“A ship in the harbor is the safest, but that’s not what it is meant for.”

This quote has always motivated me to venture out of the comfort zone and do something creative and innovative. I have often tried exploring new avenues and getting into new areas to break away the monotone of a daily routine. One such attempt was to continue with blogging, just because it allowed me to write whatever I wished to. Further apart from that, I created a whole new universe of people around me, who today double up as a unique set of friends online.

Even while writing was my main source of inspiration to continue blogging, I also started receiving various opportunities to share my knowledge about money management and finance, since I was on parallel pursuing my Chartered Accountancy Course. These opportunities were fresh dimensions to my online presence and I was quite excited to make the most of these. Further, even while the domestic opportunities continued, it was the global assignments that attracted me the most. The primary reason then was obviously that I could be sitting in my own home and still earn in dollars.

Before embarking on this I decided to discuss the same with my elder brother too. And discussions that followed derailed me from my mission, he made me feel skeptical about the payment systems and narrated a couple of his experiences about failed payments. However, before all my excitement could turn into fizz, he told me about PayPal, which has been an online payments system since 1998. Receiving payments through PayPal was easy and instant. Ever since I have been extensively working with global clients and prefer them more. They indeed appreciate all the hard work behind creative writing and are also committed to the agreed project timelines. PayPal has made this experience more pleasing with seamless payments across 26 currencies and major payment types including PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, AMEX etc.

A couple of years ago, a friend received a large assignment from an international client. Knowing that I had been working with offshore companies for quite some time, he approached me with a problem. The sum attached to the project was very large and so was the quantity of work – he did not want a dispute on either points. I suggested PayPal to him and showed him how I had received multiple payments in the past through most secure means. The Seller Protection policy ensured that no disputes would arise in given association as well. The project went on for months and my friend continuously got his payments channelized through PayPal without any hassle. And thanks to effective solutions like PayPal.Me for quicker and safe payments, wherein all that a freelancer has to do is create a customizable payment link, shareable with clients over social media, email or texts. PayPal’s offerings have eased freelancers’ troubles and smoothened their career progressions.

Today, my friend has been working as a freelancer for close to two years and his likely support system is the assurance of payments through PayPal.

Freelance is a great community, like I roped in my friend online, someone else had done for me. And through this network, work flows, recommendations flow and tips to better our freelance act get exchanged regularly. In fact very recently PayPal started a contest for such Freelance tribes who through a mechanism of referrals can stand to win an iPhone7 online. I did not lose a minute and decided to spread word on this to all my freelance friends.

But for a freelancer, filing returns and invoicing remain as the single most roadblock in easy services. Here too for international payments, I found easy invoicing options through PayPal. It lets you generate and send professional invoices or simple payment requests via email to bill your clients. Further, for all this, no additional setup or configuration is required. So whether you’re providing a service or selling goods, it’s quick and easy to get paid. You can further track and manage payments through the online portal and also send reminders for the pending payments.

Another aspect that my elder brother rightfully highlighted about international freelancing is lack of offline presence of clients. In domestic scenarios you can access a client’s office address and take a legal route (if need be) but for international clients distance along with cross border laws make all of this virtually impossible. So in case of disputes, loss of money is a natural by-product for a seller.

But here too PayPal has a unique proposition to offer sellers in the form of Seller Protection Policy – which provides protection to the sellers of these services against unauthorized use and item not received chargebacks. Also, we, the users, are not required to do anything additional to be eligible for the same and this protection comes by default on the transactions. As such, it allows accepting more transactions with greater confidence.

With all these propositions, I count PayPal as my partner in the business, which lets freelancers like me focus on the creative part and PayPal taking care of the other processes. So, when the World has been going Global, why should I be left behind and for that matter, even why should you be left behind?

Let’s board on the journey together.