Those who have worked for sentry, does it usually take a long time to get any feedback on reports? I submitted my report on Sunday and still haven’t heard anything back on it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/06/2024 02:01AM by Jnbent35.

From my experience, not too long. On average, maybe anywhere from two to three days. On the more comprehensive and involved reports, maybe five days at the latest. You may not receive an email notification when it's been accepted. You may have to check Shop History on the status. Based on my experience, their editors are some of the more proactive ones.

Ok cuz nothing even shows under my shop history right now. Thats what’s odd to me. I figured it would show the job with my report pending or something

You will be waiting quite a while to be paid. They are one of the slowER paying MSC. Not the slowest, but certainly in competition to be.

If you click on "My Pay," what does it say?

Hm, I'm not sure if there's an area where it displays the submitted shop in a pending status waiting to be approved. But once the shop has been approved, it'll show up in Shop History with the evaluation feedback, total pay and reimbursement amounts, and payroll ID.

Once the shop has been approved, and you receive the payroll ID, you can cross reference this against the statement ID generated in My Pay section.

It's on the longer side to receive payment, but from my experience, I've never had issues with payments. You may have to make sure you're set up to receive payments.

What JimmyP said, maybe check under My Pay. It's been a while since I've done a shop with Sentry, but I think I do remember seeing a status along the lines of "pending approval" somewhere.

@hbbigdaddy When was the last time you completed a report for us?

@Jnbent35 If your report was returned for revision, it may take an extra day or two to go through our editing process. For assistance, please email us at help@sentryinsights.com.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2024 03:21AM by Sentry Marketing.

This is what payment statement says "Payments are processed 4 - 8 weeks after this
invoice's Pay Period End Date."

I did a shop May 20th and received the money in mid August. The facts are the facts. I never said Sentry was a bad company. I only stated "They are one of the slowER paying MSC. Not the slowest, but certainly in competition to be." That payment experience is on par with slow HS Brands. There are several companies that pay within 30 days and amazingly the current beast of the industry has been paying in a week or less.

I've done several shops in 2024. Quickest paid shop (for me) was at least 2 months after shop was completed and submitted. Even if I did a shop for Marketforce on the 1st day of the month, I would be paid by the 20th of the following month (less than 2 months after completing the shop).

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

@hbbigdaddy When was the last time you completed a report for us?

That timing is indeed outside of our standard window. A May 20th shop should have been included with the invoices created on June 1 and paid by August 1. Without knowing the specifics, it's hard to say why payment was delayed. It could be that a delay in editing on our side caused the invoice to be pushed to the next invoice, or it could have been an administrative issue on our end. Either way, we're sorry for the delay and are working on improving our payment timing.

Thanks for the feedback.

I'm not complaining about Sentry. You pay how you pay. It just happens to be slower than most companies. I have done several this year and payment was never less than 60 days after completion/submission of the shop.

That's true. 8-12 weeks would be a more accurate statement than 4-8 weeks.

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

I'm not complaining about Sentry. You pay how you pay. It just happens to be slower than most companies. I have done several this year and payment was never less than 60 days after completion/submission of the shop.

The time we quote is the date of the invoice and not the date of the shop. There was a period over the summer in which we were behind in editing, which caused some completed assignments to be pushed to the next invoice. This caused a delay in payment.

We take shopper payments very seriously and are taking steps to improve the timing of payments to shoppers.

Thank you to everyone for your feedback.

@Sentry Marketing

I appreciate the "lip service" to the "we take shopper payments very seriously." Sentry is a quality, respectable company to shop for. You do pay and are reliable. When I do more shops, I would like to see the speed improved. I'm not asking for payment within a week or even 2 payments in 1 week, but obviously it can be done as Ipsos is doing it and my guess is their volume of shops is exponentially larger than yours just looking at their client list and the size of those companies they shop. Most of the major MSC are paying their shoppers by a certain date each month. So a shop done in November 2024, will be paid by December XX. Even if a shop is done November 28th or 29th and it's in good order (no return for clarification), the shop will still be paid in under 30 days.

I can only speak for my experience, but all my payments from Sentry have exceeded 60 days from the date of my submission. I understand this when taking shops with Sentry. I do not complain about it, but if we are going to tell the truth here, your process is way behind what your competitors are doing. Whether this is intentional or accidental, it just is. Like I said, you are NOT the slowest company. I have found that to be HS Brands. But it certainly would be nice to see payments made in a much more timely manner.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2024 09:00AM by hbbigdaddy.

I'm not sure what you mean by "lip service." Perhaps I am reading the tone incorrectly. We do take shopper payments seriously, and over the 18 years we've been in business, I think we have shown this to be true. We've had custom work created in our ShopMetrics platform that provides for one-click submission of a payment inquiry about a specific shop, created a way for Gigspot shoppers to submit similar inquiries, and developed an autoresponder to reviews each payment submission to determine if a canned response can provide the most prompt reply. All shopper inquiries are submitted via a ticketing system, which holds us accountable for timely responses.

About timing, we create shopper invoices on the 15th and 30th of each month. We do provide time for shoppers to review their invoices for accuracy. We also give our clients time to review their reports for accuracy and bring any issues to our attention.

The 4 - 8 week timing is based on the invoice date. I understand this means if a shop is done early in the cycle, say the 2nd of the month, the overall timing can exceed 60 days. The same would happen if a shop completes a payment cycle late and misses the cutoff because it is in editing.

I'm glad you have found us to pay reliably, and I appreciate your comments. You've given us a few things to think about, particularly the shop date vs invoice date. I am going to discuss this with our team.

Thanks for the conversation!

I haven't done as many shops for Sentry recently and haven't paid attention to the pay policy. But in case it helps, I took a look at some past payments.

The Pay Policy under My Pay states:
"US-based shoppers are paid via electronic deposit, commonly known as ACH or direct deposit. Payments are made no later than 6–8 weeks from the pay statement/invoice date."

On the pay statement, it states:
"Payments are processed 4 - 8 weeks after this invoice's Pay Period End Date."

Looking at the last couple of payments, the invoice has been paid days after the ninth week from the invoice date.

@Sentry Marketing

I'm not looking to pick a fight or argument. Yes, you take payments seriously and pay regularly and methodically. You do not do it in a timely manner when compared to the other major MSC. I know that and If I choose to do shops for Sentry, I go in with that knowledge. It is not hard to speed up the payment. There must be a reason it's not sped up, because other major players pay much quicker. Like I said, I can do a shop on the 25th of the month and be paid by the 20th of the next month with many major MSC. With your company, I'm looking at 60 days or more. That is my choice to still take the shop knowing this SSSSLLLLLLOOOOWWWW reimbursement/payment.

I also am not looking for a confrontation and do appreciate your feedback. Normally, the phrase "lip service" implies someone who does not mean what they say, and I was responding to those words.

I can't comment on other companies' payment practices. Many factors go into processing payments. Based on my experience, the industry average for payments seems to be 30 - 60 days.

We give our clients 30 days to review a report and contact us with any questions or concerns. Based on this policy, we will never be the fastest-paying company in the industry. Based on teh comments in this thread, we will review our payment process to see where there is room for improvement and if we can speed up the process.

Again, thank you for your feedback. I appreciate the conversation.

Thanks for this thread. I have a pending payment from July that does not seem to have any status connected. I believe this is on my end because even though my bank account is connected, none of the "toggles" work so I cannot turn on an account for payment processing. All show active, but all of the toggle buttons appear to be off. I just sent an email to the address mentioned in this thread.

Was yours resolved @Momtreal? Mine seems to be stuck as well but in "pending" status. I don't see any issues with the bank page, mine is both connected and toggled on. I submitted a ticket as well, I don't understand why it's taking so long.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2024 05:45PM by Deedeezthoughts.

@Deedeezthoughts wrote:

Was yours resolved @Momtreal? Mine seems to be stuck as well but in "pending" status. I don't see any issues with the bank page, mine is both connected and toggled on. I submitted a ticket as well, I don't understand why it's taking so long.

It was! The rep was able to toggle the account on from their side and I got confirmation of pending payment the next day. It has since been transmitted to my back account. Definitely recommend emailing them. I'm not sure if the user here was the same one that helped me but it was taken care of quickly and professionally. Good luck!

@Sentry Marketing wrote:

That timing is indeed outside of our standard window. A May 20th shop should have been included with the invoices created on June 1 and paid by August 1.

Oh heck. That is much slower than HS Brands! @ Hbbigdaddy

A HS Brands assignment that was shopped on May 20th would be paid at the end of June or the first week of July.

That's terrible. Glad that got put out here. I'm not doing short-term loans.

A payment in Pending status has been initiated on our end and is moving through the ACH process. This typically takes four business days. For any payments processed over the weekend, don't start moving through the process until the next business day. The banks were closed on Veterans Day, which slowed recent payments down by one day.

Please don't hesitate to email us for assistance. You can find more information about it at www.sentryshoppers.com.