Does anyone think the amount of printing, reading instructions and prep time, work involved including naming the photos, uploading them to the website, etc. is ridiculous for their gas station audits considering the amount of pay you get? OMG. I cannot believe how crazy it is. I just did 2 audits today for the first time in about 3 years and I couldn't believe how many photos they added to the required list, questions to the form, etc. They used to mail you all of the paperwork, forms, etc. Now you have to use your own ink to print all of it. Does anyone ever try to talk them into bonuses before being assigned these? Just curious. Thank you in advance, everyone.

I take 3-4 at base pay so that I am in the data base as a shopper for that brand. Then I don't take anymore until they are bonused. I don't name all my photos either. I upload all the photos from my day into their own folder and separate them from there. They remain named whatever my pc named them. I find after the first two they go pretty fast. I do agree that the base pay for them is not enough. They still mail you all the paperwork for the green stations, but not the seaside ones. I don't mind the prep time because I get a lot of work and it's just part of it. I print it all out once (the guidelines and random stuff) and put it in it's own folder. Then I grab that folder when I'm going out to do those stations. I use that same folder all year pretty much except for updates I might add. I don't call them for bonuses, (unless I'm putting together a route) I just let them sit until they call me. At that point I can pick my locations and ask for what I want. If they are lucky I have time.
I prefer doing gas station routes to just about everything, so it could be that it's just my own personal preference. I'd rather spend time uploading photos than writing narratives, if you get my drift.

I totally understand coffee queen. I never looked at it that way. I too, spend a lot of time on narratives for certain shops. You have a good system going for you. Well, I am locked in to 2 more that I signed up for and I will complete them, of course. I never back out. But I see 2 more near my town on the list and I may wait for them to go to bonus or maybe I will call them and offer to do them for a bonus. Thank you for your input. I really like being able to ask for all of the opinions of people on this forum. It's nice because I have nobody else in my life to vent to. I don't even tell most people I do this stuff for a side job. Have a good day!!

Yeah, it is a ton of work. I also don't rename my photos. However my camera numbers them, that's how they stay. You can often succeed in initiating bonus requests, but it won't be as much as when they call you. I considered those first few shops at base rate as paid training. Once I proved I could do them, I was on their radar when bonus time came around.

I rarely if ever do Maritz shops anymore. Their pay level is way low for the amount of work required. For awhile they were offering bank shops that were identical to those being offered by another company for more pay. At least they don't give any grief when one has to cancel a shop, but that's about the only good thing I can say about them.

I do a lot of convenience store shops and I don't number the pictures to the questions. Instead, I number them to the order they are requested on the final page of the report. For example, on XXX station, I number them 1 through 13 in exact order to match the required pictures upload in the report. I find it to my benefit to add a brief description to the number, for example, a pic will be labeled as "2 Main ID" or "3 Fuel Island Complete". I started adding the verbal part after I mixed up some numbers and as a result lost some pictures when I saved on top of a number already saved.

I have a picture list (with numbers and descriptions of required pics in order) for each brand I do. I keep these lists in a plastic restaurant menu and I can just flip over to whatever brand of station I'm doing.

All interior infractions are numbered 22 with a description. All restroom infractions are numbered slightly differently with 22 RR and a description. All exterior infractions are numbered 33 with a description. This puts these pictures in batches so I can easily find individual pictures. For example, the required pictures will all come first numbered in the order I will use them. Then infractions are separated into interior general, interior restroom, and exterior so they are easy to find.

In my picture download from my camera, everything for one day is in the same download. I report the stations in the order I did them, starting with the first one. After I have completed the report for that station, I pull all those pictures into a folder which I label with the report number. I set up another folder labeled with the date/today such as 09.20.2015TODAY and I pull all the individual station folders into that folder. This keeps everything out of my way so I can go on to the next station.

I know that everyone does things differently and everyone who has been doing this for long has their own system, but perhaps something here will be of help to someone just getting started on the convenience stores.

This week I did 40 jobs and 23 of them were stations. This system works pretty well for me on the stations, but I'm open to suggestions and always looking for better ways to do things.
I'm hoping if someone has a faster, clearer system they will share it here.

My system is similar to Mary's. All my pics for a day are uploaded into one folder with the date on it. I add empty folders to the main folder, naming one for each station. Then I just sort the pictures into their respective folders, and it's pretty easy because the first picture I take at each station is always the safety vest selfie. It generally takes about 10-15 minutes and all the pics are filed, easy to find and ready to upload. I also report them in order, I do that for every kind of shop. So after I've reported the first one I can just close the folder for that station and go on to the next one.
This is a system I developed as I went along. I had no idea what I was doing LOL. I'm also open to improvements. Anything that saves time and gets me off the computer and in front of the tv is ok by me.

I'm with CoffeeQueen - I like gas station audits and Pegasus is my favorite. I use a detailed work sheet for each brand so that I can do a station in about 20 minutes and another few minutes checking photos. And I can do 5 stations, toss in a bank or 2 and return in 4 or 5 hours with $100 plus. Next week I am doing 12 bonused stations over 2 days and will end up with over $400. I do have to work on speeding up my uploading and debriefing however. I have to re-read Mary's post.

I will do green stations when I can get them and lower on my list are seashore stations. I tried 4 orange stations earlier this month and will stay from them unless they increase the embarrassing low gas purchase of less than a gallon. One of the stations was full serve and the attendant was incredulous that I wanted just $2.00 worth of gas on a credit card.

LlJake, why are Pegasus your favorite? I have yet to do any of those although I did bid on a route of them. Haven't heard anything yet.

Mary, I love your idea of putting the station worksheets into plastic restaurant menus. Now to get my hands on one of those.

CQ, probably because there are so many of them close to me and I can do plenty of mini routes. The shops are pretty straight forward but the downside is that each pump has to be photoed and the debriefing form is a bit tideous.

I just take the restroom photo first, and then put all my photos for the day into a single folder. When I view my photos on the computer, I can tell when I started another station when another restroom appears. I have heard other people take a picture of the receipts at the end of each shop, which serves the same purpose. When I finish uploading photos for the first station of the day, I move those photos to another folder, and then move on to the next station. It does make it more difficult if for any reason I have to find a picture from a week ago, but in the long run it saves me lots of time.

I do a lot of gas station audits, for various MSCs. The initial learning curve can take quite a bit of time. There are a bunch of tricks for not printing so many pages. For Maritz, for example, I only print the first page of the report, the letter of authorization, and my personal cheat sheet which is two pages. Most audits can be done in about 20 minutes and the reporting time for me is about 15 minutes. I've been able to streamline the photo process and that helps a bunch.

As far as bonuses go, there is a lot of work in my area. I will take quite a bit at the beginning pay rate. For me, the reimbursed gas has a good value, especially when doing a lot of shops. Maritz will give me plently of bonused work when these shops come to the end of their time frame. Another company called me with great bonuses on a lot of their shops while they were still at a low fee on the job board. The more work I do for these companies, the more bonuses I am offered. I won't go far without a bonus and I always make routes. Today I worked for 4.5 hours and make just over $140, this was a mixture of bonused and non-bonused work, and all within a couple miles of my home.

I only do shops for them that pay a incentive to cover my time and expense. Since they have merged with CTX the incentives are harder to get. Be aware that every word and email is documented so if you have trouble with a team for that client it spills over to the next client even on a different team

If any company could benefit from a mobile app, it's them. I would do these jobs for significantly less if I could process each shop on an app like MobiAudit.