TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
E,T, Hull wrote:
>
> This is also a topic of interest to me - with an added question:
> How do you deal with international payments?
It ain't quiiiiite ready for prime time, but electronic commerce is
close to being able to handle this. We've used some foreign contractors
for specific jobs, and we wrote the contract so that money would be
expressed in U.S. dollars at the time of contract completion (you can
check any of a number of currency exchange sites on the web to get
today's exchange rates), and that it would be paid via wire transfer,
Western Union money transfer, or American Express. Wire transfer
requires that the receiver and sender have accounts at correspondent
banks (one contractor in Moscow couldn't use the local Citibank office
because he didn't have an account there). Western Union requires that
you make the deposit in cash and pay a service fee; the receiver needs
to be told that his payment will be available at a Western Union office
that the sending office can identify by address. With American Express,
you can deposit cash and a service fee at the local office, and an
American Express office in the receiver's city will issue traveler's
checks or cash for the amount.
Where electronic commerce is headed, probably with this year we'll see
an easier form of bank-to-bank wire transactions, with the exchange
rates calculated on the fly. While some online banking services
currently let you order wire transactions from your computer, the 'back
end' still uses the old method to complete the transaction.
Elna Tymes
Los Trancos Systems
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
