Most mystery shoppers find it easier to complete their assignments when they print out the requirements. This most assignment requirements and questionnaires pushing upwards of ten or more pages, the result is a large stack of paperwork that accumulates after weeks and months of mystery shopping. Whether you’re a busy full-time mystery shopper or a casual mystery shopper with a busy personal life, mid-year is a great time to clean up your work area and finish the second half of the year with bang.
Account For It. Most likely, in that stack of paperwork you have piled on your desk, you have a stack of paperwork that needs to be inputted into your accounting system. You may use a fancy accounting software program or a basic Excel worksheet. Either way, take a little while this month and input all of the income and expenses that you’ve been putting off for months into your system. You will rest easier knowing that looming stack of accounting work has been taken care of.
The File System. If you have a stack of mystery shopping paperwork building up on your desk, you either don’t have a filing system, or you aren’t using the one you have in place. Take a look at your current filing system and see where the logjam is. When you find the point of your paperwork process where you end up stacking the papers on your desk instead of filing them away, try to find a solution for the logjam. The solution may be as simple as creating another file folder for the paperwork in process or awaiting payment.
Once you’ve found your logjam and devised a solution, then spend some time catching up on your filing by putting each and every piece of paper on your desk in its place. Hopefully, the new measures you’ve put into place for your mystery shopping filing system will solve your issue with the logjam. If not, at least you will have half of the year’s paperwork properly filed away at year’s end.
Organizing Providers. If you’re like most mystery shoppers, you have certain providers you work with regularly, and certain providers that you work with only sporadically. With the group of providers that you work with sporadically, think about all of the time you spend perusing those job boards searching for the one or two good assignments that provider posts. You could be making more money by working with another provider that offers more of the assignments you enjoy doing. Take some time this month and nix those providers that aren’t really paying off for you, and find a few better providers. Then you can spend the rest of the year making more money off of the time you spend perusing job boards.
Mid-year is the perfect time to get caught up on your paperwork and organize yourself for a more organized and lucrative second half of the year!
This sounds like good advice that I can apply. One thing that I would appreciate is a ‘sample’ of record keeping using Excel. I am acquiring more jobs and am still developing my system. I would like some pointers.
One simple record keeping method I use is 7 columns:
Company (Mystery Shopping Company) – Assignment Date – Location (where you actually do the mystery shopping) – Mileage – Amount Spent – Amount Paid – Date Paid