IAmA westerner running an office out of the Philippines AMA

Amoxicillin said:
Good to hear! Not to derail, but I seriously considered Panama and Costa Rica before deciding on PH. Being that close to the US would have been convenient, but at the end of the day, the language barriers were too high for my interests.
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That was the #1 reason I chose Costa Rica over somewhere like PH (I seriously considered it) was because I speak fluent Spanish. So I have no language barrier. I learned to read/write it when I was 5, because my parents moved to Costa Rica when I was 5-7 years old .... and this was like 25 years ago.

However, I wasn't like you and just moved to the country site unseen. That takes balls. Props on that.

Whats the best time of year to visit PH?
 


Here's a question I'm curious about.

Say you pay your staff, $500/month salary.

How much on top of that, with "13th month pay" and all that, do you have to pay extra every month?

For example, here in CR.. its a whopping 50% extra every month that I have to pay by law, on top of my staffs salary (I count the 13th month bonus, vacation days, social security/medical etc).
 
1 more question, what kind of tasks do you give your personal assistant (like an example work day)?

I thought about pulling trigger on that too but not sure how much work I could give them and thought about just starting at 20 hours a week to help with organization/project management.
 
HiGhPeR said:
I heard Makati is awesome. What part of town are you in?
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I'm in Cebu. I'm not really going to comment on Makati, but I wouldn't call it awesome.

HiGhPeR said:
Here's a question I'm curious about.

Say you pay your staff, $500/month salary.

How much on top of that, with "13th month pay" and all that, do you have to pay extra every month?

For example, here in CR.. its a whopping 50% extra every month that I have to pay by law, on top of my staffs salary (I count the 13th month bonus, vacation days, social security/medical etc).
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13th month is as described, a 13th month. You can either pay it half yearly or the full amount at the end of the year. You pay everyone a monthly sum already, regardless of how many days are in the month. My employees get paid on the 15th and 30th, same amount every time.

Generally you just factor an extra ~8% into everyone's salary. If someone quits or is fired before the end of the year, you're required by law to pay the accumulated 13th month to them. For example if you hire someone in January and fire them in June, you have to pay them a half month, plus a tax refund.

On the subject of firing, depending on why you fired them, you can get stuck paying two full months separation pay.
 
JulianTrueFlynn said:
1 more question, what kind of tasks do you give your personal assistant (like an example work day)?

I thought about pulling trigger on that too but not sure how much work I could give them and thought about just starting at 20 hours a week to help with organization/project management.
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I'm not sure I'd get a PA to do project management. Someone at that pay grade isn't going to be given you much intelligent thought. You need to realize that these are "regular" employees, and as such, need to work based on a predefined process. Too much deviation from the process and you'll want to put their head through a wall for costing you more than their wage.

My PA's daily tasks are to lightly clean my condo, clean (or have cleaned) my clothes, organize my wardrobe, follow up appointments, book initial appointments, pay bills, get me coffee, get food, restock toiletries and the fridge, pre-cut ingredients (if you like cooking).

You need to realize that Pinoys have to be treated as support staff. If you're doing anything that isn't producing income, palm it off to your PA or other staff. Annoying email chain? Have your PA or manager follow it. Your HoA on your rental properties being a dick? Have the PA talk with them till they are frustrated and give up. Have a thousand receipts to catalog? Fedex or scan them, and make it someone else's problem.
 
One thing to mention, Pinoy's make great micromanagers. Here is an example of the daily reports I get

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Getting these daily is seriously better than anything I've had from any manager in a western country.
 
Amoxicillin said:
Pinoy are willing to think on their own, but it's not natural for them. Rather than create work they are proud of, they will try to please you; but in doing so, they will do shitty work and become unhappy.

I recommend asking the phrase "are you proud of what you're about to show me?" a lot. If they aren't proud of it, don't even look at it. It's the only way you're going to get them to do quality work.
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^^^ fucking genius. I have let myself get hosed on deadlines several times by outsourcers in the Philippines because I have fallen for their "I want to make you happy" spiel which was shitty work product and then we'd be back to the drawing board...

This one sentence could have been the difference maker for me. Thanks for thread. + rep
 
Can you hook me up with a dozen balut, a few liters of Tanduay, and a case of Red Horse? Kinda jonesing over here.

But in all seriousness, good thread with solid tips. How's the bandwidth in Cebu? I never made it there, but my experience in the Philippines was the places that had good internet (like Manila or Baguio) I would never want to live, and the places I'd consider living had shit 3G for the whole town. Otherwise, I loved the PI. Beautiful place, and great people.
 
cabezon said:
Can you hook me up with a dozen balut, a few liters of Tanduay, and a case of Red Horse? Kinda jonesing over here.
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Got $10? haha

cabezon said:
But in all seriousness, good thread with solid tips. How's the bandwidth in Cebu? I never made it there, but my experience in the Philippines was the places that had good internet (like Manila or Baguio) I would never want to live, and the places I'd consider living had shit 3G for the whole town. Otherwise, I loved the PI. Beautiful place, and great people.
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Globe HSPA+ sucks balls and constantly runs better on Edge. Smart is tolerable and HSPA+ gets me about 1mbit. I've supposedly got LTE where I live, but my phone doesn't support the local frequency bands. I doubt I'd get even 1mbit out of it unless I am on Smart.

I've got 4mbit PLDT business DSL at my condo (P4,000 $91/mo) that is stable and speeds are reliable. Pings to the US (where my servers are located) are very reasonable for SSH.

I'm in the middle of an office move. The old office had 100mbit Bayantel fiber. If I overload the connection I can get about 80mbit out of it. At slower speeds, the packets sometimes have some unreliability, I wouldn't call it packet loss, just the packets get delayed for no good reason.

The new office has 30mbit fiber with the ability to upgrade to 100mbit at a fixed $70/mbit. Prices are fixed in USD. I'm still yet to find out if I can overload and burst the new line, or how reliable it is.
 
bluechinagroup said:
As long as your HK corp has no trading activity in HK, you never need to pay tax in HK no matter how long you stay.

Good thread. I voted 5.
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If I receive foreign income to my HK corp, while not being present in HK, there is no tax, ever?
 
Fantastic thread! Very informative. I just got back from a month in Costa Rica and loved it. Makes me want to visit the Philippines
 
bluechinagroup said:
You can even be present in HK and enjoy tax free income. As long as the income is not derived from HK, you're good to go!
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I was informed by my accountant that if I do that, I have to be be careful how I access my money. If I treat the income as a wage/bonus, I'm technically deriving the income from a HK corp and therefore a HK source. The accuracy of this doesn't really bother me as I have no reason to be in HK for over 60 days a year anyway, and the RE market is all kinds of fucked up anywhere nice.

Mind you, chicks in HK are smokin hot! All that walking up and down stairs for the MTR does killer work on their legs/ass.
 
Sevenhelmets said:
Awesome thread. I've got a few hires in the Philippines, so this is right down my alley. Ok, let me start off:

1. Where do you hire from? ODesk? Elance? Direct?

2. How do you hire? In particular, how do you find quality developers/coders?
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Great info, but same question here, which website do you recommend when it comes to hiring ? and what do you look for when you hire ? so you don't get screwed over with shitty VA?

Thanks bro!
 
Amoxicillin said:
I was informed by my accountant that if I do that, I have to be be careful how I access my money. If I treat the income as a wage/bonus, I'm technically deriving the income from a HK corp and therefore a HK source.
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Your accountant is right in the sense that if you're a HK resident and pay yourself wages, that is HK trading activity. Why would you do that? There's a delightful loophole: you can pay yourself via stock dividends which are not taxable under HK law and are not considered trading activity either. You can live in HK and not pay a dime in taxes as long as all the revenue your corp generates is not from HK.

You don't need to take my word for it. Just ask the accounting firm I use over at: www.profitaccounting.hk
 
1.How do YOU hire managers ?
2. You mentioned that you also ran teams remotely. Why did you move to Cebu ?
 
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