Money Making Essentials: PayPal for Freelancers
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David
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December 25th, 2012
In the freelancing world these days, PayPal is the biggest, hottest thing. You can invoice your clients directly (and regularly) through there, make free transfers to your bank account (so your earnings are just as fluid as cash), and even use a MasterCard PayPal debit card to spend your earnings directly!
I think it's worthwhile to get yourself a basic PayPal account.
Why?
Here are my 5 favorite things about PayPal for Freelancers:
1) Insanely Simple
Whether I'm being paid or paying someone else, PayPal lets me take care of everything with ease. There's no hunting around for addresses or worrying about some website's security settings. Instead, I know I'm safe. My PayPal settings are already set up, and I can shop with ease. Really though, I prefer to see that money coming in than going out, so I enjoy it's incredible ease of use when it comes to user payments.
Note: Transactions are not free on PayPal. Instead, a small percentage is taken from each transaction. That's not so much fun and yes, we could do everything through routing numbers elsewhere, but it's so easy that I don't mind losing a buck or two here or there.
It couldn't be much easier to do all of your shopping and billing online than through old-fashioned snail mail!
2) Multiple Accounts
In one account, I can be both personal me and professional me. I can send my invoices from my fancy, self-hosted domain's email address, or through any of the other professional faces I wear. I love this option, and it makes it simple to keep everything tied up in one pretty outfit instead of hopping around and forgetting passwords.
This also means that you can be paid through different email addresses. Don't want your business payment going to dorkyjoelovescheese@yahoo.com, but would instead prefer those funds to go to joe@joescheese.com? That's a seamless, easy integration.
3) Easy Business Front
Just as noted above, this simplicity and easiness makes for a super convenient business front, regardless of how official you really are.
From sole proprietors to major corporations, you can use PayPal to throw up your shingle anywhere.
Yes, that does sound a little sketchy, but PayPal gives your new customers confidence. They can trust that their credit card or banking information will stay safe because they're going through a third party. Plus, it means that you don't have to go through the fuss of establishing a banking account at some local financial institution. You can just be you for a while. Oh yeah, and you can charge your Aunt Marge that $50 for those soap dispensers/letters you sent/wrote her.
4) Debit Card
Really, I know that many people have issues with PayPal (just as they do with a wide variety of sites), but the debit card is something that changes the system completely. It's through MasterCard, one of the largest and most universally accepted credit card processing companies out there, which means your cash is both usable and safe.
You can even fuel your freelance belly with your PayPal account! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
As soon as your client foots the bill for those 1,000 articles you wrote, you can spend that cash immediately. Check the app from your phone for your account balance, and swipe! It's as easy as that. (Disclaimer: there are rules and settings about who can open these accounts and when, so do read before applying and using your PayPal card.)
With this, you can make money and spend it without the fuss of transfering funds to your banking account. This will keep PayPal relevant and popular for years to come!
5) Invoicing
It takes maybe 2 minutes to start an invoice from scratch, fill it out (even with tax information, if necessary), and send it out. There is no faster, easier, more reliable way to get your hard-won earnings in your hand than this! Plus, you can even copy old invoices to resend at a later date, which is perfect for repeat clients.
Both you and your clients will appreciate the simplicity of PayPal as your financial intermediary.
It's a quick, rather painless set up, so go ahead and get started today!