Wait. Invoicing has language requirements?
As a freelancer, you kind of have to do and think of everything. My accountant is a great help, but it’s not always easy to ask the right questions. Certainly not when you’ve just made the jump into the world of freelancing (like me).
Invoicing scared me a little. The laws around it are quite strict, invoices MUST contain specific fields and words or they’re just not valid. Sure, if your customer still pays you, that’s great. But the tax man can issue fines if specific information is missing or incorrect.
As paranoid as I am, and wanting to make sure I didn’t make any huge mistakes during my first few months of freelancing, I checked and double checked all the requirements. And as I have both local and foreign customers, I ran into this annoying rule:
Your invoice must be written in the language of the area where your business resides.
However, for customers abroad, laws have recently changed, and English is acceptable (disclaimer: check your government website for the correct rules).
An example
When I am sending an invoice to Germany, I can use English. Great. But in Belgium (where I live and my business resides) we speak 3 languages: Dutch, French, and German. You’d be tempted to send an invoice in English to your customers in the…
