Different offices at the University may hire outside consultants to optimize processes and procedures or for something as simple as event photography. It is important to understand what services can and cannot be be requested and how to go about it.

Only the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration has the authority to sign multi-annual fee agreements. An agreement/contract should be signed by both parties for each service whose total engaged fees exceed 5,000 euros.

 

Honoraria / honoraires

Honoraria or honoraires are payments made to outside service providers for their services rendered to the University. They can not be used to remunerate teaching faculty, as they are considered employees and not external service providers. Also, any physical person who is to be paid by AUP for services rendered and who cannot supply a legal invoice with a SIRET number, a travailleur indépendant number or an auto-entrepreneur number is necessarily an employee and cannot as be pre-paid as honorarium by the accounting office; in that case you must humanresources [at] aup.edu (contact human resources). 

 
Honorarium paid inside of France

Payments can be made as honoraria only when the receiving party is one of the following:

  • Recognized as a travailleur indépendant by the INSEE. 
  • officially incorporated as a company.

You should check that this is the case before engaging the person’s services. All recognized travailleurs indépendants have a numéro URSSAF (which is not the same thing as a social security number) and all companies have a Numéro SIREN. You should ask that this number be communicated to you before coming to any agreement concerning the work to be done.

 

Honorarium paid outside of France

Payments can be made as honoraria only when the receiving party has one of the following:

  • an official registration number
  • is officially incorporated as a company

Before engaging the person’s services you must verify that the consultant or service provider has a registration number or a “Tax ID Number” (which is not the same thing as a social security number). You should ask that this number be communicated to you before coming to any agreement concerning the work to be done.

Honorarium invoice

Once the services have been rendered, the service provider/company should address an official invoice directly to the cost center manager at AUP. The invoice must include all of the following information:

  1. The name of the person or company
  2. The official address of the person or company
  3. The name of The American University of Paris
  4. The address of The American University of Paris
  5. The above-mentioned SIREN, SIRET, URSSAF, registration or tax ID number
  6. The invoice date
  7. The invoice number
  8. The description of the billable services
  9. The amount to be paid

The cost center manager should then approve the invoice for payment, including the general account number + cost center + sub cost center, and forward it to the accounting office.

General account numbers:
622610 Honoraria
622620 Academic honoraria

All other payments for services

Consultants who do not fall into the categories outlined above, enabling them to be in the honoraria category, and consultants involved in teaching activities must be treated as employees. This means that they must sign an employment agreement form and must be paid through the payroll.

It is extremely important that the employment agreement form be entirely completed and forwarded to the human resources before the 20th of the month when the person will be carrying out the work. The only information that can be omitted from this agreement is the person’s French Social Security number, if he does not have such a number. The payment must be processed during the month when the work has been carried out, as the payroll software will not allow us to pay a person for work carried out in a prior month.

Please also note that the agreement is based on the gross salary payment to be made. For your information, the gross salary is approximately 25% more than the net salary, and the total cost to the University is approximately double the net salary.

Get in touch to discuss your consultant payments

If you have any questions about our policies on payments for outside service providers, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the accounting office. We would be delighted to help you and ensure that your collaboration happens as smoothly as possible. We look forward to hearing from you!