Imagine you have a freelance visa in the UAE, working independently there, enjoying your life in the bustling city like Dubai.
What would be it like when it comes to management of your finances?
Definitely it must be difficult, mind-boggling, and time taking for you to manage your money and other finances.
The expensive lifestyle of Dubai is not for everyone as often you may fall short of emergency funds, or you do not have money to invest in next project of your business.
But do not fret as we are here with yet another article about the UAE freelancer visa, and how to manage finances if you are working as a freelancer in the UAE. Just save your time and money through this detailed guide and some valuable tips below:
1. What freelancers actually do?
Freelancing is actually the practice of working independently without any association with any organization or company. A freelancing job does not bound you with the time schedule, job starting day, job ending date, or any type of employment contract.
As soon as UAE announced the visa facilities for freelance with lucrative benefits, Individuals from all over the world pour into the UAE increasing the opportunities for freelancers in the UAE. Not only it promoted the freelance job culture in the UAE, but also let freelancers earn more money that they may not be able to get from anywhere else.
2. Why is money management crucial for those on a freelancer visa?
Money management is an essential skill for any worker with a freelancer visa. It includes setting your rates and billing, planning your work, and keeping track of where you are spending money.
Freelancers can find it challenging to handle their money because they are not provided with a steady paycheck, and they do not enjoy the same level of oversight that their traditional counterparts might have.
Money management tools help freelancers create budgets, track income and expenses, manage multiple bank accounts, and provide tax reporting.
3. Is it possible to manage your cash flow in the UAE on a freelancer visa?
You have to protect your freelancer visa in the UAE and record all your income and expenditure as a freelancer to efficiently track the amount you earn. It is really time consuming to go through all the process for keeping the income record and how much you have spent. That is why it is recommended to use the digital tools to get through it. Various mobile apps are widely available that can do the job for you and ease out your life. However, here are some tips to follow as well:
Be careful with the financial matters
If you are a freelancer, than you have to be careful when it comes to your financial matters. Here are some points to remember:
- Keep your income record and your expenditures. It is necessary to avoid the situations like owing money to someone or difficulty in financial audit.
- You must be aware well of your tax bracket to pay the right tax amount. It will help you in budgeting for taxes and planning for retirement.
- You have to ensure tracking of any kind of money deductions or credits.
Take a look at your data
A freelancer must analyze the data frequently to make the informed decisions and identifying freelance job trends and emerging opportunities.
Use spreadsheet to organize your data to have a clear view of different metrics that are connected together.
Maintain transparency with your payment terms
A freelancer must clearly communicate on payment terms with the clients. It will help you avoid the financial abuse or fraudulent activities. It may be difficult to establish the mutually agreed payment terms. However, follow these tips to do it in efficient manner:
Negotiate your contract prior to job acceptance.
Ask potential clients about their budget.
Know how long the payment processing will take.
Know the scope of the project and evaluate how much time it will take.
Be prompt with your invoice processing
As a freelancer, it is essential to send invoices early. If you are working with multiple clients starting a business, you should schedule your invoices. As invoicing is crucial part of freelancing journey, processing them early will solve half of your financial problems.
Be vigilant with the payment process
A streamlined and efficient payment process is necessary for all freelancers. It includes the management of your invoices, tracking your payments and reminding clients for payment processing.
To ease your life, you can manage payments better by using third-party billing software to automate invoice generation, and get reports in PDF or Excel format for your clients.
4. How individuals with a freelancer visa can avoid scams?
There are a lot of freelancers stressing over the risk for getting scammed and definitely the situation is grave for all freelancers working in the UAE as well. But one can avoid getting scammed by looking for the reviews or testimonials of a client from other people. Ask your colleagues or friends from the freelance industry if they have a personal negative experience or heard of any fraudulent activity from the service provider.
5. How much should freelancers charge?
Freelancers working legally in the UAE must know the service market rates and consider the numerous factors affecting your service prices. You must be aware of the service or project’s base rate or miscellaneous expenses that client asks for.
The rates of your services are eased on the following:
- The scope of the project
- The amount of work required for the project
- How long will it take to complete the task
- How experienced you are to provide the level of quality for the required task
6. Tips to save money while you are on a freelancer visa
There are two problems that frequently bother the freelancers:
- One is struggle to manage the time routine
- Find ways to be financially stable and save money
As freelancers are swarmed with constant task assignment, client concerns, and deadlines, it is challenging for them to focus on saving money or managing time efficiently.
Follow these simple yet valuable tips to save your money and maximize your profits:
Budget Controlling
Freelancers are often paid on hourly basis and that’s where their budget can get out of control. The reason is that they often failed to manage the balance between earnings and spending. One can manage it by:
- Knowing the cost for living in the UAE
- Knowing how to make budget and finance plan that work well for them.
- Tracking the monthly earnings from the freelancing and compare the total expenses with it.
Prompt Tax Management
You must know how to manage your taxes efficiently. When you are a self-employed person, you are responsible for paying your taxes and filing your tax return. You can choose to file as an individual or as a business.
One of the things freelancers need to know is to understand how taxes work. In this way, they can make sure they are not getting cheated by unscrupulous tax preparers and avoid any penalties that might come their way.
Taxes are complicated, and it is easy for people to get confused about them. Freelancers must know their responsibilities when paying their taxes on time and filing them correctly.
Do more with less (Take advantage of your freelancer visa)
As a freelancer, you have to save money. This includes cutting down on unnecessary expenses and learning to live with less.
First, you need to learn what you can cut down on. You should also be able to enjoy the benefits of having a freelance visa without spending all your budget.
Secondly, you need to learn some basic money-saving skills, such as cooking at home and making healthy food choices instead of eating out or dining in restaurants.
Enjoy the benefits of a credit card
A credit card is helpful to save money as a freelancer. It can help you get paid faster, and it can help you build your credit history. Besides, the interest rates are often lower than what you would pay with other methods.
Getting a business credit card is easy as long as you have your line of work that needs to be verified by the bank to qualify for one. If your job does not require verification, it might be hard to get approved due to a lack of income or experience.
7. How to find a client as someone with a freelancer visa?
As an independent worker, you must know how to find an online job. This is essential because it can determine if you can make money or not. You should also know how to market yourself as a freelancer with a freelancer visa to get more clients.
The key to finding clients for your services is networking. One of the activities you can do as a freelancer is network with people from different fields of work and industries to have a diverse portfolio of clients.
8. Is it possible for freelancers to get paid on time?
Freelancers always aspire to get paid on time to avoid the stress of waiting for their money.
There are two payment modes that freelancers have access to cash-on-delivery and pay-as-you-go. Cash-on-delivery is when a client pays you after receiving your work. Pay-as-you-go is when you agree with your client on a certain amount upfront and then charge them per hour or project as work progresses.
9. How Connect Freelance can help you with the freelancer visa in the UAE and the relevant information?
Connect Freelance is an incredible online platform to help freelancers make connections with the clients to provide services. Not only we help freelancers manage time efficiently, but also let them find gigs, collaborate more efficiently.
Learn how you can become a successful freelancer in the UAE through Connect Freelance. Connect with us today by calling us at +97143316688 or e-mail us at contact@connectfreelance.ae