Name on a received invoice? - Page 10

Quang N · ‎06-30-2015

I have a quick question on the invoices you receive from Upwork. As a client, when receiving an invoice from Upwork whose name and address is shown on that invoice? Is it Upwork itself or is it the name and address of the freelancer that was hired by you? So who are you paying according to the invoice, Upwork or the freelancer?

Anonymous-User A · ‎01-05-2016

@Lena E wrote:
Hi Margarete,

Im sorry but Im not understanding what you mean by this statement:
"So the reverse charge system has not been applied to their service invoices. Changes have been announced as well as amended invoices for December. Still nothing has happened. It is already too late for 2015, my invoices had to be handed over to my tax consultant."

VAT-IDS have been retroactively added to your invoices on service fees. If you got to your reports> transaction history and click on an invoice for a service fee you will see your VAT ID as well as the VAT ID of Upwork.

Thank you, Lena. Why did Upwork not announce this the day when it happened that all those invoices have been amended? I was not aware of this because in the middle of December this was not the fact. Some of the invoices without VAT-IDs I have used for my tax reports already. Moreover there is nothing referring to reverse charge on the new invoices. So, we will see if the tax authorities will accept these invoices as reverse charge invoices. They will also be interested in the invoice to the client the service invoice is referring to that cannot be provided by the freelancer.

David G · ‎01-07-2016

Hi all,

Lena, or someone from CS:

Do you know if freelancers will be able to get tax/fiscal information such as client address, Tax ID number and full name (private or enterprise)?

We need that sort of information to fill out electronic receipts for our tax system databases (I think it's similar throughout Europe).

But we aren't able emit these receipts without filling out all the information about who is sending us the money (the client) and we can't put Upwork tax information there because Upwork is an intermediary that gets paid by us (freelencers) for a service.

So, by not emiting these receipts we are compelled to evade tax obligations, or imput false information!

Is Upwork planning on providing this information at all? If so, when?

It would be easy to provide a pro-forma invoice with all this client data (but with no legal value) at the same location that we get our invoices for the 10% fees (the transaction history section of the platform).

We could then fill out our receipts and be "legal", even if the client doesn't need/want them.

Thanks,

David

Joachim M · ‎01-07-2016

David,

I solve this problem by asking my clients for their address and VAT ID and then send them an invoice containing all the necessary information. Clients appreciate this as they are facing the same problems the contractors face.

David G · ‎01-07-2016

@Joachim M wrote:
David,

I solve this problem by asking my clients for their address and VAT ID and then send them an invoice containing all the necessary information. Clients appreciate this as they are facing the same problems the contractors face.

Thanks Joachim,

I'll have to do that, but since Upwork already has that information it would be "nice" to have it on the platform (that's what our fees are for, right?).

Anyway, I hope that the invoicing part of the platform improves soon, for the sake of us all, freelancers and clients alike.

Regards,

David

Joachim M · ‎01-07-2016

David,

I couldn't agree more. It was mentioned that some time early this year we might get access to the invoices Upwork issues on our behalf (like it was on Elance). Then the necessary details would be available, if the client doesn't hide them. On Elance clients could opt for keeping their details secret, btw, same on People per Hour and they are located in Britain, i.e. within the EU.

Anonymous-User A · ‎01-08-2016

@Joachim M wrote:
David,

I solve this problem by asking my clients for their address and VAT ID and then send them an invoice containing all the necessary information. Clients appreciate this as they are facing the same problems the contractors face.

I do the same. However, not all clients are excited about that. The address is not a big problem, however, sometimes the VAT-Id. One client located in an EU-country provided a copy of the invoices to me a few days ago, there wasn't a VAT-Id on the invoice.

Anonymous-User A · ‎02-03-2016

At the moment Upwork still sends invoices to the clients and does not send a copy to the freelancers and I do not see any changes. Moreover, VAT does not appear on the invoices sent to European clients. And it has to be applied when the freelancer is eligable to apply VAT. As this practice is not in accordance with European tax laws, Upwork at least should stop invoicing to the clients and should inform everybody that the freelancers are responsible for applying VAT themselves. Moreover, the VAT-IDs of clients and freelancers have to be provided by Upwork, so that legal invoices can be issued. A lot of freelancers and clients as well in Europe could get in troubles caused by these invoices that are issued by Upwork at the moment, could be accused for tax and especially VAT fraud that is regarded as a crime. Furthermore, Upwork will have to provide answers as well as they issue the invoice (yes, in the freelancer's name) and not the freelancer who has no chance to alter these invoices so that they become legal. I have not authorized anybody to issue invoices in my name that are not according European tax laws.

Finally, as the freelancers have so much additional work issuing legal invoices themselves the 10% service fee should be lowered.

Peter V · ‎02-16-2016

Thank you Margarete and Joachim for all your helpful posts. For your clients outside the EU do you issue the same invoice format? I can't seem to find anything specific on the ec.europa.eu site. Since VAT is not applicable then I'm wondering if that changes the format?

Also, in my field (architecture and interiors) most clients aren't businesses, they are individuals that need house plans or a room in their house designed. So they would most likely have no VAT-ID number which seems like it could be a problem within the EU. I have avoided these types of projects due to this but maybe I am overthinking. Do you see problems with declaring these types of projects?

Anonymous-User A · ‎02-16-2016

@Peter V wrote:
Thank you Margarete and Joachim for all your helpful posts. For your clients outside the EU do you issue the same invoice format? I can't seem to find anything specific on the ec.europa.eu site. Since VAT is not applicable then I'm wondering if that changes the format?

Also, in my field (architecture and interiors) most clients aren't businesses, they are individuals that need house plans or a room in their house designed. So they would most likely have no VAT-ID number which seems like it could be a problem within the EU. I have avoided these types of projects due to this but maybe I am overthinking. Do you see problems with declaring these types of projects?

Peter, for clients outside the EU, for example in Switzerland or the United States VAT is not applied. So there should be a hint that the client is responsible for the taxes in his country on the invoice. To prove that you worked for a company and not for a private person, if possible a registration no. of this company should be added on the invoice as well.

If you work for private clients in the EU, you cannot apply reverse charge (provided you are eligible to raise VAT), you have to add the VAT to your invoice. For companies within EU you can apply reverse charge (that means that the company has to pay the VAT in its country). Everything without guarantee, I am not a tax consultant. Therefore I would recommend that you invest some money in a tax consultant to avoid big mistakes from the beginning. VAT and taxes across borders is rather complicated and causes a lot of troubles later if made some mistakes.

Tamás S · ‎05-15-2016

Hi,

I read over the complete thread to understand the situation and possible workarounds.

I have a few questions which was already asked by others but wasn't really answered:

Lets assume, I'm from EU and my clients are located in the US. I'm working for them and receiving an amount in hourly rate.

Not sure how is this handled in other EU contries but in Germany, the Tax consultant is always asking from me the following papers after every month:

- Statement of account (Kontoauszug)

- The issued invoice which matches the amount from the invoice and the name from who I received

- A letter from Bank which informs the transaction from foreign country (Ausland zahlung)

Based on the list above, even if I want to do everything legal, I can't because Upwork:

- Sends the money "collected" from all clients/projects

- The name in the transaction says, it was upwork, not the client(s)

- I can't report the 10% fee payed to upwork from my earnings.

Question:

What is the best way handle this problem?

I know it's not 100% legal but still an option to create an invoice based on the received amount for Upwork.

Is there a way to create invoices for every client and report the earnings received from upwork in a single transaction?

For example: Received $100 from client #1, received $220 from client #2;

I'm getting $220 from upwork but I will create 2 invoices with the name of the real clients.

Any help is appreciated.

Tamas

Anonymous-User A · ‎05-15-2016

@Tamás S wrote:
Hi,

I read over the complete thread to understand the situation and possible workarounds.
I have a few questions which was already asked by others but wasn't really answered:
Lets assume, I'm from EU and my clients are located in the US. I'm working for them and receiving an amount in hourly rate.
Not sure how is this handled in other EU contries but in Germany, the Tax consultant is always asking from me the following papers after every month:
- Statement of account (Kontoauszug)
- The issued invoice which matches the amount from the invoice and the name from who I received
- A letter from Bank which informs the transaction from foreign country (Ausland zahlung)

Based on the list above, even if I want to do everything legal, I can't because Upwork:
- Sends the money "collected" from all clients/projects
- The name in the transaction says, it was upwork, not the client(s)
- I can't report the 10% fee payed to upwork from my earnings.

Question:
What is the best way handle this problem?
I know it's not 100% legal but still an option to create an invoice based on the received amount for Upwork.

Is there a way to create invoices for every client and report the earnings received from upwork in a single transaction?
For example: Received $100 from client #1, received $220 from client #2;
I'm getting $220 from upwork but I will create 2 invoices with the name of the real clients.

Any help is appreciated.

Tamas

You asked the same questions in two different threads. Please look here:

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Billing-Invoices-as-German-freelancers-Abrechnung-f%C3%B...

Nicole S · ‎05-28-2016

I've read through all postings here and several other threads.

To me it boils down to "upwork is not doing their job", but while we can fix certain parts of that, there is one part which is really bad: double invoices.

I have written up what I think is still not fully legal and valid but maybe at 80%
https://community.upwork.com/t5/Freelancers/Upwork-staff-Details-Invoices-from-freelancers-to-client...
and I would like to invite the members of this thread to comment on there as well.

btw we should not have to fix any of this.

since the invoice is issued in our name we should be able to add an internal reference number
this would take care of the requirement of sequenced invoice numbers
we should be able to add something to the invoice as "remarks / additions
this would take care of things like special phrases we have to use etc
we should be able to download the full and valid copy for our accounting
we should be able to export these information as well (csv with all data points) to use it in our accounting and declaration of taxes etc.

And everything else already mentioned.

unrelated question:

how can i find out a link to a specific posting to reference it?
thanks.

Ivaylo G · ‎10-28-2022

It's 2022 and soon 2023 - and we still do not have these features (summarized by Nicole S) that we need since 2015. Obviously it is not a technical reason but something political which nobody dares to say loudly.

It's a shame.