Field Auditor Contractor Terms

What this page is, and what signs you up

Nothing on this page is an offer of employment.

You would be an independent contractor

Signal Retail field auditor roles are structured as independent contractor engagements. In practice that means you set your own schedule, take or decline each assignment offered to you, choose your own route and method of getting there, and supply your own phone, camera, transport and anything else the visit needs.

It also means Signal Retail does not direct how you spend your day, and you are free to work for other companies, including other field intelligence firms, subject only to the confidentiality obligations in clause 06.

Assignments, and the honest position on volume

Signal Retail does not guarantee any minimum number of assignments. This is stated plainly because it is the single thing most likely to disappoint someone who joins expecting steady income.

What is available to you depends on which client programs are running, whether any of them cover your geography, and your own record on previous visits. Some months there is regular work in a given area. Some months there is none.

Each assignment is offered with its scope, its location, its deadline and its rate stated up front. You accept or decline. Declining an assignment does not count against you.

Payment, expenses and tax

• Rates are set per assignment type and disclosed before you accept. You will not be asked to accept work at an unstated rate.
• Required purchases are handled as set out in the assignment brief. Where a visit requires you to buy something, the brief states the limit and how it is reimbursed. Anything you spend beyond the brief is your own cost.
• Your own running costs are yours. Mileage, fuel, parking, phone and data are business expenses of your own business, not reimbursed by default.
• No tax is withheld. Signal Retail does not withhold federal, state or local tax, and does not pay employer payroll taxes on your behalf. Self employment tax is yours.
• A 1099-NEC is issued where you are paid $600 or more in a calendar year, using the details you supply on your W-9.

Payment timing for a given assignment is stated in your contractor agreement. A report that fails QA review may be returned for correction before it is payable, and clause 05 explains what that means.

Conduct on a visit

Auditors observe and report. They do not fix, correct, coach or interfere with store operations, and they do not identify themselves as auditors to staff. The visit only works if it is an ordinary customer visit.

Every assignment is carried out under Signal Retail’s Field Conduct SOP, which is provided to you. In summary it requires that you:

• Complete the visit yourself, in person, within the stated window. Assignments are not transferable.
• Record what you actually observed, and nothing you did not.
• Collect evidence to the stated standard, including receipts and any required photographs.
• Keep the client’s identity and the existence of the assignment confidential.
• Obey the law and the location’s own rules while you are there.

Honest mistakes are a different matter entirely. A report returned by QA for clarification or correction is a normal part of the process and is not treated as misconduct.

Confidentiality

You may not disclose the identity of any Signal Retail client, the existence or content of any assignment, or anything about a location or its staff that you learned because you were there on assignment. That includes social media, review sites, other field intelligence networks, and conversation.

These obligations continue after you stop taking assignments. They do not prevent you from saying that you work as a field auditor, or from making a disclosure that the law protects or requires.

What happens to the reports and photographs you submit

Work you produce on assignment, meaning the completed report, the photographs, the receipts and the observations, is delivered to the client as part of the engagement. Signal Retail needs the right to use it for that purpose, and your contractor agreement sets that out in full.

Two practical points worth knowing before you apply:

• Your identity is not disclosed to the client. Reports reach clients without your name attached. That anonymity is the point of the method and it protects you as much as it protects the data.
• Do not photograph people. The SOP requires evidence of conditions, displays, signage and receipts. It does not ask for images of customers or identifiable staff, and you should not supply them.

How Signal Retail handles your own personal information, as distinct from your assignment work, is covered by the Privacy Policy.

How applications are assessed, and where AI is not used

Stated here because it is a fair question to ask of any network that recruits online:

• No automated system accepts or rejects you. Field auditor applications are read and assessed by a person. There is no scoring model deciding who gets in.
• Nothing you submit through this website is sent to an AI service. The site makes no calls to any model.
• Performance decisions are made by people. If your work is returned, paused or ended, a person made that call and you can ask who and why.
• The website itself was built with AI assisted development tooling, and the copy on it, including the Insights articles, is drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by a person before publication. That is disclosed in full in the Privacy Policy.

No employment relationship

Neither this page nor any contractor agreement creates employment. As an independent contractor you are not entitled to employee benefits, paid leave, unemployment insurance, or workers’ compensation cover from Signal Retail, except where a particular state’s law requires otherwise regardless of classification.

You are not an agent of Signal Retail and cannot commit it to anything.

Ending the arrangement

Either side can stop. You can decline every assignment offered, or say you no longer want to be contacted, and that is the end of it. Signal Retail can stop offering assignments, with the notice period stated in your contractor agreement.

Ending the relationship does not affect payment already earned for accepted work that passed QA, and it does not end the confidentiality obligations in clause 06.

Changes to this page

This summary can change. The effective date in the header reflects the version you are reading and the date it replaced is shown beside it. Changes to this page do not alter a contractor agreement you have already signed. That document changes only by its own terms.