording.

I think under those conditions it isn't a legal issue - assuming it is never shared with anyone, nor can anyone else access the recording. Using then deleting it is a good idea.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2024 03:44PM by Boutique.

@mystery2me wrote:

I found recording very useful when starting out. But after a certain point you find you are spending too much time going back and listening to the recordings and spending way more time than the shop pays. You either learn to do the shops without the recordings, or avoid those types of shops when possible.

For everyone who audio records your shops to help you fill out reports, why not just video record them? You would be able to skip to the relevant portions much, much quicker and save lots of time.

Recently I purchased a discounted inKind gift card from Costco. They have, they say, 2000 restaurants that they deal with. Most seem to be in the western half of the country. They have a complicated system of discounts but if you ignore that and just use it as a normal gift card you can get wonderful savings. But beware as I think they are too good to be true and expect that at some point they will be out of business. But in the meantime I used my card on a restaurant mystery shop. As a new member they offered me a $50 off discount if I spent $100 or more.
For that shop I not only took advantage of the $50 off deduction from my original balance but also the fact that I paid only 70% of the value to begin with.

@sandyf wrote:

Recently I purchased a discounted inKind gift card from Costco. They have, they say, 2000 restaurants that they deal with. Most seem to be in the western half of the country. They have a complicated system of discounts but if you ignore that and just use it as a normal gift card you can get wonderful savings. But beware as I think they are too good to be true and expect that at some point they will be out of business. But in the meantime I used my card on a restaurant mystery shop. As a new member they offered me a $50 off discount if I spent $100 or more.
For that shop I not only took advantage of the $50 off deduction from my original balance but also the fact that I paid only 70% of the value to begin with.

I was too chicken to try using inkind on a MS. In the past, I don't recall always getting a receipt while using inkind.

Was everything smooth sailing paying that way?

There are referrals for signing up as well as occasional credit card discounts and restaurant specific discounts but a small word of caution is that the different discounts don't usually stack, so a referral and a restaurant specific discount couldn't be used together in my past experience.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/30/2024 11:53AM by olympia tennenbaum.

I actually tried mine out at the one restaurant that has mystery shops one day when I was there for happy hour. It did not work so i contacted them and they were very nice and gave me an extra $25 credit. But on the shop, I had the receipt in hand from the restaurant, the one with the detail of what was ordered that also had the total on the bottom. That was the receipt I submitted to the mystery shop company. I have not come across msc that also want me to submit my credit card receipt. recently. I wrote in the tip on the bottom of that receipt.
I also used it the other day non shop because they offered me $10 off $30 plus since it was my second use of it in September they gave me 10% back on my total spend in September (minus the $50 discount they already gave me. So i got $21 off my brunch bill. For my mystery shop I had the bartender on that part of the shop transfer my bill over to the table to make sure the food part would be over the $100.
So yes, if anyone decides to sign up they will give me $25 credit on my account as a referral so you can contact me via the private messages. Again I want to caution that I have a feeling this is not a good business model so I would not purchase too many of these at once. You can always get another $100 gift card when you use up your first one but since there is a discount on buying the card in the first place its an incentive to try one of their other restaurants and pay less for the meal. You can check their restaurant list before buying a card to see if any are in your area.

I was too chicken to try using inkind on a MS. In the past, I don't recall always getting a receipt while using inkind.

Was everything smooth sailing paying that way?

There are referrals for signing up as well as occasional credit card discounts and restaurant specific discounts but a small word of caution is that the different discounts don't usually stack, so a referral and a restaurant specific discount couldn't be used together in my past experience.[/quote]

I text myself also. It helps me remember if someone had glasses, height, unusual name spelling ect or things out of the ordinary. I also text myself 'shop xyz STOP' to help me report the correct end time. *I'm a newbie.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2024 09:56PM by Sharlab427.

How do you organize and store shop photos?

RE: InKind, I did some research to see how this gift card company is making any profit at all. According to what I read they are actually a lending company as they lend money to restaurants. So if a restaurant wants to borrow, lets say $100,000 to do some renovations or pay off bills, inKind company will give them $100,000 in exchange for $200,000 worth of eating credits. That is all the restaurant does to pay back for borrowing that amt of money. They have no further payments. Then inKind turns around and can offer the $200,000 worth of dining credits to those with their gift cards. They do this at deep discounts. I suppose they both win as the restaurant may attract new customers as the customers are getting a discount on their visit and repeat customers may come more often. I know I did as they said if I dined again in the same month I would get back an additional 10% of my entire dining bills thru the card that month. So far in my area I have only found one restaurant chain that I know has mystery shops but the reimbursement for that shop is around $150. Actually there is another one but not my choice of where to eat. The gift card can be used to pay for food and alcohol and tax but not the tip.

@sandyf wrote:

. Again I want to caution that I have a feeling this is not a good business model so I would not purchase too many of these at once. You can always get another $100 gift card when you use up your first one but since there is a discount on buying the card in the first place its an incentive to try one of their other restaurants and pay less for the meal. You can check their restaurant list before buying a card to see if any are in your area.

I was too chicken to try using inkind on a MS. In the past, I don't recall always getting a receipt while using inkind.

Was everything smooth sailing paying that way?

There are referrals for signing up as well as occasional credit card discounts and restaurant specific discounts but a small word of caution is that the different discounts don't usually stack, so a referral and a restaurant specific discount couldn't be used together in my past experience.

[/quote]

@Sharlab427 wrote:

How do you organize and store shop photos?

Everyone has a different system that works for them.

I keep each day's photos in a separate folder on my PC labeled by the date. That folder is stored in another folder labeled by year. Because I keep a spreadsheet with each shop and the date performed, if ever needed I can find the associated photos. If you use cloud storage such as Google photos, it will already sort the photos by date.