Contract type · Freelancers

Engage freelancers and solo self-employed safely, with clear processes and less status risk

Pactos manages freelancers in the same system as the rest of your external workforce, from staffing request to invoice, and keeps status and records in view.

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What expires when

Remaining validityDeadline
Schematic view, not to scale. The marker shows the respective deadline. If a record expires before then, this is flagged in time.

Companies manage freelancers and their external workforce with Pactos

Vaillantunique PersonalserviceVolvoKNUTH WerkzeugmaschinenNoerpel GruppeHive TechnologiesManpowerSCS Supply Chain StaffingBürgerTalent Spring Expertum
How it works today

This is how freelancer assignments run today

Directly from the business unit

Through the department, around procurement

When know-how is needed at short notice, freelancers are often engaged directly by email or word of mouth. A framework agreement and approval are then quickly missing, and procurement is only involved late.

Contracts and records are incomplete

In scattered PDFs

Status determination, proof of business registration and insurance are often spread across different inboxes and filing places. This makes it hard to see what is complete, valid or still open.

Status determination, trade license and insurance sit scattered across inboxes — if they exist at all. Nobody records what is valid and what is missing.

Only in an audit

Whether a freelancer is actually self-employed is sometimes only examined more closely during an audit. By then, the assignment has often been running for a long time, and open questions can only be resolved retroactively.

Whether a freelancer is falsely self-employed often only surfaces in a tax audit. By then the assignment has long been running and the classification can no longer be corrected.

The result

If the assignment is classified as dependent employment, back payments of social security contributions and liability follow. A freelancer commissioned directly is therefore not a shortcut, it is your risk.

In Vendor Intelligence, freelancers are managed like other providers

In Vendor Intelligence: the freelancer runs like any other provider

Run freelancers, staffing providers and subcontractors in one system and they need no separate administration. Request, assignment, records and invoice hang on the same case. If a valid status record is missing, the freelancer cannot be scheduled in the first place.

Records per freelancer in Pactos: counters for complete, expiring, being retrieved and missing, and below them the records with issuer and validity, from the business registration to the public liability insurance.
For every freelancer, you can see which records are valid, open or expired. No separate lists need to be maintained.
Compliance Intelligence · standalone product

Even without a VMS: Compliance Intelligence obtains records directly

You grant the authorization once. Pactos then obtains the records directly from health insurances, professional associations and the Federal Employment Agency. This creates one shared process for client and provider instead of the same request being made twice.

Compliance overview in Compliance Intelligence: per staffing provider the status of the temporary staffing license, the health insurances' response and the professional associations' response.
Views from Compliance Intelligence. Not a module of the VMS but a product of its own.

An extract from Compliance Intelligence

This page describes the freelancer contract type. How Pactos checks status, records and deadlines and runs freelancers in the same system is set out in full on the product pages.

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Frequently asked questions

When does a freelancer count as falsely self-employed?
When they are embedded like a permanent employee: bound by instructions, integrated into fixed processes, without entrepreneurial risk of their own and, in case of doubt, working for only one client. The German pension insurance (DRV) examines this in the status determination procedure. If the classification comes out as dependent employment, back payments of social security contributions follow.
What is the status determination procedure?
A procedure at the German pension insurance that clarifies whether an engagement is genuine self-employment or dependent employment. It can be initiated by the client or the contractor and creates clarity before an assignment begins.
When freelancers are engaged directly by the business unit, bypassing procurement, a framework agreement, status check and complete records are often missing. Actual costs and potential liability risks then stay hidden for longer.
When departments commission freelancers directly, around procurement, there is no framework agreement, no status check and no records. The company sees neither the real cost nor the liability risk — until an audit makes both visible.
Which records do I need from a freelancer?
Depending on the assignment: business registration, proof of several clients, public liability insurance, for freelancers from abroad the A1 certificate, and in construction the exemption certificate under § 48b of the German Income Tax Act. Pactos holds these records per freelancer and assignment, with their validity.
Does Pactos manage freelancers in the same system as other providers?
Yes. Freelancers, staffing providers and subcontractors are managed in the same Vendor Intelligence, from staffing request through assignment to invoice. Costs, terms and records remain traceable in one place.
How does Pactos help with false self-employment?
In a joint call, we show you how freelancers can be managed in the same system and status risks recognized early.

Want to know more?

In a joint conversation we show how you run freelancers in the same system and spot status risks early.

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