
- Sole proprietorship. Registered on an individual basis, a sole proprietorship allows you to register a "doing business as" (DBA) name for your freelance service.
- Partnership. If you'll be working with a business partner, this business registration structure provides you some legal protection, but does come with additional tax reporting requirements.
- Limited liability corporation (LLC). An LLC can be formed by a single person or multiple parties, but serves the purpose of protecting the owner's personal property in the event of legal action without the effort involved in registering a full corporation.
- C corporation. This common form of corporation isn't often used by freelancers, as it requires extensive filing and taxation documentation, and can lead to double taxation of company earnings.
- The scope of the project
- Any important deadlines
- How and when payments will be made
- Who will retain ownership of the finished product
- What marks the successful completion of the project (or, how will the project end if one party needs to cancel early)
- A polite, genuinely appreciative message. When analyzing invoices, we found that a kind message like "Please pay your invoice within fifteen days" or "Thank you for your business" increase the percentage of invoices that were paid by an average of 5%!
- "Days" versus "net." Minimizing confusion will keep your invoice at the top of your clients' "to-pay" file, so state your payment expectations in days due (for example, "within 15 days") rather than net terms (as in, "net 15").
- Include late payment interest charges. Ironically, we've found that including a late payment fee on your invoice results in your invoices being paid slower, but with a higher percentage payment rate. Use your judgment here. If you need the cash right away, skip the message, but if you can wait a while, include it to improve your odds of getting paid.
![FreshBooks_logo[1]](https://jobs.eagleonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FreshBooks_logo1-300x155.png)