ABC for beginners

Whether you are a full-time professional in your field, dreaming about your own company or even harnessing side income from your hobby: You have several opportunities to run your business and invoice for it! Choosing the right way depends entirely on the nature of your business, your own starting point, what you want to invest in and where you want to save.

Think about what you know and want to do, who your target audience is and what the demand is for your service. If you don’t have customers yet, you might want to think about how to reach them and differentiate yourself from other players in the industry.

Think about what kind of activities you want to do, how much of the business you want to run, and how much time, expertise, and interest you have in running the business. If you sell services and/or your own work and are not interested in the tasks related to running a company, you should check out Invoicery's services, which will give you as much time as possible to develop your own operations and Invoicery will help with the work-related bureaucracy. If, on the other hand, you are interested in running your own business from a to z, plan to sell products, run an online store, use cash or card payments, engage in licensed activities or want to benefit from VAT deductions for entrepreneurs, you should start your own business and obtain a business ID.

Compare how much you will get to your bank account if you are billing as a self-employed person, a light entrepreneur or through your own business ID. When pricing, you should always take into account the price of your own work, possible materials, space rents and other costs, as well as how much potential customers are willing to pay for similar work. Be sure to also consider what is included in the invoicing company's services, if you use those, and for what you will have to take responsibility yourself. You can compare costs and calculate how much you have left from your invoicing amount, for example, here. When invoicing as a self-employed person, a light entrepreneur or through your own business ID, you can also make various deductions, and it is worth finding out what kind of deductions you could benefit from. It’s also worth remembering that time is money: If you have the time and skills, you can save money by doing paperwork yourself. If, on the other hand, you want to focus on your field and know that professionals can handle paperwork faster for you, you can save time, money and your own nerves by outsourcing bureaucracy to others!

Signing up for a service through which you can invoice without your own company is very easy. If you want to start your own company, you can check, at this point, the possibility of a start-up grant, choose a company form that suits you, make a company formation notice, take care of the company's permits and notifications, obtain the necessary insurance and get an accountant if needed. Help and advice on setting up your own company can be found, for example, on the suomi.fi website and the TE Center.

The best marketing tricks or ways to find clients depend a lot on the nature of your business and where you think your target audience will find you best. You can market your business through various search engines and social media, through communities and, for example, influencers, newspaper advertisements, various events, or even by directly contacting companies that may be interested in your service. If you wish, you can also hire professionals to market and sell your service.

The details and conditions of the work should always be agreed with the client in writing and as carefully as possible to avoid conflicts. If you are invoicing as an umbrella employee via Invoicery, contact Invoicery to enter into an employment contract with us. An assignment agreement will be made between Invoicery and the client in that case.

When using Invoicery's services, it is important, and in your best interest, to inform the future working days and working hours through a pre-registration form at least two weeks before the assignment. An umbrella employee´s pre-registration is a written proof of planned working days and hours. Once approved, the employee is insured and, under certain conditions, entitled to sick pay.

Once all the pre-arrangements have been taken care of, you can focus on what you know and what you love! Whether you are a programmer, lecturer, consultant, journalist, actor, influencer, translator or you do something completely different for your job: Now you can excel in your own skills! There are many different ways to send an invoice after the work is completed. If you use Invoicery's services, you will create an invoice online and the invoice will be sent to your client by post, e-mail or e-invoice, using Invoicery's business ID. You can also invoice a foreign client. If, on the other hand, you invoice through your own company, you will use your own business ID for invoicing, you can choose the invoicing tool or service you want to use and decide for yourself what invoicng methods you offer to your clients. With your own company, you also have the option to accept cash or card payments if you wish.

If you invoice via Invoicery as an umbrella employee, you will be paid directly to your bank account, then you receive a payslip and the salary information will be reported directly to Finnish tax authorities. If, on the other hand, you invoice with your own business ID, the payment made by the client to your account is your company's money. It is worth remembering that this money still requires various deductions, such as VAT. How you can transfer your company's money to your own account and how it is taxed depends entirely on the type of company you choose. A good accountant will definitely help if you don't know how to proceed!

Be sure to ask your client to recommend you to others, for example, orally or through a referral channel, and continue to market and sell your work as much as you want. It is also worth networking with industry players; Even if you do not intend to become a full-time entrepreneur or do more gigs right now, new contacts may spawn interesting collaborative projects in the future!