How to Use Wise Money Transfer to Pay Employees

Businesses today need to think globally — and that includes how they pay their remote employees. Enter Wise, the money transfer service formerly known as TransferWise, which has revolutionized the way we send money across borders. 

With its sharp exchange rates and low fees, Wise makes paying employees scattered around the globe as easy as sending a local bank transfer. Remote working arrangements offer lots of benefits for both employees and employers. However, Possibly the most delicate issue about remote work is making payments. 

There are many different providers of online money transfers, but the Wise money transfer service is a smart choice for those who value affordable fees and secure payments. But how exactly does it work? And why should your business consider using it? 

In this guide, we’ll explore the ins and outs of using Wise Money Transfer to ensure your team is paid promptly and efficiently, leaving you free to focus on what really matters: growing your business.

What is Wise?

Wise is a money transfer service founded in 2011. Although based in the UK, it 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 folks created Wise, they were guided by their own experience with international money transfers and the associated high fees.

Creating an account on Wise 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 Wise app on their iPhone, iPad, or Android device and easily complete their transfers on the go.

Wise’s main goal is to lower international transaction fees as much as possible.

Wise offers mass payment options so you can make quick, affordable payouts to your customers, freelancers, employees, and suppliers worldwide. Then, monitor your mass payouts in real time with secure, online reporting access.

How Wise works

Wise’s slogan is, “Send money globally for less.” This service takes pride in its minimal fees for international money transfers and currency conversions. Wise will mostly be familiar to users of international money transfer services. However, Wise routes payments a bit differently than other services of the same type.

When sending a payment, Wise 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.

Wise uses a peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer route, which is why it can charge lower fees than other money transfer services. Wise also saves its users a lot of money by avoiding currency conversions and additional cross-border fees.

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 Wise to pay employees

Working with people from all over the world can get complicated, but Wise aims to make paying distributed teams easy.

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

Regarding currency exchanges, Wise uses the mid-market rate. The money you send will be converted using the midpoint rates at the moment the transfer is conducted. Wise supports 50+ currencies and more than 300 currency routes for sending money. As a peer-to-peer money transfer service, they will never charge conversion fees.

Wise charges fees of different percentages for different currency transfers. Fees for transfers in different currencies range from 0.35% to 2% of the amount sent.

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

 

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Why time tracking matters when paying remote employees

It’s no surprise that remote work is getting more popular, enough that there are a multitude of choices for money transfer services. 

Many employees prefer working from 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 fewer people commuting every day has a positive environmental impact. 

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

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 considering using Wise to pay your remote employees, you should understand the importance of tracking time when working with distributed teams. Wise 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 with Hubstaff

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 software was 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 and 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 Wise with the Hubstaff software.)

PayPal

Payoneer

Bitwage

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 on 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:

• Automatic time tracking and generated timesheets
• Workforce management with productivity Insights  
• Integration with all major project management solutions
• Location monitoring with GPS satellites
• Automatically generated or customized reports
• Automatic payments with PayPal, Payoneer, or Bitwage

Hubstaff will help you conduct payments more easily and ensure 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.