Paying a remote team in 20 countries: a checklist
The checklist our business team shares with companies paying contractors and staff across borders, from collecting bank details to a payday run that lands in every local currency on time.
Owen Brooks
Head of Business Banking
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A team spread across 20 countries is no longer unusual. Halden, a product studio we work with, has 52 people in 20 countries and one finance manager. Two years ago, payday took her most of a week: a wire for each person, a different cut-off for each bank, and a stream of messages asking why the amount that arrived was smaller than the payslip.
Today it takes her about forty minutes. Nothing about the team changed. The process did, and it is the same one we walk every business through when they start paying people abroad with Pocket. This is that checklist.
It applies whether you pay contractors directly or salaried staff through a local entity or an employer of record. Tax, social security and employment law are a separate question for each country, and worth settling with a local adviser before you pay anyone.
Before your first run
Agree a currency with each person
Pay people in the currency they live on. A designer in Kraków wants złoty, not euros that her bank converts at its own rate.
Write the currency into the contract. "€4,000 a month" and "the equivalent of €4,000 in złoty" are different promises when rates move.
Decide who carries currency risk. Most teams fix pay in the local currency and absorb the movement themselves. Either is fine, as long as it is written down.
Collect bank details properly
Use a form, not email. Pocket can send each person a secure link to enter their own details, which removes typos and invoice fraud in one go.
Ask for the format each country uses: IBAN in Europe, sort code and account number in the UK, routing and account number in the US, and so on. The form asks for the right fields automatically.
Check the account name matches the person or their company. Pocket confirms the name with the receiving bank where the country supports it, and warns you before the first payment if it does not match.
Fund the right balances
Hold the currencies you pay most. A Pocket business account holds 38, so you can convert when rates suit you rather than all at once on payday.
Set a rate alert for your biggest payroll currencies, and top up when the rate is in your favour.
Keep a buffer of a few days' pay in each balance. If a balance runs short, the payment converts from your main currency at the mid-market rate instead of failing.
On payday
Build one file. Export from your payroll or HR tool, or use our template: name, amount, currency and a reference. One row per person.
Upload it as a bulk payout. Pocket matches each row to saved recipient details and flags anything new or changed since last month.
Review the summary. You see the total per currency, the fees, the exact amount each person will receive, and the expected arrival time for each country.
Approve with two people. Set an approval rule so any payout over a threshold needs a second approver. It costs a minute and stops most expensive mistakes.
Send. Payments go out through local payment systems in each country. Most arrive in seconds. A few corridors take until the next working day, and you see which before you approve.
Let people know. Each recipient gets an email when their money is on the way, so your inbox stays quiet.
The cost is the same 0.41% plus €0.30 per payment as any Pocket transfer, with the mid-market rate on every conversion. For a €4,000 payment, that is €16.70. If you want to see how that compares with a bank wire, our guide to hidden exchange-rate mark-ups has a worked example.
Paying people in several countries?
Upload one file and pay your whole team in their own currencies, at the mid-market rate, with most payments arriving in seconds.
After the run
Sync to your accounting. Connect Xero or QuickBooks and each payment is posted with its currency, rate and fee, so month-end reconciliation is a check rather than a project.
Save the run as a template. Next month, upload a new file against it, or copy last month's amounts and change only what moved.
Check the exceptions. The payouts report lists anything returned by a receiving bank, usually a closed account, with a one-click retry once the details are fixed.
Mistakes we see most often
Almost every late payment we investigate started with bank details that someone retyped from an email.
Paying everyone in euros or dollars. It looks simpler for you, but each person loses 2% to 4% when their own bank converts it, and they notice.
Missing local holidays. Even instant payment systems pause occasionally, and some banks only credit accounts on working days. Check the calendar for each country in December especially.
One person with all the keys. If your finance manager is on holiday on payday, someone else needs to be able to approve.
No reference. "Pocket payment" means nothing on a bank statement. Use "Halden salary July", or whatever your team will recognise.
Halden's finance manager put it simply when we asked what changed: she now spends payday afternoon on the work she was hired to do. If you are paying a team across borders, our business team is happy to look at your setup with you.
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Written by
Owen Brooks
Head of Business Banking
