It's been a while since I've found myself chasing payments, perhaps this is a strange month? I'm curious: How long after a payment is due to you, do you tend to contact the MSC?

I've had two late payments this month, both from what I've always found to be very reliable companies. One arrived three days late without me having contacted them. The other was one week late as of yesterday and I just sent a pleasant email to the appropriate person this morning asking about my payment status.

You are a very experienced shopper, and you've explained to others in other threads that Sometimes the schedules are moved due to holidays. You're saying it was outside of these parameters?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/26/2018 02:57PM by LShapiro_Bare_Intl.

I did not worry about the one that was only a few days... It was with a company that has never been late by even a day for me -even after holidays. The pay date was listed on line as 1/15. That typically would mean that on 1/15 I would get an email from their third party direct deposit service saying that the deposit had been arranged. I received said email on 1/18. I did, however, find that interesting.

The other was just over a week late, looking at the best possible scenario. They actually give a date range of 45-60 days and were on day 68. They have typically paid about a week before the 60 day mark. I sent a respectful inquiry and found that my payment had simply be missed. The MSC remedied it within two hours.

My question still stands: Shoppers make mistakes. MSC's make mistakes. When a payment seems to be late, what is a reasonable amount of time to wait for making a polite inquiry? It actually would be fantastic to hear the answer from an MSC.

It depends on the MSC honestly. I tend to do an overwhelming majority of shops for a handful of MSCs. I don't really worry about those 5 companies at all and they have varying degrees of payment promptness varying from absolutely on the same day every single month to well kinda close to when they're supposed to pay to usually a few weeks late.

For other companies it just depends. For example Market Force pays like clockwork, so if it were a few days late I would assume a shop got missed somehow. But companies that don't have a specific pay date and instead use a x days I would give it at least a week and maybe 2 before I worried about it. At the same time though, my payments for companies that I don't work with a ton are rarely more than $50 and I have to keep a pretty good cushion in my business checking to fund travel, so it's rare that I would be stressed over those types of payment.

If they've been otherwise reliable, I give them to the next pay cycle. Sometimes things slip. Don't let it go too long, though. I was owed a sizeable bonus for a bundoks shop, promises from scheduler, let it go too long and the scheduler left the company. Nope, did not get paid.

I reconcile quarterly, a week after Dec. 31st, Mar.31st, June 30th and Sept. 30th. Conceivably, a company could be 5 months late if they pay after 30 days and I hadn't received payment. However, until recently, none of the companies I've ever worked for have ever missed a payment and I've never had to write to them. Only one recently posted a payment to my account but a payment was not made. Someone mentioned it in another thread and so I wrote on the clickable help of the shop. It was remedied that day. However, I think they would have found it the next month anyway. I hope they are ok and no one borrowed their account!

I meticously keep track of the shops I successfully compete. I have a spreadsheet I use to track. I have it scripted to turn red after 30 days. After 30 days, I send an email asking for a status of my payment. You will be surprise how many MSC explanation was "Oh, sorry some how we missed that."

@swingline11 wrote:

I meticously keep track of the shops I successfully compete. I have a spreadsheet I use to track. I have it scripted to turn red after 30 days. After 30 days, I send an email asking for a status of my payment.

That's very odd considering the large number of MSCs whose standard terms are not Net 30 Days.

@Rousseau wrote:

That's very odd considering the large number of MSCs whose standard terms are not Net 30 Days.

I must have misunderstood swingline's post. I assumed, probably incorrectly, that swingline meant that his spreadsheet notes the expected payment date and he has set it to turn red 30 days after payment was due. If that's what he meant, it would be a great idea.

Except for the ones, like the recent one, where I had to buy $200 worth of coffee beans and they said it would be reimbursed within a week. This after I had to black out the upc with permanent marker. Those I hound as though I am a stalker!

Excuse me for typing as I think here. I'm mostly pondering....

I track every shop I do on a spreadsheet and one of the columns is for "anticipated pay date." In that column, I mark the last possible day that I should anticipate payment, according to the particular company's policies. As soon as payment is received for a particular shop, I change the cell from a due date to "received." About once a week, I'll quickly check the due dates on any shops for which I have not been paid. If I find something that appears to be late, I recheck the date I did the shop, its status according to my shop log with the particular MSC and the MSC's payment policy. If I have an incorrect date entered, I change it. If the payment is overdue, I highlight it.

Once it is "overdue," I have to decide at what point I need to contact the MSC. When I posted the question initially, I was curious to see if there was any sort of industry norm. I recognize that sometimes, if I want to get paid, I need to take the initiative and make a call. I also don't want to overly-pester the MSC. So, I really would like to hear from an MSC on this.

I do know that, in my line of work, if checks are delivered even a day later than the anticipated pay date, somebody in payroll would get into a who lot of trouble. I understand that it is not like that here. At the same time, we are expected to uphold our end of our ICA (as seen in other threads with us being very clear with shoppers that they have to honor their agreements, even if they dislike the shop guidelines). However, a contract does go both ways and being paid in accordance with a contract is one of the most basic tenets of any labor agreement. I am certainly not angry or upset with the companies that were a little late paying me this month - stuff happens.
At the same time, both payments were several hundred dollars. Though, I have enough room in my checking account to not stress about such a delay, some folks don't. There have been times in my life that a week long delay for payments totaling over $600 would have really been problematic. (We had some stories of this in a different thread this last week.)

So, perhaps a my question needs to be reworded and directed at the folks here who work for MSC's: At what point would you expect us to contact you if we believe a payment to be late?

I don't know about those spreadsheet methods, they seem like a lot of work to me. Why not buy quicken / quickbooks, create a bill once you've signed up for / completed an assignment? You can put your client's terms in it and them just look at / print an A/R report. Then, you can email or send an invoice with the overdue amount. You know, like any other business does. Then you'll have your write-offs, expenses etc at the eoy tax time.

@spicy1
I can do all of that (except send a formal invoice) with Excel. I recognize that programs like that have advantages, but Excel has one huge one for me: I know how to use it - and well. If I ever needed to send formal invoice, I could create a nice one in about 30 minute with Word and use it as a template for the future. Perhaps I'm must getting old and don't want to learn new tricks.

Call me crazy but...... in the 5,000 shops that I have performed (in the last 7 years) ....I have never contacted any MSC about payment.(except one)... I work for some good ones who pay me on time. The only one I had to beg for my money was Freeman Group... after my payment was over 4 months late. They paid me and then collapsed pretty soon after that..... leaving other shoppers that did not get paid. Cirrus also took 4 months but I read on here that was normal!

@MFJohnston wrote:

I recognize that programs like that have advantages, but Excel has one huge one for me: I know how to use it - and well.

Same here. I've tried QuickBooks before, and I have thought about trying it again. The problem is I haven't found a way to keep records as easily with it as I do Excel. For instance, let's say I'm driving a rental on a route and stop to get gas 5 times. None of those 5 places will be the same. I don't want to keep up with every single payee like that. It's a pain.

As for MFJ's method. I do it differently but in a way that makes it easier to me.

Let's say I do a shop for MarketForce on 1/1 that has a total payment of $25 (fee + reimbursement). I know that they pay on the 15th so I will record the shop in my Jan tab where I tally my shops. In my Feb tab I have a Payments section. In the Payments section I'll add an entry with the expected date (15th), MF, the client, the amount ($25), and how they pay (DirectDeposit). I keep those payments in chronological order, so the MF entry will be above an entry that pays on say the 16th. When I receive a payment I simply cut the line out of the Payments section and paste it into the Received section. So at any point I can look and tell how much income I should have in a month and during the month I can tell how much is coming in the rest of the month. I can also quickly glance at the section and see what payments are behind. It's a very simple system that let's me see the things that are important to me very quickly.

I'm currently stalking a Cirrus payment for two Oct shops....should be paid the end of January, according to their pay schedule. In every email, and every posting, they have this warning "Payment processing begins month end, PLEASE ALLOW 5-7 after month end for payment hit PayPal."
First...it doesn't take 5-7 DAYS for a payment to "hit" PayPal. Every other MSC that pays with PayPal manages to do it on the day the payment is due.
Yeah...I don't really have a "second" comment on this...they are now on my "never, not ever" list.

Perhaps I am confused but it is not the end of January yet......

No, it isn't ...I'm not "chasing" that payment...just patiently waiting. If they process it on Wednesday, then I anticipate it will be in my Paypal on Wednesday. Done. It really shouldn't take until Feb 7th to arrive. We'll see.