EU Accounting Question
 

If you have an affiliate program in the EU and use Paxum and Chexx how to do you treat that accounting wise as they seem to ask for invoices for everything? Or if you send affiliates a wire, can't ask each affiliate for an invoice.

Does anybody have experience with that?

It has been somewhat discussed in these threads:

https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...-yourself.html

https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...e-payouts.html

In short, the way I see it, your options are:

1) Actually make affiliates issue an invoice before getting paid. As seen from DDF's example, this is very hard, and you'll probably miss out on many potential affiliates, if you're just starting up now.

2) Explore the legality of self-billing invoices. https://gfy.com/fucking-around-and-pr...payouts.html#7
This is not really a common practice in the biz currently. And you still might have trouble getting some affiliate's real names' and addresses to put on the self-billing invoices I believe.

3) Setup another company in a country that doesn't require invoices

4) Have an outside biller handle the affiliate payouts, eg. CCBill. I think they simply pay you for the income, minus their fees, minus affiliate commissions.


PS. People I've talk to treat Paxum just like a bank account in the accounting.

Our affiliates invoice us on a web form from their affiliate account balance.

Why is it hard? A database query to get the balance and a simple form ...

The reasons for invoicing have nothing to do with the payment method -- the invoicing has everything to do with accounting for the independent contractor's compensation for employment tax purposes and business cost accounting.

"real names" are the bank accounts or payment card account identities. AML, FATCA and "know your customer" policies are only legally enforced on financial institutions by international treaty now. US payors are required to have W-8BEN or W9 forms proving payees' identities.

Get a local accountant to handle your particulars required by your locale.

Sponsors can query the real names from Paxum and Payoneer?

You'd also need a real physical address to put on the invoice too though.

"Know your customer" may be not enforced on regular companies. However if you get a tax audit, and they discover that you have invoices with fake names and/or fake addresses (which some affiliates do use in my experience), you can get in a lot of trouble.

Don't get me wrong though. I'm all for the biz stepping up and following the business practices that are normal in every other segment - including invoicing.

You don't have to ask your affiliates to send you invoices, it will be too much hassle for most and they will send their traffic elsewhere. You can create them for them (eg self-billing invoice). So for each payout you just create the invoice on your end and add them to their account next to each payout so they can download them if they want them. What they do it is up to them, but on your end you have all the invoices should you ever get audited. Many affiliate programs do it that way.

With Payoneer affiliate programs can see their affiliate's full name, address, phone number, and even card number.

With Paxum they can't query it directly, but Paxum does offer a way to do look ups to see if the name and address info that the affiliate filled out matches what is on file at Paxum.

Good to know. That's a step in the right direction. Can be useful to filter out fraud affiliates too.

:thumbsup:thumbsup

You want to have anonymous affiliates?

Excuse me? If you run an affiliate program you know your affiliates' balances due.

This sound to me like a tax evasion thread -- I'm out of here

Sounds to me like you should use some third party processor's affiliate program.

Balances? I was talking about verified affiliate names and (postal) addresses. Konda has answered it though.

BigFire picked a very similar nickname to mine. :P He's planning to run an affiliate program, not I.

Our Affiliates push a button and type any amount that is less than or equal to their balance that is currently payable -- a real no brainer. They get paid on the first Monday following their invoice date -- what is so difficult about that?

Bigfire is not BigFurry

Sorry, read this at Today 08:15 AM first or second cup of coffee.

Most (if not all) US companies require like I said above;
We have one offshore domiciled site that is ''auto-paying[1st and 15th of the month]'' affiliates but we still collect the information required by our principle domicile. There is a lot of money involved related to employment classification.

Are you using Nats?

How are you guys handling Paxum or Chexx income and expenses? Do you treat Paxum as a bank account or as just "invoice" teh outgoing wires?

Yes: NATS4 XloveCash - TMMwiki

The same way we handle Wire or SEPA payments ...
All affiliate payments made are expensed as COGS (cost of goods sold).
What real difference is money ''in transit'' from actual payment? In the end it is a zero sum balance. Money in transit (or CIT [cash in transit]) is not an asset nor liability it is a payment in suspense ... The carrier bank or agent is liable to us until it can prove its performance (receipt by the Payee.)

We (ACWebconnecting) have no income FROM Paxum or Chexx .

As an affiliate: Income is Income no matter what the source is. You would declare the amounts as the laws of your locale require to do so. If you are unsure -- get a local Public Accountant or CPA (Certified Public Accountant) to set this out for you and explain the options available.