How to Use TransferWise Money Transfer to Pay Employees

Remote working arrangements offer lots of benefits for both employees and employers. However, working with people from all over the world can easily get complicated. Possibly the most delicate issue about remote work is making payments. There are many different providers of online money transfers, but the TransferWise money transfer service is a smart choice for those who value affordable fees and secure payments.

Many employees prefer working from the comfort of their own home instead of going to an office, but they aren’t the only ones who benefit from remote work. Businesses save money by operating remotely and there is a positive environmental impact of having fewer people commute every day. It’s no surprise remote work is getting more popular, enough so that there are a multitude of choices for money transfer services.

All of the money transfer options ultimately serve the same purpose, but each one is different. If you want to know whether the TransferWise money transfer service is the best way to pay your employees, read on to discover some pros and cons.

What is TransferWise?

TransferWise is a money transfer service that was founded in 2011. Although based in the UK, this company is run by Estonians Kristo Käärmann and Taavet Hinrikus. Kristo Käärmann is a financial consultant and Taavet Hinrikus is Skype’s first employee. When these guys created TransferWise, they were guided by their own experience with international money transfers and the associated high fees.

Creating an account on TransferWise is simple and free of charge. Anyone can register either by email or by connecting their Facebook or Google account with the service. Registered users can also download the TransferWise app on their iPhone, iPad or Android device, and easily complete their transfers on the go.

Unfortunately, TransferWise doesn’t offer any mass payment options or specific user plans. The service can’t be used for e-commerce purposes, either. For the time being, TransferWise is operating on the one size fits all principle. Its main goal is lowering international transaction fees as much as possible.

How TransferWise works

TransferWise’s slogan is The clever new way to beat bank fees. This service takes pride in its minimal fees for international money transfers and currency conversions. TransferWise will mostly be familiar to users of international money transfer services. However, TransferWise routes payments a bit differently than other services of the same type.

When sending a payment, TransferWise doesn’t transfer the funds directly to the recipient. Instead, the funds are redirected to another recipient of an equivalent amount in the opposite direction. The recipient doesn’t really receive the money from the original sender. They actually receive their funds from another user making an equivalent transfer.

The transfer route that TransferWise uses is called a peer-to-peer money transfer. It’s the reason why TransferWise can ask for fees that are lower than other money transfer services. TransferWise also saves its users a lot of money by avoiding currency conversions and additional cross-border fees.

Using TransferWise to pay employees

TransferWise has an affiliate program that gives its members a share of the profits every time one of their users makes a transfer. There are also no fees for the first transfer made by new users. Still, TransferWise’s major flaw is the lack of a mass payments system. TransferWise is a good choice if you value cost-effectiveness over having an automated system for mass payments.

Regarding currency exchanges, TransferWise uses the mid-market rate. The money you send will be converted using the midpoint rates at the moment the transfer is conducted. TransferWise supports 31 currencies and more than 300 currency routes for sending money. As a peer-to-peer money transfer service, they will never charge conversion fees.

TransferWise charges fees of different percentages for different currency transfers. Fees for transfers in different currencies range from 0.5% to 2% of the amount sent.

Transfers in USD have a completely separate pricing structure. The fees for USD transfers depend on the sum transferred and the currency the money will be converted to. It could be a flat rate of $3 – $4.5 or a percentage fee ranging from 0.7% to 1% of the total amount.

Why time tracking matters when paying remote employees

Remote work is celebrated for its ability to save businesses money on basic expenses that come with having an office. However, the potential for complications in remote work is still high. For instance, nobody wants to face complications when trying to send/receive money.

If you’re looking into TransferWise to pay your remote employees, you should understand the importance of tracking time when working with distributed teams. TransferWise is a great way to send money if you want to save on conversion fees. But, there may be better options available if you’re looking for a reliable system for ongoing automatic payments.

Time tracking for remote teams ensures you know exactly how much money you need to send in a billing cycle. It creates transparency and allows managers to save time processing payments, because they don’t have to hunt down timesheets for each employee.

Hubstaff time tracking is software developed to aid remote work in every respect. It’s remote collaboration software with many features, including managing projects, tracking time, creating reports and making automatic payments. Hubstaff provides a clear overview of your projects, as well as the time and money spent on them.

Hubstaff integrates with three of the most widely used payment systems for automated payments. (Hubstaff clients can still use TransferWise with the Hubstaff software.)

When working remotely, team members might have different preferences as to how they’d like to receive their money. With Hubstaff, your employees can be paid in multiple different platforms. You can also set up automatic payments, so payday is accurate and comes on time, every time. Automatic payments are based on the hourly rates and number of hours employees have tracked over a period of time.

Hubstaff is an excellent solution for any remote team. It has all the necessary tools to simplify every aspect of remote work:

• Advanced automatic or manual time tracking
• Employee monitoring via randomized screenshots and activity levels
• URL and application monitoring
• Integration with all major project management solutions
• Location monitoring with GPS satellites
• Automatically generated timesheets
• Automatically generated or customized reports
• Automatic payments with PayPal, Payoneer or Bitwage

Hubstaff will help you conduct payments more easily and make sure that you always get your money’s worth. With Hubstaff, you will always know what each one of your employees is working on, at any given moment. Hubstaff doesn’t only aid the payment procedure – it is also a great productivity tool for your team.

Hubstaff is a wise choice if you’re looking for an efficient payment system. You can effortlessly conduct ongoing payments, regardless of the payment method or hours tracked. Anyone can try Hubstaff for two weeks – it’s free of charge, and no credit cards are required.