I was wondering how long other shoppers hold on to physical receipts and other documents from their mystery shops. I've photographed all documents and am trying to avoid hoarding but wondering if anyone else still holds onto the physcal documents from shops for some reason.

There are several issues here. First there is retention of shop materials required by the MSCs and second there is retention of materials for IRS. Different MSCs have different retention requirements, with some wanting only until you are paid and others wanting two years etc. For IRS you need to retain materials as long as your return is subject to audit and in the case of businesses, records such as financial records (spreadsheets) need to be kept permanently.

I scan receipts for every shop and these constitute a permanent file for me. I find it convenient to put shop receipts and collateral into a file folder by month. Several months of folders can be put together in a large envelope that is labeled as to the months included. The envelope can be put into a banker's box or other large cardboard box to be out of the way. If I need to find materials from a particular shop, I can pull the envelope to get to the folder for that month and to the needed materials easily enough (which is almost never needed). My box is full so every time I add a new envelope it is time to remove and dump the oldest envelope. This means I am always keeping about the most recent 5 years, which should keep all potential parties satisfied.

Life is too short to try to remember which MSC requires what retention and too short to sort through all old papers to dispose of documents as soon as possible for the MSC.

I upload them to the various reports and then keep all photos of receipts into Intuit self employment app which I can use for mytaxes. Everything is archived electronically forever or until I delete it and I don't have to keep physical copies. Win-win!

Well, I use my digital camera and photo the receipts, but, OTOH, every shop I perform in which I receive a receipt has a worksheet. To that worksheet, I staple the hard copy receipt(s) and, file the worksheet away in a folder labeled for the month and year. I keep them for the amount of years that the IRS thinks I should.

Also keep the shops I've done on a remote hard drive.

I'm an anal nerd person who reads Anne Rice and Sandra Brown books, amongst many others.