Get a certificate for your self-employment work visa
All self-employed from non-EU/EEA states have to get a new work visa every 2 or 3 years from the Ausländerbehörde.
To get the work visa, you will have to bring them a certificate from a Steuerberater attesting to your profit for the last year and in the present year up till now.
You are already a client
If you are a client and I already do/check your bookkeeping, I will issue you this certificate at no extra charge.
You are not a client
If you’re not a client and do your tax returns and VAT announcements on your own, I will have to check your Belege (please see here for what a “Beleg” is) and your own profit calculation (you will have one of these for the last year since you need to have submitted one with your last tax return and you need to have done one for the present year in order to be able to do your monthly/quarterly VAT announcements).
I charge an hourly rate of 100€+19% VAT for this (in accordance with §36 (1) StBVV in conjunction with §13 StBVV), and it usually takes about 2 hours if your documentation is in order, i.e. if all business income and business expenses are clearly referenced and linked to the respective Beleg (= proof).
If your documentation is not in order, I will tell you so from the start and give you the opportunity to bring it into order yourself.
If you won’t do that, I will have to start from zero, bring your documentation into order myself and calculate your profit on my own, which basically amounts to doing 1.x years of bookkeeping, which I will then charge you for accordingly.
So it really is in your own hands to keep the invoice as low as possible – the better structured your documentation is, the less time I will need to check it.