Hanoi Office Space

There are many things to think about when as I consider office space in Hanoi.

This post will be my rambling point as I figure out the different aspects.  To start with some of the biggest unknowns are:

• How much does a it cost?
• Are there areas that are better than others?
• Do offices come furnished? 
• How does parking work?
• Is security necessary?
• Is internet and power more reliable in some areas that others?

To start with,  I will defined the requirements I think I would have if I can take for granted the availability of utilities, parking and security.

• 800 to 1200 sq ft minimum
• One or two private offices 
• A storage room / network / server / utility
• Wired for ethernet preferred
• Drop Ceilings Preferred for video camera install

A couple of quick notes about how things are different:

• We need 75 to 125 sqm (square meters of space),  realistically we could even go smaller if we are only going to have 4 or five people,  but I want to be able to expand possibly fairly soon without moving offices,   10 sq meters is enough for someone to operate,  but we need room for other stuff, utility room (break? bathroom if not provided by building)
• traffic is crazy,  I can't say whether a location father from the center of downtown is better
• Would I get more job hopping employees if I locate in a Tech Center,  close to all of the other companies that compete for employees?

The hub of downtown Hanoi appears (to me) to be in Hoan Kiem  about 45 minutes from the naboi airport.

Hoan Kiem district in relation to the airport


It turns out our hotel for the EMBA program 

It turns out that our hotel for the EMBA program will be located here as well.  This maybe why I think that this is the hub.

EMBA Residency -
Hilton Garden Inn: 20 Phan Chu Trinh, Phan Chu Trinh, Hanoi 100000, Vietnam 

When I look at other areas whch are IT industrial parks, (such as Thang Long)

 I feel like I am getting too 'corporate',  Even though this is clloser to the airport (for my future travels) and people will likely have a better parking experience.  It seems that there are simply more people downtown, with a much wider set of options for employees traveling to work.

Also, it seems that the 'culture' that we live in here in Boise,  is an older,  historic building with an awesome view,  and smack dab in the middle of town,   with food, bars and people all around.  
I like the idea that I might be able to find this something similar in  Hanoi (perhaps just because it helps me to filter out the huge array of choices)

So I will start my search in Hoàn Kiếm.

The first thing I find is that when searching from google,  I get LOTS of places like 'regus'  that will charge you WAY more than than they should for an executive office anywhere in the world. Lots of Executive suites,  but what I need is a full office for multiple people.  So I keep digging one great option appears to be: Savills  they appear to be a realestate commercial leasing out fit.   They deal primarily in recent construction high rises,  but they have some other options as well.

Here i find 5 buildings in Hoam Kiem.

I have found this site in the past when I was not as serious about needing to find real estate options,  and I emailed them from their site.  They replied back almost immediately with several questions to which I replied.  I never heard back from that reply,  I dont know if that is because they decided that I was not a good fit,  or if they are just not reliable,  but it seems like they would have to be a pretty large company in order to represent the caliber of buildings they have.

I reached back out to them (7/30/2015) after more than a month to see if they would reply.

One thing that is not represented on their website is the price,  and that is one thing that really helps me to decide quickly on whether a space is a good fit.

While I do want to have a decently nice space (I say that 'lower Class A' and 'upper Class B' fits us.)  I will pursue this with them,  however I think I need to also so a little bit of classifieds searching in order to find the smaller,  individual building owners like the ones I have rented from most of the time in Boise (the larger building owners seem to be able to  hold out for longer lease times and higher rents,   and I want neither of those in Hanoi)

I looked back at some old research (before blogging my findings) and I pulled up this officesinvietnam site.  I t seems that they have a 'listing service' that has offices and the search seems to help me zerro in on stuff.   They also list prices on some of them.   I found that the ones that listed the prices had numbers like 37 and 50 USD per sqm / month.   This equates to about 4 or 5$ per month per sq foot,  or 50 to $60 per square foot per year,   compared to Boise prices,   rent for the newest high rise can be 20 to 35$ per year,   and the class of office that I have been happy with is more like 10 to 16$ / year.

I have not found yet whether that means the entire market is that expensive or that I have just happened upon some very expensive areas,  also I do not yet know if there are other services (power,  security , parking internet,  furnished) included in those.  On this site though,  it appears that all of the building listing dates are old,  and when clicking on the contact now phone number,  it takes to  a blank page,  (not a lot of trust here)  however they have now helped me to understand some level of pricing

One (very interesting option) was a Grade B office space with a generator (for reliable power,  it IS an issue!)  and security.   Also the Lift is "good".

While I seriously doubt this place is available,  it also helps me to see what options are out there and possibly questions I should be asking when looking at some of these locations

• power backup
• elevator
• security
• car park

WHen I searched Craigslist,  there were lots of Ho Chi Minh office spaces but not a single one in Hanoi, (all though there were lots of houses and apartments in Hanoi)

A google for 'hanoi office rentals'  turned up some small cheesy sites that may have had somethign buried inthem,  but they didn't seem worthy of searching when several of them only had a single office. building for rent.  However one of them appears to have a price that was interesting and it will help me to know what questions I need to ask about at other offices.  The space was in an area I didn't want but had this price listed "Price: $ 10 (including management fees). "  This helps me to know that it is possible depending on availability that some buildings are SIGNIFICANTLy less than others.   But additionally it helpped me see that some places charge a 'Management Fee'   so I need to be aware of that ,  and ask about it for when I am doing my pricing.

One site that I found (and have seen during other searches) is a local classified site,  which seems to be pretty busy for vietnam.   Although,  any more it is hard to know whether the sites are just scraping eachother for content.  ANyway,  this site is called TNH Hanoi and it looks like they have other localized version "http://tnhvietnam.xemzi.com/".  I didn't see any offices,  but I wanted to document a possible local classifieds site while I could.


I finally happened upon a real estate agent's website,  and it had many menus that reminded me of

bdstanlonc.com

somehwere else I had been,  so it made me think that perhaps the site is just like a USA style MLS site that agents just pay to have their name on.  Anyway,  it seemed like a valuable resource so I dug around in it.
http://bdstanlong.com/office-buildings-in-hoan-kiem.html

One nice thing it does is list all of the commericial building in the Hoan Kiem area.

bdstanlong.com - 2

I decided to contact this agent to see if he was willing to do any research for me on this commerical property so I filled out his contct us form.

Here is my nod to Tan Long for allowing me to find him in my searches

• Head office: 39A Xuan Dieu Str., Tay Ho Distr., Hanoi
  Tel: (84-4) 3719 9864 - Fax: (84-4) 3719 4124 - Website: www.bdstanlong.com

I hope to hear back from him in the future.
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Update 8/3/2015
When I hear back from savills,  it turns out that their reason for not getting back to me previously was that the email was possibly too large and may have bounced,  which Is probably true.  Their email was VERY informative and described the overall market and where the different office options were.  They also described that much office space is negotiable in price and gave me a concept of the cost of being located close to downtown

map of office buildings with time distance

• Per Square meter
• if they price does not say 'All - In' then there is a 10% service fee on top of it
• There is a 'Serviced Office' option which is more expensive,  but comes furnished and may work better for me as I will start small and 
• They created a map with an overview of the office locations and distance from CBD (downtown)
• THey describe how far it is from downtown to the outer locations.

Their email also gave me a concept of the cost of "Serviced" offices.  Some offices can run as much as $65sqm,  but I do not yet know whether that cost includes electric, internet (fast,  like I need it) and desks, chairs, conference, break, etc.  I would consider this,  as it could cust down on my need to source all of my utilities and desk,  etc, ,  but It will likely require a spreadsheet comparison.

Links to the attached documents for all of the space are here for my reference

• Grade A - B Offices
• Services Office Attachment

Realistically though,  this proposal helps me to see that ffice spaces in CBD run from 30 - 45 sqm and in west hanoi it runs about half.  But as far as the buildings that have current availability,  with office layouts,   the proposal only seems to have what floor is available,   it does not allow me to really look to closely at each of them.

For now,  I will send one more email to them to ask a few questions about the size and availability of the space currently.  In particular I would probably like to reduce the time commitment that we have in the space,  but maximize the level of move in ready and growing ability.  In September,  I imagine I will need to dig in and start whittling down the list and start asking for details.  

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Update 8/4/2015

I requested that they filter down theeir list to  offices which are 'move in ready'  and by this I mean that the office does not require an build out.  However Anh (the person that responds) understands this to mean that the office already has furniture in it.  So I send a clarifying email in which I explain my self a bit more.  I am looking for an office that has already had a tenant in it before and does not require any construction,  I am looking for an office that when I sign the lease I will be able to pay and start moving furniture in immediately.   With this clarification I am hoping to receive additional data back with exact office spaces,  with a certain size,  floorplan cost and possibly images.
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Translation from English to Vietnamese Services

So we have a need to translate every single RO document from English to Vietnamese.

That includes the Artcles of incorporation,  the Certification of Incorporation, etc.

Different services out there charge different amounts.

So I figured I should send out the documents for quotes.

Staring with a simple one page Certificate of Existence from the state of Idaho.  The document is about 88 words,  including the words in the letter head,  but not including the words in the Idaho seal.

So I send the document to a couple of services to find out what their costs are and what additional services they can offer.

http://www.english-vietnamese-translation.com/ - charges $0.10 per word.
https://www.rev.com/certified-translation/vietnamese - $28 per page - 48 hour turnaround



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Part way through the process of this,  i get an email from my Hanoi Attorney who says that the easiest,  most trustworthy way to get the translation done is by the Embassy at the same time as legalization.  However from what I can see the consular services did not offer translation services,  so I have another call to make.

When I go to the SF consulate page though today (7/30) I get an error

so i go through my phone dialed calls and get the San Francisco number out - 14159221707,  I will call them when they open 

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Getting US Documents Legalized for Vietnamese Government filings and use

In order to apply for a vietnamese Representative Office I must first get documents notarized and legalized.

These documents include:
"

• Company Certificate of Incorporation
• Articles of Association of Matraex
• Business Profile
• Corporate Resolution with Company Seal
• Passport of Chief RO
• Audited Financial Statements

So I had to find out about the process I need to go through in order to get these all notarized / legalized / translated in order to be used in Vietnam.

First thing I noticed is there is only one embassy,  but four consulates,  I called the embassy (202) 861 0737 - http://vietnamembassy-usa.org/ They walked me through a phone tree that encouraged me to check the website under Consular Services - Legalization.   

Which gave me what I most of what I needed.  They have a checklist of items on their site:

And they  link to the document that we have to fill out and send in.

Together these documents describe that I must first get the documents notarized but they also request that the documents are 'authenticated by the local state department',  hopefully the notary counts as 'authenticated'.

I will be calling the Consulate as suggested during business hours to ask the following questions that are not answered in their website documents

1. How does the process of legalization work. ?   I have notarized, authenticated documents that I need legalized,   do I first need to get a translator to translate them?  then submit them all to the Vietnamese Consular service?
2. What is the fee for legalization?
3. Do you have an english version of instructions for the legalization form?

The consulate is open on the east coast between 9:30 and 12:30AM so I will be asking them these questions

I was not able to get an answer from the Washington DC office,  so I called the San Francisco office (which for some reason maintains a different but similar website,  with its own version of forms)  and they picked up almost immediately (on extension 106)
They were able to answer some of my questions:

1. A translated copy of the documents is not necessary in order for the Consulate to legalize them.  However,  they did say that they could not be sure whether the Vietnamese government would need a translated document (in our case, they do,  so we will want to submit a translated copy)
2. The fee is $70 dollars per document,  it does not matter how long the document is.  We can only make payment by Money Order and it should be made out to 'Vietnam Consulate'.   The San Francisco office that we need to send everything to is "1700 California Str, Suite 580, San Francisco, CA 94109". 
   
3. I forgot to ask this question, so I had to call back and he told me that the form they have (it is different on the SF version of the consular site)  has Vietnamese and English on the form,  but there are no instructions at all. When I told him that only some of it is in English he said,   'just answer .... briefly ... it doesn't matter'.   He said if my number is on there they can call me with any other questions.  So perhaps if I go to the other consular sites I will find one in english
1. http://vietnamembassy-usa.org/sites/default/files/phieu_de_nghi_hop_phap_hoa.pdf - USA Form - no english instructions
2. http://www.vietnamconsulate-sf.org/data/downloads/2013/mau_phieu_de_nghi_chung_thuc_1.pdf - no instructions at all
3. Houston does not appear to provide legalization services
4. http://vietnamconsulate-ny.org/sites/default/files/documents/8/request_form.pdf - Identical to USA - no english instruction

So because I wasn't able to find a translation of the instructions of the form,  I called the New York office,   and I asked about the process of legalization,  since one of the documents I have to include in the packet,  is the ID of the requestor,  I had to ask them about the process of legalizing that same ID!  (since I need the copy of the passport to also be legalized for the RO Application).  He explained that he can not legalize the US Passport,  he can only legalize the signature of the Secretary of State,  which can authenticate the Notary,  which can confirm the Passport copy.  So basically,  I can forward it to him for Legalization,  but I have no confirmation that they will be legalizing it as it is difficult to communicate to them that there is one copy of the ID for purposes of identification,  and another copy of the Passport for legalization.

Next I asked him about a tranlation of the instructions and he said "I just explained you everything"  so I got specific,  can you explain to me what you expect to see in "#7: Mục đích sử dụng : . . . . For the purpose of :" - He said 'Dont worry about that'  every thing legalized if for the Vietnam Government,  so I said,  what about #6?  he said,   "the same,  it is for Vietnam Government"  So I will google translate it to get it right.  Here are the (likely incorrect) translations

1. Enter the name of the bearer lake to submit application at the Consular Department .
2. /3A) Just enter the name and province / city where you were born and day , month and year of birth of the riders pay .
3. B) Fill identification number ( ID ) or passport number of riders filed. Note: If you enter the external ID number originals need tutoring Captures ID card ; If the passport is required to fill Passport capture also submit for filing
4. Fill numbers Voice of people go filing
5. Remember the names of papers you need proof recognized as: birth certificate, certificate examinations health, translation profession, judicial records ... Note: The papers listed here must be the mark red, signed directly ... and every kind needed tutoring 01 copies without the certificate on file at the Consular Department (If the translations, to capture both the service and parts Vietnamese have sealed attachment; if Using the red marks to record, write up above that the word "copy"). B) Record the total number of red marks ... (original or translation) was listed in items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (excluding Submitted copies for your records)
6. Remember that you will carry the country's name This paper to use.
7. Remember the purpose you into that country, eg to work or marriage, reunion, as refugees, survivors' benefits, family visits ...

In addition I also have questions about copies of passports and IDs, which require a notary,  I need to find out the process of obtaining them. (Since I will having an outside party be my chief RO,  I need to get Passport and Drivers License notarized but I dont know if the copies of those have to be done a certain way.  So I call the ups store in DC - 202-785-3604 ,  they have a phone tree with a 'Notary Serv ices" option where they describe to bring the documents for copying (duh!) and then they say that they can not answer notary questions over the phone,  so I call another at 202.371.0065 and get a live person immediately.  They tell me that of course you need the original document (passport and drivers license) so that the notary can sign that they witnessed that the copy is notarized.

Another question then came up that I needed the documents 'authenticated by the local state department'  so i called the third UPS Store in DC (luckily 3 options showed on my search in Google)  and the notary at that location picked up first ring.  He said the hours he would be at that location and then when I asked about authentication by the state department,  He said "whoa,  that is a whole nother level!,  I dont know about that really"  The authentication by the state is something that the state can do (may be on the same day) in order to view the notary's signature and authenticate that the notary is in good standing (or somethign)  He said that kind of thing is done at 414 North 4th Street. 

The first google result on 'authentication of notary public washington dc' goes to this page whigh describes that "The Office also serves those citizens seeking authentication of documents that are going to be conveyed abroad or to other jurisdictions".   

So after all this searching I must wait until things open here in Boise, Idaho to find out what hours a notary might be available (I have always found them quickly at UPS Stores,  but I call first to find hours)  and then I need to get authentication done in our state.   I googled "authentication of notary public boise idaho"  and clicked to the "Notary Public - Idaho Secretary of State"  The answer was not there so I went to the FAQ  and found my answer 

How is a notary’s signature authenticated on a document for use in this country or overseas?

Authenticating a Notary Public’s signature can be done only by the Secretary of State’s office. The document that needs the certification attached must be submitted to the Secretary of State’s office with the request for either a “Certification” or an “Apostille” . If you are not sure which type you need only indicate the country that the documents will ultimately be sent to and this office will then make the determination as to which authentication certificate to use. The fee for each certification is $10.00.

It does not describe the time frame after the notarization that you have to take the document in,  so I will be calling the Secretary of State for this.

A couple of questions that I have for them are

1. Do we have to bring documents which have been notarized in for authentication the same day or within any specific timeframe afte rthey have been notarized?
2. Does the person that had the document notarized,  have to be the one to get the authentication done? (for example if getting a copy of an ID or passport is done,  does the same person have to be the one to get it authenticated)
3. Is the form a completely separate document? or is it combined?  can multiple documents be combined or do they need to be separate

Contact with the Idaho SOS has always been easy:

• 700 West Jefferson Street Room E205

• Notaries & Trademarks - (208) 332-2810

I called them and it was almost painful how easy they made it,   They descrbied that they are always open,  just bring in the documents you need and they will authenticate them for vietnam.They also realized that one of the documents was an Idaho Business Entity document that was one that they had already Certified for us,  and they explained that I couldn't get a copy of that and notarize it,  they said,  just bring it in and they will finish the process of authenticating it for Vietnam.


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After I got all of these documents notarized and the notary certified by the state (at a cost of $10 per certification and if the state had to print and notarized the document , then another $10 for that)
I decided to scan all of the documents and send them to my attorney in vietnam. I had one document wrong so I sent a picture of the document i THOUGHT might have been correct an then went back to the secretary of state to get that document taken care of (at a cost of 20.25)
Were I to do it again,  I would have collected un notarized documents and forwarded them all to the contact to ask them if they would work and which of them I do not need and whether I need any others.  With this I would have been able to reduce the number of documents that I purchased unnecessarily and I would have make fewer trips.

What I am left with is 5 documents that I need to send to get legalized.
since the SF office is closest,  I use their form to fill out 
http://www.vietnamconsulate-sf.org/data/downloads/2013/mau_phieu_de_nghi_chung_thuc_1.pdf





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Dealing with your Passport when setting up a Representative Office in Vietnam

In order to make the application to setup a Representative Office in Vietnam,  you must make a copy of your passport,  get it notarized and then legalized (by sending the papers to the vietnamese embassy for translation, etc).

In addition you must have a Visa of some sort so you can get into the country.  This is where you have to pay attention to what you do with your passport.

If you apply for your Visa you have to send your passport to the embassy and the passport is out of your physical possesion.  (Like I am at the moment).  If I had realized that I was going to to need my physical passport for the process of filling out the application for the Representative Office,  I would have planned differently.

That is one delay I am facing now.  As I have sent my Passport to the Vietnamese Embassy I must wait until it returns to complete all of the RO requirements

Corporate Seal needed on Corporate Resolutions for Vietnam Representative Office Registration

One of the requirements for opening a Representative Office in Vietnam for a corporation,  is that you submit an official Corporate Resolution confirming that the corporation has 'resolved' to open this office.

This official document makes sense because an organization with a more complex setup than ours may not have already created resolutions which give full authority for these types of decisions.

So my wife an I planned an official board meeting with minutes to vote on the resolution.  The resolution had to also have a Corporate Seal.  Which is something that we have not needed,  so we quick ordered one from corpconnect.com.

This company just came up as an advertiser in the google search.  And after i researched most of the top results I found that almost all of them had somewhat cheesy web pages (nothing that was simple to figure out whether they were a professional organization based on reviews or professional appearance).

So I called a couple of them,  one of the sites had a wierd issue where I could not get back to the cart so I scrapped that one.  I called the other two and got both of them on the phone within 2 minutes,  a good signed. With two remaining,  I looked at the amount of time it would take to get the seal,  one advertised a quick turnaround but then charged an extra 70$ to overnight it.  Corpconnect advertized a seal for about the same price,  but not the great turn around  time,  I asked on the phone how long to ship it out and they said typcially a day.  I decide  I could live with that, and since the seal is small and they offered Priority Mail,  I took it.  I expect to have the seal within the week so that I can make the documents official and so I can send them in.

Ideally I would have gotten this seal coming a bit sooner as it may be one of the things that takes a bit longer.

Selecting a Chief RO for Vietnamese Representative office

This in Vietnam  representative office  there is an official position called the chief RO.  The position is officially assigned in the filings with the government and the person takes on some specific responsibilities.

I assumed that as I was filing application to open the representative office in Vietnam that I would be able to be the chief RO. However, now that I have been engaged a Vietnamese attorney to help me with the setup they informed me that the head of the organization in the US is not allowed to be the chief RO in the entity in Vietnam.

He described to me that the not only would the chief RO need to be someone other than myself,  they would either need to be a staff member in Vietnam or, if they are foreign to Vietnam, they will need to have a notarized and legalized passport as well and they would need to travel with me to Vietnam in order to pick up the seal. It appears that picking up the seal is a formal process which formally starts the formation of the entity.

This means that I need to find somebody who can be my representative, it makes sense that I would find someone in my EMBA class that is going over as well that would be able to do it but before I make that decision I need to ask more questions find out what the rules are on whether they must be an employee or how to deal with turnover or reassigning the chief RO.

Since currently my organization does not have any other executives or formal managers besides my wife (company secretary ) and I,  I need to figure out if there is a way to have a temporary chief RO stand in for the purposes of picking up the seal and then transfer the position of the chief RO over to my wife.

Before completing this post ever get an answer to the questions of how to deal with a temporary cheese and weather changing the chief RO after some period of time is possible

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Update: Duc with DNAS lawyers is very quick with a reply.   He let me know that the rule is simply that they cannot be legal representative of the US company at the same time they are the chief RO of the Vietnamese company.  I had to ask  another question about whether a "legal representative" means the same thing as it does in the US where any employee could potentially be a "legal representative". I looking to find out if its possible for my wife to be the chief RO or whether that would not fit. So I simply asked question with my wife people to be the chief RO even though currently she is the secretary of our US entity?

Duc made it clear he was not a fan that requires the selected chief RO to be a person which it's not an actual owner because that requires an amendment to be made to the representative office filing each time that there might be turn over.  His use of the word stupid was perhaps not intended to be unprofessional,  I think he was just showing his dissatisfaction with the rule.   It appears though that because an amendment can be filed I may be able to someone acting is the chief RO pick up the seal and then we can simply make an amendment to change the chief RO to the person that would fill the role permanently even though they did not accompany me to Vietnam.

I will make another update when I find out whether my wife can perform the duties or whether I will need some other arrangements.

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Update: Duc let me know that my wife 'could' be the Chief RO,  while that is not really realistic for us as part of our upcoming Vietnam Trip in October,  it does let me know that that Vietnam takes with the individual being the 'legal representative' has a different meaning that it could mean here in the US.  Here in the US any employee could be a legal representative,  however they are merely talking about the owner of the company it seems.  So my wife,  the secretary of the corporation,  is able to take on the role.    So now I must just decide how to proceed with finding an acting Chief RO that can help me to pick up the seal after which time we can transfer the role over to someone else (likely my wife).

In the process of explaining that this could be my wife Duc also described that while he does not appreciate the Red Tape,  it was created in order to help encourage the company to pick a local (Vietnamese) Chief RO.   

An Aside: While this make sense in some ways at first glance it appears that the rule doesnot work,  because I am unable to hire any one in Vietnam  until I have a license.  However that is using a US perspective,   we know that we are not legally allowed to do things as an entity until after the entity is setup,  but Vietnam may work different,   they may allow you to go ahead and start acting like a company before you are one.  For example,  your company needs to have an address to file for an RO,  however you can't  have an office without an entity.

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An added note,  I am now actively working on creating the corporate resolution for the company which states that we have authorized the setup of the office in Vietnam,  and that we will appoint a specific person to that post.  An added wrinkle (to my plans of just making a colleague the chief RO) is that I have to include in that resolution,  the salary that the company has approved.  This is not necessarily a problem,  but will require a gentleman's agreement regarding the salary even though the plan is to have the position only for a brief period of time.

So I have come up with this basic text (which I will likely modify before our corporate meeting) which officially make the position appointment,

and the proposed future resolution which then reassigns the appointment. (for when we have completed the setup and we get back state side)

Now,  I just have to find the right person for the position,  Beer at 3:30 today (7/28) sounds like a goo time to figure it out.
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Setting up payroll for paying Vietnam employees

As I set up a vietnam business, I have to have a way to make payments t ok my employees there.  It will not be as simple as just writing and sending a company check like payroll here.  

Fact it will be what's more difficult because the type of company I'm setting up is a representative office and we are not allowed to have a bank account in Vietnam.

So I now have to think about how I even get the money to the employees. An additional thought is that there is a rather complex tax environment in which have to make sure all of the payroll addresses.

For these reasons I need to engage some sort of payroll manager whether they only handle the taxes or perhaps if they handle taxes and other HR services as well.

Jacob in my EMBA class was kind enough to draw my attention to the fact that a DP service in Vietnam so I will be investigating that,  as the same time as I investigate some of the HR services that are offered by the companies that are helping me to setup the Representative Office (like Grand Wakto).

To start I contacted Jake in my class and asked if he could forward my information to an ADP contact that could help me.

I then hit the Web and looked up their service.

http://www.adp.com/streamline/

For a service that is used by thousands (millions )  they actually have relatively little information quickly available.  Possibly this is because they have so many different scenarios that very few fit into set plans.  But more likely this is because there is too big of a difference in pricing scenarios between different clients with differing service levels.  Oh well I am sure a good account rep will help me navigate the huge spectrum of services and fees.  But I certainly like to be able to help self select some of the service levels based on some sort of list fees.

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It took several days with summer vacation to get a contact with ADP overseas and in the end,   they really didnt have anyone there.  Instead I received an email from:

• Van Ma 
• Manager 
• Payroll & HR Outsourcing Services | Partner of ADP Streamline

Who did a good job asking what types of services I needed from the in order to provide services.   I will followup up the service with them,  but now I know that they are not ADP and I will be working with a remote services.  In particular one of their questions helped me to understand that they will be taking care of the taxes and filing portions,  which is important,  but for the money handling,  they consider that to be  a different service.   Since the questions they ask appear to be very helpful to me as far as describing what services are needed and what services they can offer,  I have included both their questions,  and my answers below.  I will be sure to identify what type of business we end up doing together when we get to that point

1. Is Matraex Vietnam a Limited Liability Company or Representative Office? ​Matraex will be a Representative Office,  we have started the filing process this week​
2. How many entities do you have in Vietnam and where are they located?  We will have 1(one) in Hanoi​
3. The standard scope of payroll service will cover: payroll calculation, declaration and filling of Personal income tax, compulsory insurance and personnel movement to Labour Department. It does not cover Money movement service: payment on behalf of client to employee and statutory bodies. Kindly advise us whether you want to cover the Money movement as additional scope.  I do not yet know,  can you include the Money Movement as an optional line item to your proposal,  so I can evaluate the cost? ​
4. Do you need us to prepare the Employee labor contract and Termination letter as additional service? Can you also provide a separate proposal for this?​ I already have a hiring agency that will be helping me to find employees,  and they have proposed that they could do it,  but if you have that ability, it may be better to keep all of those HR capabilities centralized with your company,  can you provide a separate line item on your proposal so I can evaluate your offering and the cost?
5. Do you have any expatriates. If yes, are they assignee expatriates or local hired expatriates?  No,  no expatriates.  I will be visiting for less than 1 month at a time​
6. Has your company obtained the tax code and insurance code? No​,  however the organization that is currently helping us setup our Representative Office will be obtaining these by October.
7. If you're interested, when would you like to start payroll outsourcing service?  In October

It took a couple of days for them to come back with a proposal,  but it was long and it was not simple to evaluate the true cost per employee of doing business with the company.

So I decided to start a spreadsheet,  which I would use to compare other of the companies that have proposed the same services.

Google Spreadsheet

After I calculated everything out with Talent Net,  some of the services need a bit of clarification and I have a couple of questions out to the talent net rep.  For example,  I did not understand how to evaluate this fee.  How do we determine which fee will be charged per employee in the below scenario

• a. PIT Finalization for local staff under company tax code: VND 645,000/person/year
• b. PIT Finalization for local staff under individual tax code (for 2 income sources): VND 1,700,000/person/year

Either way I created a table of fees from Talentnet which defines the cost per employee per month of payroll services.   I put it into a grid which helps me identify the different fees depending on the number of months I stay in business (rows) and the number of employees I have.   The difference comes down to how the cost of the one time, yearly and minimum fees are spread out across the multiple employees. (Talent net has a minimum fee of 6,000,000 VND for upto 10 employees for payroll service, I assume a 600,000 VND fee per employee on top of that)

Essentially I can see that my fees per employee if I start small,  and assume a minimum risk period of 3 months,   I need to be prepared to pay $263 per employee extra per month.  I have not calculated whether this fee includes taxes,  or whether taxes is a straight % on top.  I will ask that question and have an answer in the coming days

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I sent another email to the company called HR2B. And after a couple of emails describing the number of employees I will have in my organization they replied back with a proposal. Their proposal different from talent nets proposal in that it required a 12 month commitment however there were fewer upfront setup costs. To make sure that they were not omitting anything from the proposal I simply sent an email back to them confirming whether the services which talent net charged individually for we're covered in the fees listed on the proposal. Not heard yet but when I find out I will date this post and include the spreadsheet identifying the full cost. Even if it turns out they do charge upfront setup fees it still would be less expensive to go with the company because their fees are on a per month basis not on a payroll cycle basis if I were to pay twice a month.

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I received an email back from HR2B and they explained that they had left out the Setup costs,  however they had accurately included the costs of yearly company PIT (personal income tax) filing as part of the monthly services.

So the resulting fees for HR2B which allows for an apples to apples comparison with Talentnet is below

Basically this reads to me,  that if I had four employees and I only stayed in business for a month,  it would cost me 474.54 per employee for that first month on talent net or $1898.  If I were to stay in business 2 months it would cost me 331$ per employee of 2494$ total.  This takes into consideration the 'one time' costs being front loaded so I pay all of them as part of the first month,  and the monly average slowly dissapates as I am in business longer.

If I go with HR2B,  I can see that my costs are significantly less.  The first month only being 242$ per employee the first month and only 968 total,  or in the second month it is only 152 per employee and a total of 1221$.  The fees are half of Talentnet and from what I can see they offer the same services with a little better responsiveness to email.

This helps me to see what my total cost will be if we do not stay in business long,  but it also shows me the cost as we go longer term and grow.

Updating my bank account to allow me to send international wires

In order to start working with the firm I selected to help me setup the Representative Office in Vietnam,  I need to pay a deposit and to that I need to wire them money.
I thought I should look at banks and accounts which might make it easiest to work with international companies for making payments.  I didn't even know what the important things I should be looking for are but my first thoughts were:

• International Wires
• Exchange Rates
• Transfer Security and Guarantees (I did one lose 4000$ in a Paypal transfer to the Philippines)

I thought I would start with my bank account and start researching what they could do.

I quickly found out that my account,  which I have had since Chase was Washington Mutual back in 2000 was not setup for International Transfers.  And when I clicked the link they presented,  it came up with a 'Page Not Found'.  

I dont have a lot of confidence at this point,  but they are a HUGE company,  I am going to call them to find out what is up.

I started by calling Online Banking - 1-877-CHASEPC (1-877-242-7372)

They helpped me to know what other options they have,  and I created the following table.   

Feature	Business Classic	Business Performance
Bank	Chase (current)	Chase
Monthly Fee	$12	$20
Fee Waived / Average Balance	$5,000	$50,000
Or Fee Waived / Minimum Debit Transactions	5	N/A
Number Of Monthly Transactions Allowed	200	350
Excess Transactions
Maximum Cash Deposits Allowed	$10,000	$20,000
Wire Transfer Fee - Incoming	$15	$15
Wire Transfer Fee - Incoming / # Free / Month	0	2
Wire Transfer Fee - Out / Online	$25	$25
Wire Transfer Fee - Out / Branch	$30	$30
International Wire Transfer Fee - In	$15	$15
International Wire Transfer Fee - Out / Online	N/A	$40
International Wire Transfer Fee - Out / Branch	N/A	$45
Cost of Money Orders / Counter Checks	Not Free	Free
Cons	Cost $15 - $30 month to receive RIO transfers	Can Not Reopen Cheaper Account In the Future if needed
Pros		Can Wire Internationally, but at high Expense

Additionally I called several other banks (Key, US Bank, and Wells)  and each of them had higher fees for transfers AND they did not  give 2 Domestic Wires for Free. - As long as we keep 50K in the bank we get 20$ / month waived.  However even better,  as long as we receive 2 wires in any month,  we are way ahead,  even if we don't maintain $50 average balance.

So,  I called up the representative on the phone last Friday late as I am driving to the Oregon mountains for the weekend and they quickly upgrade the account.

Then today I make my first wire internationally.  We will see how it goes.

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It was easy, went through quickly and the client confirmed quickly that they received it

Working with Grand Waktu - Switch to DNAS for Representative Office

I worked with Grand Waktu for Multiple emails,  they were the best at getting me details about how the process was going to work,  they described many of the steps they were going to take they had lots of detail and other reasons they were my favorite.

I had even selected them and had them send me an invoice,  I setup items with my bank to make sure I could make an international transfer to them,

In my main post about setting up a Representative Office I even describe how I picked Grand Waktu with the reasons and everything.

They had sent me a signed agreement, with their seal.  and I had a few changes for items they missed,  I made the red line changes,  sent it to them,  signed with my name and I was looking for their response before transferring funds.

Then,  I didn't receive the agreement back,  so I emailed again.  I received a email bounce!.

I attempted to send again,  and I got a new bounce.   UH OH!   - it musta been a sketchier company than I thought.  Even if it was an accident,  I cant move forward with this.

So I sent this email off

Hello,  please accept this as my official cancellation of services.   I will not be engaging your services,   As email is our only form of communication so far,  bounced and unreplied emails from the last few days is a MAJOR concern and  is a deal breaker for me.

I did not receive an immediate bounce like previously , so hopefully they got the message this time.

Now I am moving forward with another company that has been very responsive to my emails: DNAS.

This company has been very fast with emails,  day or night,  and as a lesson learned from  Waktu,  I have requested a phone call.   They gave me a phone number,  which was busy so I called again and he said he was off the phone so try again,  I reached him in two rings (I use Google Voice for these types of calls and it cost $.07 a minute)

He was very professional,  and his english was good.  I think I understood him better than he understood me but we were able to talk about some things.   I asked him how long he had been practicing law,  he said he was with DNAS for 5 years and another company for 7 years previous to that.  He described that other than setting up businesses in Hanoi,   he also works on other Commercial accounts and matters.

Just talking to him legitimizes the agreement for me and so now I am setting up to make payment to him.   Before that though I will give about one day to hear back from Waktu,  and since their email MAY have found its way to them this time,  I may end up finding a way to legitimize them as well in the case that it was a temporary issue.

Business Cards In Vietnam

My ramblings and notes as I ordered cards for Vietnam:

I had to get a business card created for vietnam,  so I looked into the translation services and figured out that there were only a couple of things I needed to translate.

Since I already had my business cards saved in Vista Print (which I recommend)  I just had to change the text.

I needed translations for a couple of things.
My tag line,  my title , add USA to my address and add the international prefix to my number.

I was not clear on whether there was a Translation for my name in Vietnamese,   and i did a bit of research, it appears that Michael name to have even in Vietnam,  however my research really just showed that people often translated some other 'random' name to Michael when they came up with an english name, So I could not reverse it. so I had to decide whether to translate my last name.  Which i often do into other languages "Miquel Sangre"  etc.  So I decided to here as well.

This Google Search of a site I found helped me see what people where using for VN and ENG names

I figured religious references would be translated if there was one,  but in Vietnamese it appears that even Saint Michael is still 'saint' But then I dug deeper.  I decided to translate Saint and Arch Angel to vietnamesse and search the translation "Thiên Thần Michael"  which returned more 

So,  reversing that I am no confident that I have a Vietnamese name.

UNTIL!   I decided to ask one of my Vietnamese contacts (in a PS question to a new relationship email) the following.

Michael Blood
PS:   would you say that "Micae Mau" is my "Vietnamese Name"? Have I translated that correctly?

He responded with the following:

No, I do not say your name as “Micae Máu”, just “Michael” only.  In Vietnam, we normally do not convert foreign name into local name like Chinese or simply translate into Vietnamese. Also, there is no same meaning of “Michael” in Vietnamese.  

So,   to reverse what I was 'confident' about,  I revert to 'Michael Mau'
He then added

“Blood” is “Máu” but I think you should choose other nicer Vietnamese name such as Long (Dragon), or Sơn (mountain), or Minh, similar pronunciation as “Michael”

I am not sure how to take this 'nicer' comment.  I am going to stick with Mau.  If it brings noteriety I can handle it.   I officially proclaim my Vietnamese name as 'Michael Mau' (until it changes in the future).  Anyway I have hit the order button on Vista Print.


Other notes on how I decided to translate different elements on my card.

Ultimately I figured that since I will only be doing Custom Website Development in vietnam,  I wanted to get more specific on my vietnam card and decided to only put that as my tag line.

Google translate has multiple suggestions,  and then I went out to research website developers in Vietnam to find out what they called them selves.  Then I translated my sentence back and forth several times. Until I was confident.

For the Chu tich  = president I had to do some research on titles of leaders.  I used Google Translate as well but I was not confident that it would mean the same things (for example President Obama is  Tong thong)  .  So i researched vietnam companies,  then found the Vietnam Airlines and found the president of a company and made sure that was the title I was using would work by translating the headline of a vietnam news site that I googled with the president's name.

So the final result:

The cost at vista print is reasonable,  be sure to select a shipping cost and timeline that works for you,  their shipping can COMPLETELY change the cost of their products.

Next I just have to order and wait,  the problem will only be if I find a translation issue later since I did this  my self.