Prior to Your First Visit

Start-up documents

W-9 Tax Certification (US citizens only)

Tax compliance is important for all of us. All US citizens must furnish their Employer Identification or Social Security number and certify it by signing the W-9 form. At the end of each calendar year, if you earn more than $600, we will report your earnings to the government on a 1099 form using the EIN or SSN you certified on your W-9.

 

Your "start-up" period 

 

As a new vendor with H&Co, you are subject to a start-up period. During this period, there will be a zero tolerance policy for the following vendor guidelines: 

I. Your data will be due on Saturday at 11:59 PM local time for the first two Reporting Rounds after you have actively started in-store visits. Failure to submit your data by the deadline could result in termination of your contract. 

II. You must check-in for all store visits upon arrival at the store via the VMS check-in system. Failure to check-in to any of your visits will result in a member of the research team checking in on your visit status. 

 

Failure to do any of the above can result in denial of the invoice for your project and reassignment of your projects.

 

Before your first store visit

Most activities are the same for all store visits. Before your first visit, you must complete a few additional tasks.

All these activities are considered part of project specification review time and should be included as such on your first invoice for each project.

 

 

For the first visit on a project, you are going to have these additional steps prior to going out:

1. Optional: Go through  H&Co Basic Data articles (suggested, not paid).
2. Check: access to your VMS account and familiarize yourself with how the system works.
3. Optional: Sync your personal calendar with your VMS calendar.
4. Required: Complete the Project Specification for each project to which you are assigned (You may invoice for this time on your first invoice for the project).
5. Complete (and pass with 100%): The quiz for each project to which you are assigned as a means to demonstrate project competency. You may take the quiz as many times as you need.
6. Required: Pre-Visit Call with your Research Manager to discuss project details, discuss quiz results, and review any questions you may have. Project competency must be demonstrated in this call prior to conducting your visit. We highly recommend reading through the Project Specifications carefully, and having your questions prepared in advance for your Pre-Visit Call. Failure to complete your project specification work prior to your scheduled call will result in the call being rescheduled. Ongoing failure to complete project specification details could result in the reassignment of your projects. 

 

Note: Pre-visit call(s) should take about 30 minutes, depending on the number of projects you are starting at any one time. The other activities should take approximately 30-60 minutes per project. 

 

* You should not complete any project specification work for projects to which you have not been assigned. This time will not be paid for.