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Ask HN: Simplest way to start paying people?
Hi Folks,
I'm working on something and wondering what the quickest way to get setup to be able to pay people money would be. Basically I'll be taking money of one group (probably businesses) and then paying some of that money to others (probably individuals). I'm wondering what the simplest way to get a proof of concept up would be for the paying money to individuals part. Can I just require everyone to have a PayPal account? Or would something else be easier/better.
If anyone has a recommendation as to the best way to do this as opposed to the quickest way I'd be interested in hearing that as well, thanks.
Robin
==edit==
Ok, trying to be more specific.
What would be the easiest way technically speaking to arrange payments from a webapp to individuals? And are there any.specific gotchas to be aware of.
Thanks for the help.
== Edit 2 ==
Payments will be 10s or $100s
- nyellin 16y agoYour question is too vague. Please provide concrete details, or answers will be abstract and useless as well.
- robinwarren 16y agoHopefully the edit clarifies things
- justinph 16y agoNot sure what the simplest would be from a tech perspective (probably paypal). But I'd only pay people once they've built up enough of a balance to make it worthwhile to do a payout. At the very least, you'd reduce your payout throughput that way.
- moreofalurker 16y agoYou might want to check out wepay.com / not sure whether that is what you are looking for, but it might be worth taking a look.
- F00b4r 16y agoThe best answer depends on the magnitude of the payments. Are we talking about penny/dollar payments or O($100) or O($1000) payments?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- F00b4r 16y agoIt sounds like you are looking for something like Obopay [where you can send money to their bank account if they give routing information]. I would check with your bank. IIRC Bank of America provides this service.
- robinwarren 16y agoThanks, i'll look into that
- robinwarren 16y agoI'd be interested in your recommendation for dollar amounts as it's actually likely to be 100s at a maximum really. Thanks
- F00b4r 16y agoWith small payouts, a significant percentage of the payments will be taken by the middlemen. With large payouts, people will have to wait a long while before the first payment, and may end up believing its a scam. If you dont mind can you describe what you are doing?
- robinwarren 16y agoHi, sorry for the secrecy. Without going into too much detail, i'd be taking larger payments from businesses and paying chunks of multiple of those payments each to individuals. Similar perhaps to adsense. Ie a single individual wouldn't just get say 10% of a single payment but of several.
- kandu 16y agoI am interested in the same issue. There seem to be various service providers for doing the actual payment, i.e. https://www.x.com/community/ppx/mass_pay https://www.x.com/community/ppx/mass_pay or http://www.arvatodigitalservices.com/fileadmin/case_studies/it_hightech/Case%20Study%20-%20Global%20Disbursement%20Solution.pdf http://www.arvatodigitalservices.com/fileadmin/case_studies/... . However, I would like to know in which countries a business could be legally do something as mass paying thousands of individuals without going into the hassle of signing contracts with each of them. Are you based in the USA or elsewhere? If you pay an individual, aren't you supposed to pay to the fiscal authorities any tax for the wage you pay? Which are the startup-friendly countries where this kind of mass payments are possible without bureaucratic hassles?
- robinwarren 16y agoI'm in the UK. I'd not considered it could be an issue tbh. I'm not intending to employ people. Google and others manage to pay amounts to advertisers I assume without these hassles. I'm not at my pc atm to investigate that further right now.
- kandu 16y agoI assume that every country has some laws to prevent: 1) That actual employees are declared as independent contractors for the purpose of evading the payment of social security and medical taxes. 2) That the individual that gets paid also declares the revenues and pays the corresponding income taxes. 3) Money laundering and financing terrorist activity. In the case of my country in Eastern Europe these laws are so tight that they require either: - the independent contractor to be officially registered with the governmental authorities and authorized as such, or - to be considered as an employee, which has to sign with the business a paper contract that also has to be registered with the authorities, and for which social security and medical taxes must be paid. This makes impossible running in my country a business based on the model that you are also interested in. Could you discuss what the law allows in UK, Ireland, Cyprus or other European country?
- kandu 16y agoFor example, in the USA, "You generally must withhold federal income tax from your employees' wages. You withhold part of Social Security and Medicare taxes from your employees' wages and you pay a matching amount yourself." - http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=172179,00.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=172179,00.... "If you classify an employee as an independent contractor and you have no reasonable basis for doing so, you may be held liable for employment taxes for that worker" - http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.html http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=99921,00.h... I assume that the US law allows "contracts" that are "signed" or agreed with one click on the "I agree with the terms and conditions" checkbox, and this contract would establish the paid individual as an independent contractor, and then the paying business has no burden of tax payment on behalf of the individual. Do you have any information about the legal framework for similar issues in UK or Ireland?