The first introduction is the easy part. Someone you know needs a supplier, you happen to know the right person, you put the two of them in touch, and if a deal closes you get paid once. Then six months go by, nothing happens, and you conclude that referral income does not scale. It does. What does not scale is treating each introduction as a one-off favour instead of the opening move of a working relationship.
This guide covers the part nobody writes down: what you do in the weeks after the first referral so the second one arrives without you asking. It is written for the Czech market, where getting paid runs on its own mechanics — a national account format, a variabilní symbol, a QR code on the invoice — and where a small side income has a clearly marked door into a simplified tax regime.
Referral money is lumpy by nature, and the silence between two commissions is where most people give up. Something that pays on a different clock helps: with an app such as I am Beezy you are paid for content you view, day by day, which is not the same rhythm as a commission that waits on somebody else signing.
Why does the second referral almost never happen?
Not because the introduction failed. In most cases it worked, everybody was satisfied, and then the relationship quietly expired. Understanding why is worth more than any prospecting technique.
The relationship ends the day the money lands
A commission is a closing signal. Once it is paid the transaction is complete for everyone involved, and complete means finished. Nothing broke; the structure simply had no next step built into it, and whoever wants a second referral has to create that step deliberately.
What a partner actually remembers about you
Not your commission rate. They remember whether the person you sent was a good fit, whether you were reachable when a question came up, and whether your invoice arrived correctly filled in or cost their accountant a phone call. Those three impressions decide whether they answer your next message in an hour or in a fortnight, and all three are within your control.
Silence is read as a decision
Three weeks after the deal closes, your partner has no information about you at all, and people fill that gap with the assumption that you have moved on. When you do reappear, the message then reads as a request rather than as continuity, which is far harder to answer.
Agree the rules before you make the introduction
Every dispute about referral money comes from a term that was never written down. There are only four of them, and settling all four takes one message.
The four clauses that decide whether you get paid
First, what triggers the commission: a signed contract, a first payment, or a client still there after ninety days. Second, the attribution window — how long after your introduction a deal still counts as yours. Third, the amount, as a share of the deal or a fixed sum, and whether it applies to renewals. Fourth, the payment date, which is the one people forget and then resent. Ask for all four in writing before the introduction, because before the introduction you have something they want.
Where Czech referral programmes actually live
Two Czech platforms carry most of the formal side of this market: eHUB and AffilBox, which host merchant programmes and handle tracking and reporting between them and their partners. Alongside them sit directories such as Affiliatekatalog, and a large number of in-house programmes that Czech e-shops run without any intermediary. Read the terms before the commission rate: two programmes on the same platform can have completely different validation periods and payment thresholds.
Say plainly that the link is paid
Disclosure is not a formality you skip because the audience is small. Say that you are paid, near the recommendation, in ordinary words: the recommendation that survives scrutiny is the one you can repeat. And if a commercial practice goes wrong at the consumer end in Czechia, the authority is the Česká obchodní inspekce on coi.gov.cz — not the competition authority ÚOHS, which handles competition and public procurement and will not take a consumer file.
How do you get paid without chasing the money?
Most late payments in Czechia are not refusals. They are invoices that could not be matched to anything, sitting in an accounting inbox waiting for somebody to work out who sent them.
The account number a Czech payer expects
A Czech account is normally written in the national format, not as an IBAN: an optional prefix of up to six digits, then a main part of two to ten digits, then a four-digit bank code, written as prefix-number/bank code and with the blocks clearly separated. The framework is set by ČNB decree 169/2011 Sb. The Czech IBAN exists too, is exactly twenty-four characters long, and is what a foreign form will ask for. When a form abroad accepts only an IBAN, the Czech National Bank publishes an official IBAN calculator on cnb.cz that converts a national account number for you.
The variabilní symbol is not optional
The variabilní symbol is the numeric reference attached to a transfer that tells the recipient what is being paid — an invoice number, usually. It is not a nicety. A Czech transfer sent without a variabilní symbol can arrive in the right account and never be matched to your invoice, which is exactly what a payment that appears to be missing looks like. Put it on the invoice, state it in the message, and use the invoice number so nobody has to think.
Put a QR platba on the invoice
The Czech way of asking to be paid is a QR code on the document. The format is called SPD, sometimes SPAYD, it is documented publicly on qr-platba.cz, and it carries the account in IBAN form, the amount, the currency in CZK, the variabilní symbol and a short message. Your payer scans it in a banking app and the fields fill themselves, which removes the two commonest causes of a misdirected payment: a mistyped account number and a forgotten reference.
Instant transfer runs nights and weekends
Czech instant payments run through CERTIS, the interbank system operated by the central bank itself, around the clock, settling in seconds. The Czech National Bank recorded 43.6 million instant payments in June 2026 against 34.1 million a year earlier, about 46.4 % of all interbank transfers in April 2026, with roughly 99 % of bank clients covered and a ceiling of 2.5 million Kč per operation. No technical reason remains for a domestic commission to take days.
| What goes on a Czech referral invoice | What it is | Why it decides whether you are paid |
|---|---|---|
| Account in national format | prefix-number/bank code, blocks clearly separated | What a Czech payer expects to see and can paste directly |
| IBAN | Twenty-four characters, for foreign payers and QR codes | Obtain it from the official ČNB calculator, do not guess it |
| Variabilní symbol | Numeric reference, normally the invoice number | Without it the payment may never be matched to you |
| QR platba (SPD format) | Scannable code carrying account, amount, CZK and reference | Removes typing errors at the payer's end |
| Amount in Kč | Czech invoices are in korunas, not euros | A euro amount forces a conversion nobody agreed on |
Bridging the months between commissions with I am Beezy
Relationship-building takes months to pay off, and months without income are where good referral partners quietly stop being referral partners. That is a cash-flow problem and it deserves a cash-flow answer.
A daily amount that does not wait on a deal closing
I am Beezy pays you for consulting content — videos, articles, advertising — each view generating earnings sent to your usual payment method. The reference range across the platform is 5 to 15 euros a day; at the Czech National Bank rate of 1 EUR to 24.190 CZK on 5 August 2026 that is roughly 120 to 360 Kč, and since the rate floats you should recheck the ČNB daily table rather than freeze the conversion. The size is not the point: it lands on a different clock from a commission, so it covers the weeks when your pipeline reports activity and pays nothing.
Keep both incomes in one record
This simplifies your admin rather than complicating it. Keep a single sheet with a date, a source, an amount and the variabilní symbol used, reconcile it against your statement once a month, and you will never again spend an evening working out whether a commission was actually paid.
When does referral income become a registered activity?
At some point occasional commissions become a regular income, and Czechia has an unusually clean answer for people at that stage. It is worth understanding before you need it, because the entry door only opens once a year.
One monthly payment instead of three
The paušální daň is a flat regime for the self-employed, the OSVČ, in force since January 2021. It replaces three separate obligations — income tax, pension contributions and health contributions — with a single monthly payment. According to the Finanční správa, the first band costs 9 162 Kč a month in 2026, made up of 100 Kč of income tax, 5 756 Kč of pension and 3 306 Kč of health contributions, with the second band at 16 745 Kč and the third at 27 139 Kč. The payment falls due on the twentieth of each month, and the deadline for entering the regime or changing band is before the tenth day of the tax period. Confirm the current figures on financnisprava.gov.cz before you rely on them.
Your band depends on what you do, not only what you earn
The band is set by the amount and the composition of the previous year's income, through the expense allowance applicable to each activity — eighty, sixty or forty per cent. The first band covers income up to one million Kč whatever the activity, up to 1.5 million if three quarters falls under the eighty or sixty per cent allowances, and up to two million if three quarters falls under the eighty per cent allowance. Two people with identical turnover can sit in different bands, and the difference is what they do.
Two VAT thresholds since 2025
Since 1 January 2025 turnover is counted per calendar year rather than over a rolling twelve months, and there are two thresholds. Crossing 2 000 000 Kč makes you a VAT payer from the following 1 January, while crossing 2 536 500 Kč makes you one from the day after, and in both cases registration is filed within ten working days. The standard VAT rate is 21 %. The first threshold and the ceiling of the flat regime are the same figure, which makes two million korunas the single number to remember.
| Flat regime band (2026) | Monthly payment | Broadly who it fits |
|---|---|---|
| I. pásmo | 9 162 Kč (100 tax + 5 756 pension + 3 306 health) | Income up to 1 M Kč, or more depending on the expense allowance |
| II. pásmo | 16 745 Kč | Up to 1.5 M Kč, or 2 M under the higher allowances |
| III. pásmo | 27 139 Kč | Up to 2 M Kč whatever the activity |
| Monthly due date | The twentieth of each month | Every band |
| Entry and band change | Before the tenth day of the tax period | Miss it and you wait a year |
A twelve-month rhythm that keeps a partner
None of this works as a campaign. It works as a habit small enough that you keep it during a busy month, which is the only test that matters.
The first ninety days after an introduction
Send one message a week after the introduction asking how the fit turned out, and nothing else. Send a second at around thirty days with one piece of information useful to your partner whether or not you profit from it. At ninety days, ask the question that generates the second referral: what does a good client look like for you right now. You have just given your partner permission to describe their ideal customer to somebody who meets people.
What to send when you have nothing to sell
The hard months are the ones with no introduction to make. Send something small anyway: a rule change affecting their sector, a competitor's move, a name worth knowing. Two or three a year keeps you present without becoming noise, and the partner who hears from you when you want nothing is the one who calls you first.
Write down the four clauses for the introduction you are about to make, then set the account details, the variabilní symbol and a QR platba into the invoice template you will reuse every time. Diary the ninety-day question now, and check where you stand against the two-million-koruna line once a year rather than discovering it in an accountant's email. Referral income rewards patience more than volume, and while the pipeline matures plenty of people cover the flat months with I am Beezy alongside the relationship work.
