Contractor payments SOP

CMG runs an offshore contractor pod model. We pay everyone through one rail — Wise Business — on a single biweekly cycle. No Contractor of Record platform; CMG handles contracts, NDAs, and tax forms outside Wise.

Wise sends in each contractor’s local currency at the mid-market FX rate. Fees run roughly 0.4–0.7% per transfer — meaningfully cheaper than wires or Deel-style CoR fees at our scale.

The biweekly cycle

Each pay period covers two weeks of work. Invoices and timesheets are due by Friday EOD of the second week. Payments send the following Thursday.

How to run a payment cycle

1. Friday EOD — cycle close — every active contractor submits their invoice + timesheet covering the previous two weeks of work, by 11:59pm PST. Anything submitted after this rolls into the next cycle. Pod Lead pings stragglers in Slack Friday afternoon.
2. Monday — Pod Lead reviews timesheets / milestone deliverables and marks each row approved in the cycle sheet. Hourly contractors: spot-check hours against project trackers. Per-project: confirm the milestone is shipped.
3. Tuesday — Ops chases any missing or disputed rows and locks the cycle sheet once every approved invoice is final.
4. Wednesday — export approved rows to the Wise Batch CSV template and upload to Wise Business → Batch payments. Wise validates and shows the FX rate + total USD cost. Required columns: name, email, paymentReference, sourceCurrency, targetCurrency, amount. Stop if Wise flags any row (bad email, unsupported route, amount mismatch).
5. Thursday 9am PST — Bryant or Van approves the batch in Wise. 2FA confirms. Payments send. Slack a brief “Payroll sent — cycle XX” note to the team so contractors know to watch their accounts.
6. Following Monday — reconcile Wise transaction report against the cycle sheet. Flag any failed/returned transfers; reissue via the backup rail (Payoneer) if needed.

What contractors send each cycle

Every invoice goes to one inbox: [email protected]. Use the subject line Invoice · [Name] · Cycle [##] so the inbox stays scannable.

All invoices use the CMG template. Contractors who don’t submit by Friday 11:59pm PST roll into the next cycle — no exceptions, so the SOP stays clean.

Onboarding a new contractor

Before a new contractor’s first cycle, collect:

• Full legal name + country of residence (tax country if different)
• Wise account email OR bank details (IBAN, SWIFT, or local account number)
• Preferred receiving currency (default: local)
• W-8BEN (non-US contractors) — stored in CMG’s contract folder
• Signed contractor agreement + IP assignment + NDA (CMG templates)
• Invoice template acknowledgement

Special case · Venezuela

If Wise blocks a payment to any country for any reason, fall back to Payoneer for that contractor and document the workaround in the cycle sheet.