Getting paid in USD as a Polish sole trader: Wise, wFirma and one morning

This morning I had a signed Statement of Work with a US client, a brand new Wise Business account that was still in verification, and an empty invoice list in wFirma. By noon the first invoice was ready to send. Here is what it took, in the order it happened.

The setup

Until now this client paid my limited company. The new SOW is between the client and me as a sole trader (JDG), so the money has to land in a different place. The first thing I checked was an old invoice: seller, bank account, all of it pointed at the company. Changing only the account number on the old setup would have sent company money to my JDG. That is a mess for the accountant, so the rule became simple: new contract, new seller, new account, new invoice series.

Wise verification with a CEIDG extract

Wise asked for "an official document that proves you trade as a sole trader". In Poland that is the CEIDG extract. You download it from the public CEIDG search, it is free, and the PDF says it needs no signature. Wise wants a scan or a photo, not a screenshot, and a downloaded PDF counts.

Before uploading, check three things against your Wise profile: your full name, the business name, and the NIP or REGON you gave when you signed up. My business name in CEIDG had changed, so that was the line I looked at first.

Verification went through the same morning.

US details, not a payment link

Wise also offers payment links. I almost put one on the invoice. Then I looked at what the link really offers: the payer can choose "bank transfer", which just shows the same account details, or a card, where the fee comes out of my side.

The better answer for a US client is the USD account details Wise gives you once you are verified:

Account holder:  Example Dev Jane Doe
Routing number:  000000000   (ACH and wire)
Account number:  000000000000000
Bank:            the partner bank Wise shows
SWIFT/BIC:       only for wires from outside the US

For the client this is a normal domestic transfer. ACH is free for me, a domestic wire costs a few dollars. No card fees, no link per invoice.

The wFirma traps

wFirma has a "draft invoice" option (wersja robocza). Use it. A draft is not sent to KSeF, so you can fix things. Once an invoice is in KSeF, the only fix is a correction invoice.

What I hit while filling the draft:

• Changing the currency converts the price. I typed 65 as the hourly rate, then switched the invoice to USD, and wFirma turned 65 PLN into 16.56 USD. Set the currency first, then the price.
• There is no field for a US routing number. The bank account form has number, name, bank, address and SWIFT. Without the routing number the client cannot pay by ACH, so it goes into the invoice remarks.
• The account number prints oddly. wFirma groups digits Polish style, so a US account number looks strange on the PDF. Another reason to repeat it in the remarks.
• A draft keeps the old seller details. I fixed the company name and street in the settings and downloaded the PDF again. Nothing changed. wFirma copies the seller details into the document when it is saved, so an old draft needs to be saved again or duplicated.
• Check the booking setting. My draft came with "do not book". An invoice for a US client has no Polish VAT ("nie podl."), but it still belongs in the income records and, for a VAT payer, in the VAT register.

What it took

About an hour and a half, most of it reading PDFs line by line before anything went to KSeF. If I did it again I would start from the other end: get the bank details first, then set up the seller data in wFirma, and only then create the invoice. And I would compare every PDF with the contract, not with what I think I typed.