How to declare end 2017 consultancy payment as autoentrepreneur/chomeur?

Dear Valerie,

Thanks for your response to my email on 3rd May about trying to regularise and clarify options for my status as a consultant (profession liberale) while also in the process of applying for chomage benefits. I am resident in France and lost my full time position (frontalier) in Geneva in Sept. 2017. I did not receive a redundancy package (ref. your question). My following procedures were delayed due to a death in my family. Registration with pole emploi was completed in February but I have not yet received any payments. As part of that process I informed pole emploi of two short-term consultancy assignments (about 30 days each) I had been offered and agreed that I needed to register as an autoentrepreneur. Pole emploi were requesting final documents related to each consultancy I had mentioned: “Justificatif du statut d’auto entrepreneur concernant votre entreprise”.

My autoentrepreneur “debut d’activite” registration was confirmed in April. I requested backdating of the activity start date to cover advance consultancy payments made to me in late 2017 and January 2018 (so received before completion of the work and without my invoicing for them, and before registration with pole emploi and as autoentrepreneur), as I thought this was necessary to be able to declare them to tax authorities and pole emploi. This backdating was done to cover an advance payment made to me in Nov. 2017 for a short-term, part-time consultancy assignment. Unfortunately, to complicate matters further, I have had to request re-registration with the pole emploi as I overlooked providing my situation update to them last month (again due to exceptional personal circumstances). I am now awaiting a response from pole emploi.

At the same time, I am now putting together my file for my 2017 French income tax declaration. Can you please advise if and how I should declare the Nov. 2017 payment received now that I have the autoentrepreneur status/SIRENE/SIRET number? I read somewhere that pole emploi would normally deduct the tax as it is affects the “allocation”? Does this affect how I should proceed? I plan to visit pole emploi later this week, but any information you can give me in advance would be greatly appreciated, as my past conversations with them have only led to more confusion. Any specific questions I should ask them? What should I avoid?

As mentioned in my previous email, I am also considering switching to SASU status. But first I need to clarify all of this confusion above! Thank you for your guidance.