IT consultant, creative freelancer, independent expert, interim manager: you chose independence for the freedom and the value of your expertise — not to spend your evenings on admin. Yet financial questions directly shape your net income. Should you remain a natural person or incorporate, and from what income level is it worth it? How should you set your director's remuneration and trade off between salary, dividends and benefits? Which business expenses can you deduct — home office, vehicle and mobility, equipment, training — without crossing the line? How do you build a real pension (VAPZ, IPT) and protect yourself against incapacity for work, where the self-employed status offers a minimal safety net? How do you manage VAT, the electronic invoicing now mandatory between businesses, the tax prepayments, the social contributions that are adjusted with a two-year lag? And how do you smooth sometimes irregular income without a nasty tax surprise? Every question has an answer — provided it is calculated for your situation, not copied from someone else's.

The self-employed and freelancers are in Catalyst's DNA: our partners built their reputation supporting consultants, and even co-founded digital tools designed specifically for the Belgian self-employed. We support you at every stage: the quantified analysis of incorporation — with an honest answer, including when a company is not yet justified; the creation of your structure and its financial plan; the ongoing optimisation of your remuneration and your expenses; the building of your social protection and your pension; and day-to-day management in 100 % digital mode: you photograph or send your documents, we process continuously, you follow your figures and your deadlines from your smartphone. Your billable time stays devoted to your clients; your dedicated expert handles the rest and warns you ahead of every deadline — tax provisions included, so that December is never a surprise.

The first year of self-employment concentrates most of the pitfalls, and that is where our support makes the biggest difference. We map out everything: registration and affiliations, choice of the VAT regime suited to your activity, setting up electronic invoicing, calibrating the provisional social contributions to avoid painful adjustments, building a tax reserve from the very first invoice, and the first reflexes for properly documenting expense deductions. Once that stage is past, the annual optimisation meeting takes over: there we reassess the opportunity of incorporation, remuneration, pension and protections. Many freelancers discover that good support does not cost — it pays, both in taxes avoided and in billable hours recovered.

An IT consultant in salaried employment had not envisaged going freelance: with our teams, they drew up a genuine business plan, chose the right structure and found the courage to take the plunge — they now earn distinctly better and would not go back for anything. A lawyer operating through a "very simple" management company felt they were missing opportunities: our regular tax consultations yielded significant and lasting optimisations. A self-employed entrepreneur, an expatriate in Brussels, was looking for a partner able to understand their cross-border situation and to coordinate all the parties involved: we structured their taxation, ensured their compliance and, along the way, achieved fine tax savings. Three different profiles, the same mechanics: personalised analysis, concrete implementation, follow-up over time. International profiles are, moreover, at home at Catalyst: our teams support, in French, Dutch and English, the foreign consultants based in Belgium whose situation crosses Belgian taxation, home-country obligations and special statuses — an area where local expertise makes all the difference.

Because a freelancer deserves better than mass treatment. At Catalyst, you are not a file number in an anonymous platform: you have a dedicated expert certified by the ITAA, whom you can meet in one of our offices in Brussels or Waterloo, who knows your profession and your history — with, behind the scenes, all the power of a group: tax specialists for the sharp questions, wealth advisors when your activity takes off, HR specialists the day you hire. And digital tools that make admin almost invisible. Your independence, our shoulders: it is the combination that lets you bill with peace of mind today and build your wealth for tomorrow.