So what exactly triggers a reporter visit?

[Gwill]

Or you can just send your playable shoppers to the store when they need a snapdragon, rather than waiting for them to show up and possibly buy a lot of other crap as well.

[notveryawesome]

@Pescado (sorry, too lazy to quote): I have other hacks that do many of the same things BRY does, and most of my small businesses are home lots, so hiring a manager is not an option. I already have a hack that allows me to assign tasks to any employed sim, including the owner and/or the owner's family, which is controlled via the individual sim's pie menu. To me, this is more straightforward (and causes less clutter on my lots) than BRY, but then I'm not awesome.

Edit: I also have a 'control this sim' mod, which allows me to control any sim that would normally be uncontrollable. It comes in quite handy for many situations.

[jrd]

On home businesses you obviously do not necessarily need the mod, since you cannot ever visit the store with other playables anyway.