Expanded contractor payments, invoice transparency, bulk onboarding, and automations: July 2023 product release notes

Remote is your trusted partner when it comes to all things global employment. 

We’re working hard to build the global HR platform that makes expanding your business globally simple — ensuring you have all the tools you need to hire, manage, and pay top global talent while maintaining absolute compliance.

We are proud to announce a host of new features designed to streamline your HR processes and provide additional visibility and transparency. We've enriched notifications, improved the contractor and employee experience, and opened up time tracking for your contractors.

Your finance teams will love the improved, transparent invoicing for supplemental services, and your HR team will appreciate bulk onboarding for EOR employees, better visibility into offboarding details, and automated email reminders for fixed-term contracts and probation periods.

And, of course, we've brought more of Remote to your fingertips with additional features on our extremely user-friendly mobile app.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to work tirelessly to improve your Remote experience. As always, we'd love to hear from you, so feel free to share your thoughts with us on social media, reach out to your Remote rep, or get in touch with the team.

Contractor invoice statuses: now on the mobile app

Our mobile app is fast becoming a must-have for employees and contractors using Remote.

Your contractors can now use the Remote app to view all their sent invoices and track payment statuses, complete with estimated payment dates so they can plan their finances.

Contractors can download the mobile app on the iOS App Store and the Google Play store.

Time tracking is now available for contractors

Hot on the heels of our time tracking beta for employees, contractors can now get involved too!

Your contractors are now able to track their hours and breaks, then view and export data to help with project tracking and invoicing. You and your team can get all the information in just a few clicks.

This is the first step towards unlocking much more robust time management tooling for contractors, and we’re so excited to embark on this journey! Learn more about time tracking for contractors here.

More local payout currency options for contractors

Building a global payment network means enabling contractors to be paid in their local currencies, as well as standard currencies like USD for flexibility and purchasing power.

Your contractors in the following countries can now receive invoice payments in their local currency:

• 🇦🇲 Armenia (Armenian Dram - AMD)

• 🇧🇦 Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark - BAM)

• 🇪🇨 Ecuador (US Dollar - USD)

• 🇸🇻 El Salvador (US Dollar - USD)

• 🇲🇾 Malaysia (Malaysian Ringgit - MYR)

• 🇲🇩 Moldova (Moldovan Leu - MDL)

• 🇲🇰 North Macedonia (Macedonian Denar - MKD)

• 🇴🇲 Oman (Omani Rial - OMR)

• 🇵🇦 Panama (Balboa - PAB, US Dollar - USD)

• 🇶🇦 Qatar (Qatari Riyal - QAR)

Contractors can customize payment due dates

To avoid misclassification, contractors should have maximum flexibility over how they invoice and get paid.

Contractors can now customize payment due dates of one-time invoices from commonly used options to help your accounts receivable team better manage and track payments.

Keep track of all your updates in our new notifications area

Stay informed and organized with new and improved notifications!

We’ll automatically surface the most important notifications and announcements for you to review. You can access them at any time by clicking the bell icon on the top-right corner of any page in Remote.

You can also mark notifications as unread if you want to come back to them later, or if you’re caught up, you can dismiss all notifications in a single click.

Walkthrough for new EOR employees in Remote

When you’re onboarding a new employee via our 100% fully-owned and compliance-guaranteed EOR entities, we know it’s important to help your new teammates feel confident with Remote.

Your new employees are now welcomed with a simple walkthrough so they know what to expect next in their journey.

Bulk onboard EOR employees

Whether you’re transitioning from another EOR product to Remote or onboarding multiple team members at once, our latest update makes it easier than ever.

You can now invite multiple employees from the same country to onboard with Remote using a simple CSV upload. When inviting a new employee, employers can choose to add multiple employees at the same time.

To do this, simply download the provided CSV template, fill it out with employee information, and upload the CSV. We’ll check that all the provided information is valid and help you identify any errors before inviting the employees.

Improved invoicing for supplemental services

We offer a variety of value-added and country-specific mandatory services to help you hire, manage, and pay top global talent while remaining compliant. These include health checks, legal fees associated with terminations, and mobility and relocation services.

You’ll only ever pay for the services your organization needs, and we offer them at cost, passing along savings due to our scale. See our Fair Price Guarantee for more information.

Going forward, these costs will be detailed in a new Supplementary Service Invoice, allowing finance teams to better track and record costs. Issued on the first working day of each month, these invoices are also subject to our recently-extended 14-day payment terms, giving you greater flexibility.

Find out more about invoicing in our Help Center.

Offboard employees using the Remote API

The Remote API is expanding!

If your offboarding flow starts somewhere else in your HR tech stack, the new offboarding endpoints in the Remote API allow you to build automations to trigger the offboarding request flow for EOR employees. This can reduce the amount of manual work required by your team, freeing them up to focus on the more hands-on aspects of a team member’s departure.

You can also use the offboarding endpoints to get a list of all offboarding requests in Remote and check the status of each request, making it easier than ever to share updates about offboarding with your wider team.

Check out our API Reference documentation for the full details.

Fixed-term contract reminders — now for all employees

No need to track timelines in spreadsheets or commit contract details to memory.

When your teammates — whether contractors, direct employees, or those hired via our EOR entities — are on fixed-term contracts, you’ll now receive automated email reminders.

These reminders give you time to take action so you can approve, extend, or terminate the contract while retaining the flexibility you need to plan ahead.

Read our internal FAQ for more information: Fixed-Term Contract Reminders for Direct Employees

A new self-guided product tour

New to Remote? Just need a refresher? You can access a guided product tour from the “?” icon in the top-right corner in Remote. We’ll walk you through the highlights, helping you get the most out of Remote as quickly and easily as possible.

View the tour now.

More visibility into offboarding details

Offboarding employees can be a difficult time for you and your employee alike. So, we’re improving visibility to give you peace of mind.

You can now easily access any records related to a former employee’s offboarding type (whether resignation or termination), the offboarding reason, termination date, last working day, if PTO was paid out, and links to relevant documents.

This information will be visible only after the offboarding details have been finalized and agreed to by the employee. Find out more here.

Assign colleagues as signatories for contractor agreements

Depending on your business structure, the person who invites a new contractor and drafts their agreement may not have the authorization to sign the agreement on behalf of the company.

That’s no longer an issue. You can now assign a colleague, like a hiring manager or CEO, as a signatory — just select from the dropdown, and they’ll receive a notification that a contractor agreement is pending signature.

Just another small way we’re helping you operate with maximum compliance in mind!

What’s coming next?

Transparent payroll runs

Get an at-a-glance view of your payroll costs and progress when you pay employees through our EOR entities and Global Payroll product. Experience transparent, accurate, and simple payroll management like never before.

Employment history for direct employees

Employers and direct employees will be able to see the employee’s employment history, including changes to the employee’s salary and job title.

Probation reminders for direct employees

Coming soon, we’ll send employers reminders when a direct employee’s probation period is approaching. The employer admins and the employee’s manager will receive email reminders 30 days before the probation period end date, and again seven days before the probation period end date.

Detailed breakdowns for pre-funding Invoices 

You’ll be able to view a detailed breakdown of costs with your pre-funding invoice, broken down by employee and granular categories. This gives you maximum visibility into your costs for speedier accounting and maximum transparency.