Follow The Money
BLOG SERIES PART 6
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025
Follow the Money: Why Payment Flow Defines Whether a Co-Working Space Is Compliant — or a Hidden Salon Model**
When authorities investigate whether a space is truly co-working or something else entirely, there is one rule that never fails:
They follow the money.
Not the marketing.
Not the furniture.
Not the website.
Not even the contract.
They look at how payments move.
Because payment flow is the strongest indicator of business structure, and it reveals whether a member is truly independent or whether everything is actually running through the space owner.
In Switzerland, the wrong payment setup can trigger:
MWST aggregation
shared turnover interpretation
pseudo-employment
financial supervision concerns
hidden revenue participation
suspicion of salon-style operations
This article explains exactly how money must flow inside a compliant co-working space — and why the wrong payment architecture can destroy the entire model overnight.
Rule #1: The Member Must Receive Service Payments Directly
This is the foundation of everything.
A self-employed professional must:
invoice in their own name
collect payment in their own account
be responsible for their own VAT threshold
manage their own financial records
If the building owner touches the service revenue — even temporarily — the audit becomes complicated.
Authorities immediately suspect:
revenue sharing
centralised business operations
managed turnover
salon-like structure
non-independent work
This is why a compliant co-working setup ensures:
Client → pays → Member
Member → issues → Member’s receipt
Owner → has no access to service income
Anything else is not co-working.
Rule #2: The Space Owner Only Collects Co-Working Fees — Never Service Income
A co-working owner earns money from:
membership fees
access fees
time blocks
optional add-ons (like extra storage or additional utilities)
retail products the owner personally sells
These are completely separate from the Member’s income.
A compliant space owner must never collect:
a percentage of service turnover
commissions
split payments based on service revenue
a “share” of what Members earn
tiered fees based on how busy a Member is
Those models belong to rental salons, franchise systems, or employer-contractor setups — not co-working.
Authorities look for these signs early in an audit.
Rule #3: Retail Revenue Must Be Treated Separately
A classic grey area appears when Members sell retail products owned by the Space Owner.
Here is the compliant structure:
Retail belongs to the Space Owner
Retail revenue is paid to the Space Owner
The Member may receive a fixed discount on future membership fees, not a percentage of retail turnover
A Member must never receive retail money directly
And a Member must never process a single payment that includes retail + services into their account
If retail and services blend, it looks like:
mixed merchant transactions
revenue splitting
economic interdependence
joint operation
Which undermines the entire co-working argument.
A compliant tool like Pod.World solves this through payment separation at the moment of sale, not after.
Rule #4: Payments Must Never Be Combined and Then Distributed Internally
This is the most dangerous pitfall.
If your system collects:
One payment from the client,
Into one central account,
And then splits it into:
the Member’s portion
the Owner’s portion
…this looks like a salon or a commission-based business.
Authorities interpret this structure as:
turnover integration
revenue supervision
shared business activity
possible VAT group characteristics
Even if the intention is innocent, the architecture is non-compliant.
A true co-working environment must ensure:
Split at checkout — not split later.
Meaning:
Service → Member account
Retail → Owner account
Two receipts instantly generated
Two payment flows, completely separate
This mirrors what happens at every major co-working space in Zürich.
Rule #5: The Space Owner Must Not See Member Revenue
In the eyes of authorities, visibility = control.
If software gives the Space Owner access to:
Member income
booking revenue totals
client spend
service price lists
sales statistics
…this signals:
supervision
dependency
lack of independence
a single integrated business
In compliant co-working models, Members manage their own revenue privately — just like freelancers in Impact Hub, Westhive, Citizen Space, Trust Square, or shared medical practice co-working environments.
Those spaces do not track Member turnover.
And they are not held responsible for it.
Period.
Rule #6: Each Receipt Must Come From the Correct Business Entity
A compliant co-working transaction produces:
Receipt 1 → from the Member’s business (services)
Receipt 2 → from the Space Owner’s business (retail)
or
Receipt → for the Member’s service only, if no retail was purchased
This prevents confusion about:
who sold what
who is the merchant
whose MWST number applies
whose turnover is whose
how tax liability flows
If a single receipt includes both service and retail sold by different businesses, the transaction becomes blurred and non-compliant.
This is exactly why Pod.World issues separate receipts automatically, ensuring both businesses remain cleanly separated.
Why This Matters in Switzerland: Money Flow Defines the Business Model
Authorities recognise one truth:
Businesses can pretend anything with marketing — but money flow reveals the truth.
A compliant co-working structure has:
separate payment flows
separate receipts
separate merchants
no internal revenue distribution
no turnover visibility for the Owner
no integrated financial dashboards
no salon-style reporting
This mirrors every successful co-working space in Zürich’s tech, consulting, medical, design, and wellness industries.
Hair, beauty, tattoo and wellness co-working spaces operate under the same rules, not different ones.
Conclusion: If the Money Flows Correctly, Everything Else Follows
Payment architecture is the heart of co-working compliance.
It tells auditors:
who is the business provider
who is truly independent
who earns what
who bears risk
and whether the structure is co-working or something else
When money flows properly — split instantly, never combined, never supervised — the co-working model becomes airtight.
This is exactly the standard Pod.World was built to enforce:
a co-working management tool designed specifically around Swiss legal and financial requirements, not retrofitted from outdated salon software.
In the next blog, we’ll explore client ownership, data protection, and why control of client information is one of the strongest indicators of independence.
