I have recently posted some questions on Micro-entrepreneur status and im so grateful for your advices! Though I still have one thing that I am struggling with - I need to start invoicing my client from London as an Micro-entrepreneur and I have got all the other stuff done in my invoice ( all the legal stuff and everything in both english and french ) but I still like to keep the currency in pounds which is what I have always been doing for years when I was living in other countries working for this same client. Alternatively, If I include the conversion to euros ( eg. using XE converter - lets say - 1000 GBP = 1115 euros ) - would it be confusing? since the final amount that I received in my french bank account might not be converted using the same rate?
Thanks in advance and really appreciate anyoneâs helpful advice here
However, what I used to do with my one solitary left-over UK client was: Send the client an invoice in English and in sterling, outside my ME invoicing system, and at the same time set up an invoice in my ME invoicing system, so that it was numbered in the correct chronological sequence with all my other invoices, but without showing an amount. When the client paid the invoice I converted it at the rate on the day I received the payment, put that figure on the French invoice and marked it as paid on my ME system. So in fact the client never saw the French invoice, that was purely for my records. Itâs probably not the proper way to do it, but it worked - the client didnât have to worry about funny money (I donât think they even realised I was no longer UK based) and my ME records were correct.
Also make sure you put your intercommunity TVA number on the French invoice if not on the English one, and do your declarations to the douanes.
I have a question that is not entirely related to the topic and I hope you can kindly help me with this - Since I have started ME officially in July and I have also gotten the Siret number from Insee I would like to create an account on the urssaf website so I can start declaring my monthly income etc online. But I donât have a social security number yet which is required to open the account. As I am new in france so I have only applied to CPAM a month ago for Carte Vitale - no news yet on anything. So what do I do now? and without social security number/usrssaf online account - how do i declare or update my income, upload the invoice and pay the contributions in monthly manner?
In this day and age, there shouldnât be an issue with an invoice in Euros given the fact that there are any number of low cost ways of getting the payment to you (even the banks are often competitive these days but thereâs Transferwise amongst others which are perfectly handy for small one-off payments).
Unless, that is, you
a) just like the client enough to make their life easier OR
b) you really, really, donât want to lose the client and think that an invoice in ⏠might cause that to happen.
Re currencies - there are various solutions but if you do want to receive payments in various currencies, you may find Transferwiseâs Borderless account works well for you. I understand that there may be reasons why you may prefer to continue invoicing a UK client in sterling - in my case for instance I just felt it would be inappropriate for a British freelancer who had been providing a UK client with English language editorial services for donkeyâs years at an agreed monthly fee in sterling, to suddenly renegotiate the fee in euros and expose the client to the ups and downs of the exchange rate.
Thanks! Yeah, one of the reasons is to make it easier for the client to pay in sterling. I work for this client almost every month - is Transferwise worth considering?
So it seems that Iâll just have to wait for urssaf to send me my social security number. What if CPAM send me something as well - will I have two numbers and i just use the one from urssaf?
I remember when I was registering for ME I chose the option to pay monthly - does it matter? or can I change to pay quarterly as the time goes.
I think Transferwise borderless account seems like an easier option - but when it comes to invoicing the UK client - does that mean iâll have to put the Transferwise borderless GBP account details on my french invoice? and the amount would be in sterling as well - not euros. Here Im talking about using the same invoice for the UK client as well as the ME system.
Ahhh⊠this is not a good sign and its too late now
Re Invoices - Are you saying we could include different bank accounts/currency/methods for the client to choose to pay? Like: Pay to ( transferwise GBP account/credit agricole EURO account ( i specially opened this as I thought we needed to have a separate account for ME income) /paypal.
Re Invoices - yes, as I said, thatâs what I do. It saves having different templates for different customers according to their preferred payment method, or alteratively entering payment instructions manually on each invoice which would be even more of a hassle. However I normally agree payment terms with each customer in advance and then they use the same method each time, so itâs not so much a case of deciding how theyâd like to pay, as choosing the correct set of instructions to follow.
Re the social security number - seriously, if URSSAF are still processing an application from you I would abort it before they finish processing it, I wouldnât wait until theyâve set up an account that you shouldnât have. It may be they have realised youâre getting a number via URSSAF and wonât duplicate it, but if not, itâll be easier to sort out at this stage than it will when you have 2 live accounts in operation with contradictory data.
thatâs a bit worrying. You donât really mean âweâ, do you? because ME is strictly a one person business.
Haha I mean â we â as in micro entrepreneurs people in generalâŠ
Re invoice - I guess im gonna go for your first suggestion - iâll send the London client an invoice written both in English/French languages with that credit agricole bank account i opened for ME income and in sterling. Then use the same invoice for ME records later but convert/change the currency to euros ( the actual amount thats actually paid into credit agricole bank account )
Re SS number - how do i abort it? abort the one when applying ME with urssaf or the one with CPAM ( a month before i applied for ME )?
I actually kept the client paying into my UK account, so as far as they were concerned nothing changed. Well the postal address on the invoice changed and I added my siret number and the TVA franchise de base line just to be on the safe side, apart from that the invoice looked just like it always had and they paid just like they always had. That worked out ideal for me because it kept my UK account topped up just enough without ever needing to do any currency transfers.
Iâd mirror pretty much Anna has said in her replies. Its pretty much how I run my ME - with Transferwise you can have a Business account and a personal account - all free - all multi currency - makes it clear whats business and whats personal. With Transferwise each currency has bank details - so UK clients see a UK bank and account departments donât complain and whine.
And as for ÂŁ or Euros - most business donât want the faff for freelancers.
https://www.autoentrepreneur.urssaf.fr/portail/accueil.html - setting an account up can be a pain. However they should send you a paper form - that will also have your assigned Social Security number on it - for the first return - I set my online stuff up with the info I copied from that.
Thanks for this! So it is possible that I put a Transferwise Borderless sterling account details on both invoices for the UK client as well as for the ME system? So the UK client will pay to this Transferwise Borderless sterling account and then iâll transfer the money from here to my credit agricole bank account that is opened for ME? It can work this way?
Youâve lost me.
I think youâre getting far too hung up on the bank account issue. The important thing is to keep an accurate record of your income and ensure that all the income is clearly traceable and that you have a compliant accounting system should anyone ask to see it. Ideally, your bank account will show a series of credits coming in direct from clients with each payment/source exactly matching an invoice and easily identifiable. Of course it doesnât always work like that in practice but the more you shift the same income around from one account to another, the more confusing the papertrail will get and the more it risks looking dodgy. Thatâs my gut feeling.
In fact under the most recent raft of changes to the ME scheme, you have 2 years from the point at which your turnover exceeds 10,000⏠to set up a dedicated bank account. https://www.portail-autoentrepreneur.fr/actualites/changements-auto-entrepreneur-2019#4-2
So you have plenty of time to figure out a good system that works for you, before you set everything in stone.
Thanks Anna. Yeah im getting a bit lost too. I was firstly hung up on the fact that the income has to be paid into a french bank account and in euros ( ideally ) which all need to be reflected on the invoice for ME system. Thats why i didnât know if using transferwise would work because it is still a UK back account if being paid in sterling.
But even if the income is paid directly into the credit agricole account opened for ME- I can still transfer the money to my other credit agricole bank account that is for personal use to pay bills and expenses no?
