You've found the domiciliation address of your dreams? the price is attractive, the address is prestigious, the services are interesting, and the duration of domiciliation is unlimited? But be careful! Don't be in a hurry and analyze all the pitfalls to avoid:
- mail management,
- optional services,
- ancillary costs,
- the premises... not quite like the photographs on the site.
So, before committing yourself to a domiciliation company, other than the largest and most transparent, such as SeDomicilier, we're going to inform you about these many pitfalls.
Costly mail management
When you contract with a domiciliation companyyou often think that your monthly payment includes mail forwarding, since that's what's included in your option. Well, not always.
Some domiciliation companies charge you for follow-up costs. And yes, you do have to re-stamp any mail that needs to be sent to your home address. This comes at a cost to the domiciliation company, which may be tempted to charge you for all or part of it, in addition to your monthly payments.
There are two ways to prevent this practice:
- beware of tempting prices,
- negotiate his contract.
We'll explain.
Avoid eye-catching prices
When it comes to attractive rates, we shouldn't confuse call offers with attractive rates. In other words, offers at 3 euros per month for the first two or three months, as advertised by Kandbaz, or at 1 euro for the first three months, as offered by sedomicilier.fr, are call offers.
What's an eye-catching tariff, obviously full of hidden charges, is based on the cost of the actual monthly instalments, those that will be offered after the introductory offer. Below 20 euros, you can start asking yourself serious questions. Why would you do this? Because a domiciliation company has costs, notably those linked to its staff and the buildings it owns or rents, and therefore to the payment of loans, rents and local taxes.
Negotiating your contract
A contract is a legal document that is often negotiable. Therefore, if you find yourself in front of a domiciliary company that wants to impose a membership contract on you, that's already a bad sign. If, on the other hand, the company allows you to exclude mail delivery costs from the contract, because they are included in your monthly payment and limited to this single monthly payment, this is proof that the company is far from engaging in this kind of practice. Why? Because the presence of this clause will have no consequences for the company, since it will not be in the habit of billing for what your clause expressly excludes.
What are these costs? All services not included in the basic package. Let's summarize the possible services:
- box,
- mail digitization,
- mail dispatch,
- telephone reception,
- provision of office space,
- provision of meeting rooms,
- secretariat.
The key is to be able to compare the fees for the basic package offered by different direct debit companies. We can advise you on how to save time.
Don't spend hours comparing
As a contractor, or future contractor, you know that time is money. So, to avoid wasting hours comparing basic offers, the solution is simple. You select three domiciliation companies, five if you want to expand a little, ten if you're going for a straightforward market analysis.
In this case, we're going to suggest five:
- Sedomicilier.fr,
- Kandbaz,
- Ma-domiciliatin.fr,
- Abcliv.fr,
- Sofradom.fr.
You contact each of these companies, requesting a quote based on your needs (mail handling, number of times you need access to an office or meeting room, per month or per year, switchboard, etc.). From there, you'll be able to compare things at a glance:
- the price,
- the quality of the response,
- the response time,
- the formulation of the answer.
So, without having spent hours on your computer, you've let these companies work for you, and already, thanks to this contact, you can assess their seriousness.
Additional costs
When you've opted for a domiciliation company and you see a contract with writing in very small type, often at the end of a document, or at the end of pages, it's generally not for ecological reasons. The domiciliation company isn't looking to save trees, or office costs by buying five or six fewer reams of paper a year. Rather, they want you to sign additional agreements without you even reading them:
- handling fee,
- surety,
- mailing costs,
- etc.
We'll stop there, because when it comes to ancillary costs, the only limit is your imagination. So, two pieces of advice are in order:
- read your contracts,
- opt for clear, precise contracts.
This advice applies to all the contracts you sign in your private and professional life. As a result, you should always opt for companies that present you with contracts in the same font from beginning to end, as far as the content is concerned. Avoid domiciliation companies that don't have clear and precise pricing.
Take a look at the future address of your head office
Choosing a business address is a bit like choosing a property. The best thing is not to judge by photos. We all have in mind that superb apartment we saw on a particular estate agency's website. When we arrived on site to view it, we realized that the photographer had a lot of talent. Not only to take a luminous photo in a dark place, but also to do the necessary retouching on dedicated software.
The same applies to domiciliation companies. You may find high-standard premises, with a meeting room seating dozens, an overhead projector, digital tools for video-conferencing, spacious and discreet offices, or you may find an old basement with no windows, which will never allow you to welcome a customer or supplier, without giving them the impression that you want them to disappear.
So be wary, and adapt the location to your needs. It's possible that, among the many domiciliation locations on offer in the same town, some are better suited than others to what you're looking for. So don't hesitate to contact them and discuss your requirements. For example, they may have a domiciliation address with an office located in a coworking space, which means you'll be denied confidentiality, but they may also have another address, three streets away, where you'll find an enclosed 10m² office. The same applies to the meeting room.
Don't be in a hurry. Setting up a business isn't something you can do in a day, so you've got plenty of time to find the right domiciliation company to house your company's headquarters. Especially as, once the articles of association have been drawn up and registered, changing them will cost you money.
So compare services, prices, locations, quotes and even contracts.
There's nothing to stop you from requesting a contract from each of them, comparing them and asking questions based on what you read in each of them.
Contacting these companies will also enable you to compare their response times, the quality of the information they give you depending on the wording of your request, and so on. All of which will give you an idea of which company you're interested in working with.
