Overseas payments

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lamanoditrento
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Overseas payments

Post by lamanoditrento » Fri Feb 19, 2021 5:45 pm

How is everyone dealing with receiving funds from overseas. I've set up a paypal so I could invoice overseas but the merchant fees are more than I expected at 3.6%. For $5k that is $180! Seems a lot of money compared to doing things domestically.

I did not think to mention anything about merchant fees on a quoted job I did a couple of months ago, so I will just have to eat that one. I've mentioned it since and if they're domestic obviously everyone in Australia is pretty comfortable with with a direct deposit.

Is this is just part and parcel of a small business operating internationally and I need to suck it up and just price it in?
Trent

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kiwigeo
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by kiwigeo » Fri Feb 19, 2021 6:42 pm

I can't think of a way to process overseas financial transactions without some banking pimp skimming off their cut.

You could always ask for payment in cash...in large brown paper bags. It worked for Bjelke Peterson :)
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Bruce McC
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by Bruce McC » Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:17 pm

Hey Martin

Bjelke was one of your mob :lol: Sorry Trent didn't mean to highjack your post.
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kiwigeo
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by kiwigeo » Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:32 pm

Faark off! Born in Dannevirke in 1911 and moved to Banana Central in 1913 at the age of 2! He would have had to be an Australian citizen to be a politician. Anyway Dannevirke isn't officially part of New Zealand...it's a shitty little North Island town so small you'd miss it if you blinked while driving up it's main street. :mrgreen:
Bruce McC wrote:
Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:17 pm
Hey Martin

Bjelke was one of your mob :lol: Sorry Trent didn't mean to highjack your post.
Martin

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Allen
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by Allen » Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:50 am

Well over 50% of all my business is from overseas.

There are a few ways of dealing with the fees.

PayPal and you eat the fees.
PayPal and charge the client an extra percentage.
PayPal and have them send funds as "Friends and Family"

My preferred method is either of these.
Direct Deposit from their Bank to yours. This one is prefered by most of my clients in Europe.

TransferWise is a great company that has the best exchange rates. A big benefit to the client and their fees are much less than a bank or PayPal. I've had a couple of clients in the USA ask to use it recently, so it must be getting more well known their.
Allen R. McFarlen
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Steve.Toscano
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by Steve.Toscano » Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:06 am

I use Stripe payment gateway with my book keeping software (Xero). Integrates perfectly, took 2minutes to setup, didnt even need to activate my "tech brain". This puts a "Pay Now" link on my pdf invoices that allows online payment with any visa/mastercard. I encourage all overseas customers to pay useing this. The beauty of this is that it handles all reconciliation automatically and sends receipt/s without any input from me.

I also have a CBA eftpos unit that i can use as a normal eftpos OR punch card numbers into - I have had a few overseas payers give me there card numbers over the phone. With a business bank account in australia you should also be able to receive international bank transfers but it can get messy depending on the buyers bank.

As to fees, from memory i think its 2.0% for stripe and about 1.6% for the CBA eftpos.
I do not on-charge any fees and instead just absorb them. I treat the fees as just another cost of doing business.
Keep in mind every business in Australia is paying transaction fees on their eftpos transactions, how many of these do you see on-charging the fees (with the exception of the minimal $10 eftpos transactions or 50c fee for under $X).
Each to their own though.

Personally I'd stay well away from paypal as its very easy to get scammed, paypal will 99% of the time award in the buyers favour if the buyer disputes anything. Also keep in mind some countries either dont have access to paypal or culturally avoid it.

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peter.coombe
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by peter.coombe » Sat Feb 20, 2021 9:48 am

I use Paypal and eat the fees, but most of my sales are local nowadays. I send a Paypal invoice, and they can choose to pay with their Paypal account or with credit card. It is important to make it easy for the customer. I have used bank transfers, and used to have a merchant facility, but most people are happy to use Paypal.
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nkforster
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by nkforster » Sun Feb 21, 2021 2:05 pm

I've used Transferwise for years. It's the only system I use as 95% of my sales are overseas. It is worth making up a few PDFs with detailed instructions for clients to print off and follow - American banks are particularly useless at getting this right first time and their retail banking system is years behind ours.

It also allows you to keep currencies in the form they arrive for you to convert later or spend with overseas suppliers without converting. You'll get a Transferwise debit card for making payment. The fees are far better than Paypal or Stripe. The only thing I use them for is selling ebooks or buying on eBay.

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Steve.Toscano
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by Steve.Toscano » Sun Feb 21, 2021 10:05 pm

nkforster wrote:
Sun Feb 21, 2021 2:05 pm
I've used Transferwise for years. It's the only system I use as 95% of my sales are overseas. It is worth making up a few PDFs with detailed instructions for clients to print off and follow
If it's this hard (they need PDF instructions) for international customers to pay you, i'd suggest any new(er) comers to this game should look at other options... :toi
.
I've always gone with the philosophy of - the easier and more efficient you make your process to get paid, generally the quicker you'll be paid.

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peter.coombe
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by peter.coombe » Mon Feb 22, 2021 9:47 am

I've always gone with the philosophy of - the easier and more efficient you make your process to get paid, generally the quicker you'll be paid.
Yep, and the more likely you will actually be paid. Customers need to be comfortable with what they are doing or they will back out. Penny pinching on fees can loose you a sale.
Peter Coombe - mandolin, mandola and guitar maker
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lamanoditrento
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by lamanoditrento » Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:50 am

Thanks for the all the replies. I'll have a look into stripe and transferwise.
Allen wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:50 am
Direct Deposit from their Bank to yours. This one is prefered by most of my clients in Europe.
Allen is this just as simple as swift, bsb & account number via email or on a vincoie or is something else required?
Trent

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Allen
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by Allen » Tue Feb 23, 2021 7:22 am

lamanoditrento wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:50 am
Thanks for the all the replies. I'll have a look into stripe and transferwise.
Allen wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:50 am
Direct Deposit from their Bank to yours. This one is prefered by most of my clients in Europe.
Allen is this just as simple as swift, bsb & account number via email or on a vincoie or is something else required?
Yes, it's just a Swift transaction. I keep all those details along with the Bank Branch, Address etc. as some overseas bank want that info as well, in a neat little file that I can copy and paste into the email that I send to the client.
Allen R. McFarlen
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simonm
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Re: Overseas payments

Post by simonm » Tue Feb 23, 2021 11:24 pm

Allen wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 6:50 am
...
Direct Deposit from their Bank to yours. This one is prefered by most of my clients in Europe.
...

Within the EU these are called "Sepa" transfers. Basically Swift as far as I know. Pretty much every invoice you will ever see in the EU has the businesses bank details on the footer. Two data points are generally require "IBAN" and "BIC". The first identifies the country, bank and account number. The second is another Bank identifier. On invoices the name of the bank is generally also given but when you fill in online payment forms that gets auto-completed from the info in the IBAN. Sepa transfers are popular because they are generally free within the Euro zone. No charge to either party. The only requirement is that there is trust and you get the numbers right.

Once it goes outside the euro currency zone then exchange rate charges start to kick in and some co-operation between buy and seller can reduce the charges and the banks at both end may make charges. The might be a substantial difference in (say) buying the destination currency and paying with that currency as opposed to sending the money in your currency and having to add more to cover the charges the guy at the other end will face. That can easily be 3%-4% plus your own fees.

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