Paying Expenses with Wise#

For hosts that are using Wise, this integration can be used to automate expense payment by providing a one-click solution for paying expenses.

After connecting your Wise account, users submitting new expenses will have access to a structured form for providing a valid bank account information and you will be able to pay those expenses automatically with the "Pay with Wise" button.

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Wise was previously named TransferWise.
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Fees #

What are the fees involved? #

The fees are charged by Wise and its value will vary with the currencies and value being transferred. You can read more about Wise fees here.

Who pays these fees? #

These fees are paid by the Collective the expense was submitted for. This means that transactions in Wise will display the fees, but that value will also be deducted from the Collective balance in our platform as a payment processor fee.

Limitations #

• Payments through Wise require a borderless account.
• Payments should respect the fund amount you have accounted for in the platform.
  • You can't pay expenses if the budget for the Collective does not cover the transfer expenses.
• The host is still responsible for managing funds in Wise.
  • Transfers are funded with your host currency.
    • For example, if your host is using USD, all transfers are paid with your USD balance regardless of the payee currency.

Connecting Wise #

• Go to Open Collective.
• Navigate to your Fiscal Host Dashboard > Settings > Sending Money.
• Click on the Connect Wise button;
• Now, log in with your business' Owner account and, if requested, select your business profile;
• Click on the Give Access button:
• Done! Now all your hosted Collectives will be able to submit Bank Transfer expenses compatible with Wise and you'll be able to pay for it with one click.
  • Notice that this option will only be available for new expenses. Expenses created before Wise support was added are not structured as required by Wise and will need to be edited or recreated by the payee.

Paying Expenses #

Once you're connected to Wise and you start receiving expenses requesting a bank account transfer, you'll be able to automatically pay that from your main Wise balance with a single click. The Go to Pay button in approved expenses displays the Wise icon and by clicking this button you'll open the Pay expense modal.

In the Pay expense modal, you can select if you want to pay it automatically with the integration or pay it manually, effectively marking the expense as paid so you can use any other method you want to settle this expense.

Batching and Paying expenses using OTT #

For some accounts (especially in Europe and the UK), Wise will require you to authorize the payment using a One-Time Token sent to you through SMS, Email or the Wise app.

You can schedule expenses to manually pay in batches when Wise requires OTT authorization.

In such cases, the Pay expense modal displays the Schedule to Pay with Wise button. Once clicked, the expense will be marked as Scheduled for Payment. This will allow you to batch multiple expenses for payment and authorize all the payments in a single transaction.

In order to pay for the scheduled expenses, the host admin can find the Pay Batch button on a suspended banner in the expenses page in the host dashboard:

If you click on Pay Batch, a confirmation modal will be displayed, and if you click Pay with Wise, all scheduled expenses will be batched in a single Wise group transaction.

This batch will be automatically funded after you confirm the transaction using the One-Time Token generated by Wise and sent to you.

Reducing Risks #

In order to reduce risks related to having an active API token that is able to create and fund transactions, we strongly suggest you:

1. Activate Two-Step Authentication in Wise.
2. Keep just enough balance in Wise to pay your expenses.
   • This can be achieved by calculating the amount needed for the current payment cycle and transferring it beforehand.

Troubleshooting #

• Unable to fund transfer
  • Double-check if you have enough funds in your Wise balance, you'll be using the balance with the same currency of your OpenCollective account.