Many mystery shopping providers are more than happy to send you a check for the payment of your services. And you may be happy driving to the bank and depositing them into your account. However, there are numerous reasons why you should put some serious thought into setting up a PayPal account to receive payments for your mystery shopping services. And in fact, there are a growing number of providers who require you to have a PayPal account when you sign up to work for them.
Time Is Money! Of course, there is some time involved in driving your checks back and forth to the bank as they make their way in to your mailbox. If you are a busy mystery shopper who does several shops a week, you may either be accumulating checks in a pile to take to the bank in one trip, or you may be driving to the bank every couple of days as the checks hit your mailbox. Either way, you are wasting your time and gas money driving back and forth to the bank.
When you have a PayPal account, the payments simply hit the online account you set up. a\And with a few clicks of the mouse, you can transfer those funds into your personal checking or savings account.
Get Paid Faster! Many mystery shopping providers can process PayPal payments much faster than snail-mailing a check to you. Some shoppers claim they receive their payments WEEKS faster with a PayPal account.
There is, of course, a very small transaction fee PayPal charges you for use of their system. You may want to simply consider this a “convenience fee” for the convenience of getting your payment a month or more faster than if you were snail-mailed a check. As with other business-related expenses, the transaction fee can be written off on your taxes as a business expense.
Keep Your Books Online. PayPal has the ability to track all of your income and transaction fees for the past year for your convenience. You can also create customizable reports such as a monthly sales report and monthly financial summary. This makes easy work of your bookkeeping and helps you ensure that you haven’t left off any income you’ve received. There are outside expenses, such as mileage and purchases, that you will still have to keep track of. However, PayPal’s transaction history simplifies a large portion of your bookkeeping.
If you’re unsure if you have received an outstanding payment, simply use the convenient “Find Transaction” feature on PayPal’s website, and you can search by key word, amount of the transaction, or a range of dates to see if you overlooked the payment at the time you received it.
With the convenience of these reports, the small transaction fee PayPal charges is more than made up for.
You can set up a PayPal account within just a few minutes online. Then simply notify the mystery shopping providers that you work with of your PayPal account information. And before long, your life as a mystery shopper will soon be simplified.