Becoming A SELF-Entrepreneur

BECOMING A SELF-ENTREPRENEUR FOR HIS BLOG: MY EXPERIENCE

Last summer, I decided to abandon pay portage in favor of auto-entrepreneur status. I know that some bloggers are wondering how to become a self-entrepreneur when you make money with your blog, so I'll share my experience in this article.

Keep in mind that this is a testimonial ... and not a user guide! For my part, I have a business of "services" but if you sell creations via your blog for example, you will have a so-called "commercial" activity and therefore do not necessarily follow the same steps; the income ceilings and the contributions are not the same either.

As such, it is always useful to learn and ask for advice around you before taking the plunge.

BECOME A SELF-ENTREPRENEUR: TESTIMONY

When and why become a self-entrepreneur as a blogger?

When you run a blog, you can deliberately choose to monetize it ... or receive monetization proposals when you have not planned to make money at the start. For example, your community is growing, your traffic is growing and you are starting to be approached by brands that offer you to write a sponsored article, to set up an affiliation.

So many situations that involve having a legal status to issue invoices and protect themselves in case of problems.

When it happens very punctually, a status like payroll is often a great solution to bill because you have almost nothing to manage administratively, few constraints in terms of accounting, etc. But when income becomes more regular and / or more important , we start asking questions ... because with the portage salary, you pay a lot of expenses.

Personally, it did not bother me to give up 50% of my income because of the charges, as long as it spared me full of administrative. I did not want to become a self-entrepreneur, create a dedicated bank account, pay a very high annual business contribution in my city ... all that to declare ridiculous sums!

Besides, many of my readers do not know it but No Tuxedo is not my job at all. I keep this blog on my free time , I do not sell anything on it ... so I am not strictly speaking what is called a "pro blogger". Nevertheless, my blogs generate revenue (through affiliation, advertising).

And when these revenues become monthly and more consistent, the reasoning changes because we say "even if I will have to manage the administrative and pay an annual fee, it's worth it because I earn enough scale of a year to get into my expenses. "

So there is a calculation to make ... and to help you, do not hesitate to ask advice : an accountant, taxes (they can inform you about the amount of land assessment companies in your city), Pole Employment if you are unemployed (they sometimes have consultants to support entrepreneurs, through workshops), from your city hall (same, some cities have consultants to help those who want to undertake), to the ICC that has also advisors everywhere in France .

Register as a self-entrepreneur with his blog

This is the first step to becoming a self-entrepreneur: register . The online procedure is quite simple and when there is a line that you do not understand, a simple Google search gives access to tons of forums that provide answers.

For my part, I chose the status "professional blogger" because it covers quite the diversity of activities related to a blog (affiliation, writing web, etc.). And for the joke, my micro-enterprise is therefore in the category of "newspaper publishers" :) A little more traditional than a blog!

You have to fill in some simple information (do you have a status next to it or do you want to pay the contributions monthly or quarterly?).

We then obtain a file number and a confirmation. After that, you have to be patient. You will receive your SIRET number a few weeks later . In my case, it was rather fast, in less than 2 weeks I had it. That's it, we officially become a company!

Open a dedicated bank account

For my part, I went very quickly to the bank to open an account dedicated to my activity. It is an obligation, however as a self-entrepreneur it is not mandatory to have what banks call a "pro account" (which is more expensive).

Some not very honest banks will try to sell you one anyway. For my part, I took a current account in the same bank as my usual account (it facilitates transfers and account management!), No credit card or checkbook.

Create a professional account on the tax website

It's easier to pay for your (future) real estate contribution to online businesses. Just go to the tax site and click on "Professional Space" and create an account.

Subsequently, we receive a tax memento (a double page) summarizing the information on your status, address and situation in terms of housing (tenant, owner, etc.). Sometimes there are parts to provide (copy of the lease for example). Everything is to check and return within 15 days to taxes.

Create a Net Companies account for payment of contributions

Every quarter or month you will have to report your income and pay your dues . It's much easier to do it online but for that, you have to create an account on Net Entreprises .

The procedure is again very simple. The date of first declaration depends on the moment when you started your activity, here is as an indication what indicated to me the site at the time of my inscription:

Then we declare each month or quarter what we have won, we immediately get the amount of the contributions that will be deducted from the income, it really makes it easy to do your accounting.

Manage your own business

As a business leader (gniii) ... or at least self-leader, it takes a minimum of discipline for everything to go well :)

Billing
It is important to make good invoices with the necessary mandatory information . It covers you in case of problems and it saves you from having to pay a fine if you are controlled by the administration (15 € / missing mention).

You can find the list of mandatory information on the official website Service Public . As a self-employed person, VAT is not charged and the mention "VAT not applicable, art. 293 B of the CGI ".

The simplest is often to start from an invoice you received from a French company and use it to create your own model adapted to the status of self-entrepreneur, by triple-checking that you have all the necessary essential legal information ... or by asking confirmation to a pro of the account.

Once you have your model, it will serve you throughout the year from one client to another so as far as it is good from the start!

Then everyone manages their billing with his little personal tips. For my part, I ...

A paper cookbook where I postpone my earnings.
An Excel tracking file, where I note the invoice number, the amount before and after the charges (to be able to take stock of what I actually have in the pocket!), Useful information about the customer (contact information, deadline payment etc.)
Well organized files: I classify each invoice in a monthly file, idem for quotes.

The contracts

Make contracts. Here. It's a simple rule but one that can help you a lot the day you come across a bad payor or a not-so-good partner. If you have negotiated the conditions of your service in advance, that you have the signature of the person and the trace of your exchanges by email, you will be in a position of strength to assert your rights.

There are plenty of templates that you can compile according to your needs : on Les Echos , on Ooreka , or on Wonder Legal where you can customize a service contract with your own information.

Ideally, have it read by a lawyer or lawyer. The other advantage of the contract is that it places you directly in a professional position. Someone who intends to stop you will sometimes be more reluctant to do so if it means signing a contract that commits him!

Also know how to listen to your intuition when we propose a collaboration. If you feel that your partner sells you a proposal "too good to be true", that it is evasive on certain points, refuses to sign your contract under the pretext "we can trust each other", it is sometimes in your interest in rejecting the proposal.

Manage the money earned through his blog

As a self-employed person, we pay contributions (in the order of 23% of the income for the provision of services) every month or quarter (according to the frequency of declaration chosen) ... and we pay once a year the CFE (land assessment of companies), the amount of which varies from one municipality to another.

All auto-companies are exempt from CFE the first calendar year of their creation: if you create your own business on January 1, you will pay the CFE at the end of the following year (so you're quiet for almost 2 years, hence the interest of starting at the beginning of a calendar year when you can wait!).

If you are unemployed and a beneficiary of the ACCRE (Help for Unemployed Creators or Buyers of Enterprise), there seems to me other exemptions (exemption from charges) ... but as I have not benefited from this device, I advise you to turn to Pôle Emploi for more information!

For my part, I do not want to be surprised by the amount of contributions, so I chose a simple operation: when I receive a payment, I keep 65% as compensation ... and I leave the remaining 35% on my auto-entrepreneur account. They allow both to cover monthly contributions ... and to constitute a small "bonanza" in anticipation of the CFE, which is annual. I see wide ... but I think that by doing so, if there is money at the end of the year once the CFE paid, it will always be a pleasant surprise at the holiday season :)

I find that the status of auto-entrepreneur remains to date a relatively "light" administrative management ... and become self-entrepreneur, beyond the financial dimension, is very rewarding . It's a good introduction to running a business. I had already touched billing, legal and even international taxation by working in a small structure ... so I left with a "small bonus" ... but it is much more pleasant to do it for yourself;)