Direct Deposit for a Foreign Subsidiary

Question:

Our company has started a small subsidiary business outside the US and is looking to use QuickBooks to complete the payroll. Management wants to wire the deposits directly to the employee's account. How is this done within QuickBooks?

Would the company need to set up a local bank account outside the US, or could they just wire transfer the money?

Is there anything else I would need to be aware of when doing these types of transactions?

Thank you

Answer:

From a QuickBooks perspective, your question is easy:

On the pay employees screen you want to highlight the button that says direct deposit.

Now from an operations standpoint, it could be more difficult. QuickBooks does not process direct deposit by itself, Intuit offers a direct deposit service for a small fee (Click here for more info). I believe that this is handled through a third party financial service company. Whether this service will allow you to send money to banks out of the country I don’t know, you would have to find out from them.

You could however get your direct deposit software directly from a Bank. (Most banks offer this service to their corporate customers. If you use a large bank that has a presence in both the USA and the subsidiaries country, they may be your best bet. The downside is that there software or web interface most likely will not interface with QuickBooks. This is not a big deal however. Usually all that is required is some additional key-punching.

The other thing that you should be aware of is the payroll tables that Intuit provides do not calculate foreign taxes. Before using any accounting software be sure that you understand the employment laws and any employer liabilities that you may incur.