I’ve been getting many questions lately regarding Elance’s payment procedure and its legalities from many interested first-time Elancers based in Pakistan and so thought this post might be of help to those who have either just recently set up their own Elance account or are wanting to do so. All of the information contained in this post is applicable to the residents of any country – the only difference may be in payment processing times.

When you set up an Elance account, you have 4 membership plans to choose from: Basic (free), Professional ($10/month), Small Business ($20/month) and Large Business ($40/month).

Assuming you start with the Basic Plan (which will give you 10 connects to place bids with), you do not need to use your credit card at all since the plan is completely free. The flip-side is obviously that you’ve got to use those 10 connects to bid wisely and even so, statistically, there’s a slim chance of landing a project with just 10 connects and no Elance experience (although it can be done).

If supposing you are one of the lucky ones and manage to land a project (or more!) with those 10 connects, the next thing you’d want to know (apart from doing the work) is how you’re going to be paid. Well, Elance couldn’t be simpler really. You do not need a PayPal account, you don’t need a credit card, and you don’t need a foreign bank account.

All you need is a local bank account.

Elance will wire transfer your money to you as a direct deposit into your local bank account! You can then withdraw it immediately using your ATM card or whatever method you prefer. Simple, isn’t it? So how does it work?

Before we proceed on Elance, you must go to your local bank and ask them for the following information (write it all down EXACTLY as the bank tells you):
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A/C Holder Name
A/C Number / IBAN
Bank Account Type
Bank Name
Bank Country
Bank ID Type (you will choose SWIFT here for international wire transfers)
Bank ID Number (8-11 characters)
Bank Address
Bank City
Bank Province
Bank Postal Code
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Now come back to Elance. You will first need to tell Elance the particulars of your bank account. Once signed in on Elance, navigate to Get Paid > Financial Accounts > Enter a New Bank Account

You will be taken through a 3-step process to Enter Your Bank Information. Fill in all the particulars on these three forms using the information your bank gave you above. Choose Destination Currency as the default US Dollar; your bank will automatically convert it to Pak Rupee if you have a Rupee account or keep it in US Dollars if you have a Dollar account.

Once you have correctly entered your financial information, Elance and the payment processing team can take anywhere from 2-4 weeks to verify your bank information (although it states a much longer duration on the website itself for Pakistan). The time periods will differ according to the country and also according to the calendar, discounting for any holidays or other disruptions in normal financial activity.

Once your bank information has been entered and verified as authentic, you can then begin receiving funds for work done. The above process is a one time thing only; you do not need to go through this every time to withdraw funds.

To withdraw funds, you simply navigate to Get Paid > Withdraw Funds and enter the account to which you want it withdrawn (the bank account you added in the steps above), along with a dollar amount. Elance will ask you for your password once before proceeding with the withdrawal. As soon as a withdrawal has been initiated successfully, you will get an email notification from Elance.

Note: There are payment processing fees associated with withdrawing money from your Elance account. So a Basic account holder has to pay $10 for withdrawing funds, while a Small Business account holder gets a free withdrawal every month. Elance also deducts service fees, which is the Elance commission for using the website. Again these service fees vary depending on which membership plan you have and can range from 6.75% to 8.75% of the project’s value. You must keep these and the payment processing fees in mind when calculating your bid amount for projects.

Well, that’s it! Now go and get your first job, gloat about it here and withdraw your first-ever international payment. It’s a heady feeling