Invoicing the US

[Roger Roger]

New to the forum but loving the content. I have what seems to be a simple problem but I can't for the life of me find the answer....

I've been running a LTD company for years, contracting tech & consulting services to the media industry. I use Boox accounting portal, which works pretty well for the most part.

I recently got a new client in Berkeley, USA & they have asked me to invoice using an app so they can avoid bank charges. This seems like a very simple request but it seems hard to find a straight froward solution. As I have accountants already, and a perfectly good portal & phone app, I don't want/need Sage or any of their equivalents, nor do I want to pay any significant sums for software I don't need. They recommended the likes of bill.com, payoneer, square, veem or stripe, but how do you find out all the charges and which service is best?

What's the best way to do this?

Thanks.

[WTFH]

Are you billing in Sterling or USD?

Is their issue the currency or is it how you have asked for payment?

Could you use PayPal?

[DeludedKitten]

You don't need to change accountants or portals to use any of those payment methods that they suggest.

What they are suggesting is that they avoid the banking charges by paying you through a mechanism where you pick up the banking charges instead for them. It's no different from them paying you via PayPal (which may be cheaper for you).

How do you find out all the charges? You go to the website for each provider and read what they say about the charges. When you've done that, you could even share the knowledge with other people so that if someone else needs to know then at least they have a starting point to look at.

Let us know how you get on.

[SuperLooper]

Set up a Transferwise borderless account. This will give you US bank details which your client can use to make a (domestic) payment.

[escapeUK]

Set up a Transferwise borderless account. This will give you US bank details which your client can use to make a (domestic) payment.

I followed your advice here, and have to say Transferwise works effortlessly. So easy and so much cheaper than using a standard bank.

So thanks for the tip!