I have developed an Excel file which I record all shops to track payments. It is very frustrating when the msc lumps several shops together without identifying them by date. Most of them do most of the time. Any suggestions for navigating reimbursements?

I have a folder for each type job and after the job is complete I file the folder with all other folders pending payment for that same type job, in date order of shop performance. The front of each folder is labeled with fee plus reimbursement expected. This works pretty well for me. When the job is paid, I pull the folder from pending payment and send it to file.

You're right, some of them send a check without much information, but usually I get an email that payment is on the way and the emails are usually specific. I figure it's part of my job to stay on top of this. I can't change the way they do things, I can only change the way I do things.

I have an Excel spreadsheet where I track each job. There is a column for how I was paid (check, electronic funds transfer, PayPal, or etc.) and the date I was paid.

When in doubt, it is generally easy on Sassie to see which date a particular shop was paid. The ones I had to learn to deal with were ones from Maritz. I learned that I had to record their job number in my spreadsheet, since that is all they supply on the check stub.

Often, I sorted by MSC, and start adding up from the last payment. More often than not, the total makes perfect sense and I just mark them paid by method and date. ath Power pays an entire month at a time. It adds up perfectly unless I have managed to record a fee or a reimbursement wrong, and then in the case of ath Power, I just look in Sassie and sort it out.

MDavisnowell

The issue is not the system used for tracking shops and payment, the issue is matching several shops to one lump payment.

sharpist Wrote:
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> I have developed an Excel file which I record all
> shops to track payments. It is very frustrating
> when the msc lumps several shops together without
> identifying them by date. Most of them do most of
> the time. Any suggestions for navigating
> reimbursements?



No joke! STILL TRYING TO FIGURE OUT IF i got all the bonuses I was promised!

I have the same in XL as well.

a

Separate EACH project, no matter how little or how simple the pay is.

Since you're using Excel, dedicate a row to EACH assignment and use formulas:

The basic things I closely track are:

(A) Shop Date
( Assignment ID & Project Name
(C) MSC
(D) Scheduler / Editor Contact
(E) Fee
(F) Expense Limit
(G) Actual Expenses (with note on what they consisted of, in case I had non-reimbursable additional expenses like parking).
(H) Payment Received (with checking number and / or invoice number)
(I) Payment Date
(J) Start Mileage
(K) End Mileage

From there, I created formulas to calculate the following:

(1) Payment Turnaround: (I) - (A)
(2) Estimated Payment, so I can compared what I received vs. what I was promised: (E) + (G). Formula is a little bit more complicated because it accounts for three different scenarios: Flat rate fee, fee + reimbursement limit or reimbursement only
(3) Net Pay, which is useful to track expenses you can deduct from your taxes: (H) - (G)
(4) Travel Cost per IRS rate: [(J) - (I)] * 0.56
(5) Net Pay Including Travel Cost: (3) - (4)

Since you'll have all your assignments listed in rows, you can use the filter features of Excel to group up assignments together and highlight your promised costs of assignment to match up with what a MSC pays you. Obviously, if you're having issues matching something up, that's why you'll investigate the conflict and see if you weren't paid appropriately.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/10/2014 06:46PM by Tarantado.

Yeah, I get it, sharpist. I was telling you how I do that. Guess it's a good thing I don't write guidelines, huh?