Transferwise, just regular payments twice a month, no need for an invoice every time
Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
61–70 of 87 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#62Is this a US only question? Are you mixing up employees/contractors with onsite local? Employees don't invoice you; contractors do. UK employer here. For payment, I can't think of any way of paying any employees other than via direct bank transfer. I haven't used a cheque (check in the US) for years , and certainly never for paying employees in the last 20 years. Regular international contractors are paid via Transfe…
I love the ease of Transferwise but I've run tests and a bank wire is cheaper (we get free wire fees with our business banking service so I'm not including what might be an extra $30 from your bank).
I had a client in the US (my company is in Thailand) whose bank charged him $30 for an ACH domestic transfer to my (Thai) banks NYC branch. An international wire transfer cost him a lot more.
I do prefer bank wire transfers, but TransferWise has worked well (to receive money) too, and the smaller businesses I deal with seem unlikely to have free international wire transfers (it’s presumably marketed at bigger businesses)
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#63Transferwise, just regular payments twice a month, no need for an invoice every time
If you’re sending money offshore without an invoice how exactly do you account for that?
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#64I work remotely from Europe for a US company. Even though the company considers me an "employee" with all the perks (vacation, health insurance, etc.) I found that the easiest and best way is for me to form my own LLC, employ myself in it and invoice the US company for the gross amount. Mostly because of lower taxes, easier handling of our national health care and retirement fund, expensing equipment and operational…
Great, you’re a contractor.
The “easiest” way for you would be if the company setup a presence there and you worked for it.
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#65Check, envelope, and stamp is the simplest thing that might work.
FYI while America seems obsessed with cheque’s still, the rest of the world has moved on.
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
checks don’t cross international borders cheaply. If I remember correctly from the last time I tried Barclays in the UK charged about £50 to deposit a USD check from a US bank.
£50 a month is £600/year. Rounding error on a going concern. Rounding error on a developer's rate. And worth less than the time an entrepreneur would probably spend trying to save half of it. Moving money internationally will always cost something. Exchange rates might eat more of a developer's salary.
It’s £50 a month in addition to getting ripped off on the exchange by the bank. Using a service like CurrencyFair or Transferwise would save someone thousands a year. There is also the hassle of having to physically deposit the check.
Also checks in general have gone the way of the fax here. I’ve seen only one in the last fifteen years. I would be surprised if people in their 20’s have never seen one.
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#67I work remotely from Europe for a US company. Even though the company considers me an "employee" with all the perks (vacation, health insurance, etc.) I found that the easiest and best way is for me to form my own LLC, employ myself in it and invoice the US company for the gross amount. Mostly because of lower taxes, easier handling of our national health care and retirement fund, expensing equipment and operational…
And you file a LLC tax return as well, along with the associated preparation of financial statements?
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#68I've worked from home (if that qualifies as remote) and was on a salary, paid directly to my back account with health, pension benefits, etc, handled by the company. Worked as a contractor for a couple of companies and have been paid using wire transfer and PayPal. My personal preference is wire transfer as it's much easier to handle taxes and usually has the least amount of fees and better exchange rates.
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#69Please don't send checks.. I can't think of a more annoying way to get paid! Regardless of the accounting particulars which have been discussed here, there's bound to be a much better way of actually paying folks.
This seems like a silly thing to be annoyed about. Checks don’t have fees like most other types of electronic payment, and money is money. Why would you be OK with giving up a certain percentage of your hard-earned money just because you have to go through the “hassle” of dealing with a piece of paper? Many banks even accept the check deposit via app now - you don’t even need to go to the ATM. Edit: I’m talking about…
As a person not residing in the US, PLEASE don't send me a check, ever! I'd have to pay my bank to deal with the check, as well as sending it, via certified mail, to the bank's headquarters! This would end up costing me around EUR25.
ON the other hand, there are many free (or nearly free) ways to send money between accounts here in the Netherlands.
Re: Ask HN: How do you pay your remote team?
#70If your team consist of contractors etc... then they'll likely have their own invoice and payment process. I use Freshbooks. One of my clients pays me via wire transfer, another does checks, and finally I have one project via moonlightwork.com (awesome service) where they actually handle payments (weekly!) which is pretty cool. If these are actual W2 full-time employees, I would suggest something like gusto.com to gi…
Might be a silly question. But do you leave the burden ( may be not really ) of the whole invoice management process on the contractor - how good/bad is it?