Freelance work with foreign clients

Question

Freelance

Guys, can you suggest two things?
1. A client knocked on my door and asked if I was ready to work with him at a certain rate of 50 hours per month?
That is, not just n dollars per hour, but exactly according to the quota of 50 hours per month. How is that in general? In Russia, you always work either for a project or full-time remote work, but to be allocated 50 hours is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing. Is this normal practice?
2. In general, Western clients began to knock quite often and were interested in the opportunity to work with them.
Therefore, I decided to find out in advance the question of payment. How are they accepted? Is some software installed and hours are counted, or who will agree on how? Do they pay an advance payment, how do they pay, how are things going with documents and taxes?
Are there any rules by which most Western clients work? In Russia, everything is simple - you are paid for the project, and the contract and taxes are relatively rare. 50/50 prepayment is also the norm.
But there is a suspicion that things are a little different in the West, and I would like to know exactly how.
Share your experience please.

Answer 1

1. I do not understand what confuses you. I work with one client (from Russia) with a limit of 30-40 hours per month, with another (from the USA) - 20 hours per week. All this is quite logical, if a person does not need your full load, then 50 hours per month (~ 10 hours per week) is quite an adequate figure.
2. I usually work through Odesk/Elance exchanges, and both of them provide software for time tracking. For myself, I sometimes use toggl.com - a fairly simple thing that can count the time spent for you. And then you can provide the client with reports.
As for the payment model - both fixed price (per project) and hourly. But it’s better, in my opinion, hourly, since foreign customers in the same way can catch on in the middle of a project / task and ask for something to be added, changed, etc. In my process of working on one project, everything changed by 80%, so if I paid by piecework, I would already be nervous. And hourly is fine.
PS how do you attract customers and where do they knock on your door (blog site, LinkedIn, skype, etc.)? That is, how do customers find out about you?

Answer 2

This is normal practice. Only the quantity is somehow small - 6 8-hour working days.
They can set it up as a time tracking software, they can take a word - but you definitely need to submit a timesheet - a table where it is written on which day from what time to what time they worked. Concerning an advance payment and contracts it is necessary to discuss in advance. But keep in mind: reaching an agreement and shaking hands is the same practice in the West as getting paper with printing and painting from us. That is, I would prefer to record the conversation somehow (if on Skype, for example) or save all forwarding letters.

Answer 3

Among other things, it should be borne in mind that working conditions may differ depending on the specific customer.