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Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

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Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#21

Post by codelitt »

primitivesuave wrote: post #20

First of all, this is an awesome idea, and I can tell you from personal experience that payroll automation is still gaining momentum in the California small business community. I noticed you chose ZenPayroll's pricing model, without having all the features of ZenPayroll. The most important ZP features are automating tax filings, both quarterly and yearly. Also, contractor payments and integration to FreshBooks. These…

Thank you for the support! And thank you for your feedback.

We do have some stuff that ZenPayroll currently doesn't have such as the btc (which you mentioned) and our paycheck distribution which allows for employees to automatically take their paycheck into any number of bank accounts/bitcoin wallets.

RE integration: Yes. We realize that the taxes is a huge part. Currently we're offering a free month and plan to have tax deductions integrated before actually charging customers. You'll notice now, there isn't even a spot to enter your billing details for using the service. It's currently free.

The other stuff you mentioned is in our roadmap. We're just getting started and plan to add much more.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#22

Post by dissentertainer »

genwin wrote: post #18
vessenes wrote: post #5

It would be rad to be able to pay in Bitcoin as the employer. Any thoughts there? It would help your model as you'd get to save trade fees by having an internal trading desk essentially.

Wouldn't it be an accounting nightmare for both employer and employee to pay with property instead of currency? I think the IRS declared that Bitcoin is property.

At some point the IRS may have to change their tune. The tax code is malleable even though it does require Herculean effort to change. Cryptocurrency and more generalized blockchain platforms such as ethereum could provide leverage to change minds if they could begin to demonstrate their value on the fraud prevention front to regulatory agencies. I work at a nonprofit startup focused on creating systems for pooling and streamlining the administrative overhead for nonprofits, and we consistently find that the regulatory obstacle course nonprofits are faced with is related to a fundamental problem of trust created by a few bad actors. A "triple entry" linked accounting platform built on the blockchain as described at https://medium.com/the-block-chain/creating-the-everything-l... could radically alter the nonprofit sector by making fraud much harder to do, though getting a critical mass to adopt it would be challenging. Not to mention the underlying engineering challenge.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#23

Post by codelitt »

dissentertainer wrote: post #22
genwin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be an accounting nightmare for both employer and employee to pay with property instead of currency? I think the IRS declared that Bitcoin is property.

At some point the IRS may have to change their tune. The tax code is malleable even though it does require Herculean effort to change. Cryptocurrency and more generalized blockchain platforms such as ethereum could provide leverage to change minds if they could begin to demonstrate their value on the fraud prevention front to regulatory agencies. I work at a nonprofit startup focused on creating systems for pooling a…

Amazing answer and awesome link. That would be a massive boon. What startup do you work for?

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#24

Post by vessenes »

genwin wrote: post #18
vessenes wrote: post #5

It would be rad to be able to pay in Bitcoin as the employer. Any thoughts there? It would help your model as you'd get to save trade fees by having an internal trading desk essentially.

Wouldn't it be an accounting nightmare for both employer and employee to pay with property instead of currency? I think the IRS declared that Bitcoin is property.

Well, if you're compliant in the US right now, you are keeping track of the value of every coin anyway. My own experience is that not many companies are doing this -- at CoinLab it was a very large effort, and included head-scratching conversations with accountants as to whether or not specific identification vs FIFO/LIFO was most appropriate.

So, yes, pain in the ass, however, one that you incur whenever you spend coins if you're compliant.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#26

Post by dissentertainer »

codelitt wrote: post #23
dissentertainer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point the IRS may have to change their tune. The tax code is malleable even though it does require Herculean effort to change. Cryptocurrency and more generalized blockchain platforms such as ethereum could provide leverage to change minds if they could begin to demonstrate their value on the fraud prevention front to regulatory agencies. I work at a nonprofit startup focused on creating systems for pooling a…

Amazing answer and awesome link. That would be a massive boon. What startup do you work for?

The company is called ArtsPool (http://artspool.co). I use the term startup rather loosely, though. We have modeled ourselves on startups because we admire how startups operate and want to inspire nonprofits to learn from some of the efficiencies in other sectors, but our goal is not to make a profit. We are organized as a member-owned LLC where any surpluses from cost savings return to the members, so essentially we are a more like a co-op designed to separate certain administrative concerns from mission-related activities.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#27

Post by codelitt »

wdewind wrote: post #25

Nice to see some more people in the payroll space. Very interested to hear how you are handling fraud/risk with bitcoin and with split payments (what happens when you need to clawback a payment half of which was made through USD/ACH and half through BTC?).

Thanks! We're not nearly where you are though. :)

We have a couple of things in place. When an employer is running payroll: they have 2 points to review (both employee and their payroll as a whole) the totals in USD, 2FA step, and then there's a countdown before payroll begins to run (which they can opt to rush if they so decide).

We have policies and tech in place to make sure that when we're distributing we can guarantee that payouts happen as we expect.

Fraud/risk - Bitcoin itself doesn't increase our fraud/risk. We follow a KYC process for all of the companies and employees on our platform. These are companies paying employees. These companies and employees are liable for their payroll taxes and income taxes and keep records of this for them. The employees themselves are responsible for maintaining their Bitcoin wallets. We verify that a wallet has a real address, but the risk for losing money forever if they enter the wrong address is the same as if they were transferring from one of their wallets to another using any other Bitcoin service.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#28

Post by codelitt »

dissentertainer wrote: post #26
codelitt wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing answer and awesome link. That would be a massive boon. What startup do you work for?

The company is called ArtsPool ( http://artspool.co ). I use the term startup rather loosely, though. We have modeled ourselves on startups because we admire how startups operate and want to inspire nonprofits to learn from some of the efficiencies in other sectors, but our goal is not to make a profit. We are organized as a member-owned LLC where any surpluses from cost savings return to the members, so essentially…

I get what you mean.

Impressive. What kind of tools do you guys have in the works? How is the compliance toolkit working out?

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#29

Post by atmosx »

AJ007 wrote: post #13

There are Bitcoin related startups which are run by people with no experience in either finance, cryptography, or security. Hopefully you guys are very strong in this background. I don't see any personal profiles on the site. Codelitt Incubator has no names either which is even more concerning.

I see a total lack of understanding of currencies in most of BTC-related startups.

For example a bitcoin based payroll is like giving away shares (less volatility of course, but you get the point). If someone would work for shares, he probably will (think about) accepting bitcoin as payment.

In Silicon Valley people takes risks easily, but in Europe I think no one in their right minds will wanna do this.

Payrol automation on the other hand, especially for software companies makes a lot of sense.

Re: Show HN: Incoin.io – Bitcoin and Distributed Payroll

#30

Post by tyre »

codelitt wrote: post #21
primitivesuave wrote: post #20

First of all, this is an awesome idea, and I can tell you from personal experience that payroll automation is still gaining momentum in the California small business community. I noticed you chose ZenPayroll's pricing model, without having all the features of ZenPayroll. The most important ZP features are automating tax filings, both quarterly and yearly. Also, contractor payments and integration to FreshBooks. These…

Thank you for the support! And thank you for your feedback. We do have some stuff that ZenPayroll currently doesn't have such as the btc (which you mentioned) and our paycheck distribution which allows for employees to automatically take their paycheck into any number of bank accounts/bitcoin wallets. RE integration: Yes. We realize that the taxes is a huge part. Currently we're offering a free month and plan to have…

Hey there! Just to give some context from a ZenPayroll engineer:

ZenPayroll does have splits between multiple bank accounts[1]. You can split your net pay by amount ($100 in Account1, $200 in Account2, the rest in Account3) or by percentage.

Employees can even chose to donate a portion of their paycheck to any 501c3 in the United States[2].

Regarding BTC payouts, that's an interesting area, though currently runs into a number of wage laws. Many states necessitate that employees be paid in cash or cash equivalent. Bitcoin is not a cash equivalent (nor are more traditional value stores like gold.) Even ACH direct deposit had to be carved out as an exemption, to give some context on how strict these laws are.

It's great to see others diving into the payroll space. There is a great opportunity to help millions of small businesses.

[1] http://help.zenpayroll.com/customer/portal/articles/972807-e... [2] https://zenpayroll.com/blog/zenpayroll-giving/ [3] https://zenpayroll.com/api/v1/states

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