Forum Moderators: martinibuster
As a non US citizen cashing my cheque is becoming an increasingly difficult prospect. You see not only do I have to arrange for my cheque to be cashed, exchanged into Aussie dollars (which involves the filling in of two forms) - cheques over $#*$!x require further authentication which means the cheque has to be physically sent back to the US before they are cleared. Despite the planes that fly back to the US every day this extra process takes a further 6 weeks!
So the money that I earned on the first day of September is not likely to hit my bank account until the 18th December (if I'm lucky)!
Of course I'm getting used to it now - money still comes to me every month - but its amazing that a company with as many innovations and cutting edge technologies as Google can't arrange for the people who are paying a lot of their bills to get their share of the profits a little quicker than 108 days after they earned them.
Of course I shouldn't complain too much - my real gripe is with Amazon which only sends cheques quarterly. The money I earned from them on the first day of July won't hit my bank account until 18th December also!
I'm in the same train of thought as you. I figured out some time ago its cheaper to run a US currency account in Canada than to cash in a US cheque into a Cdn account. And, like you said, you have the convenience of paying US suppliers in US cash. I've gone a step further and have a TD Visa US dollar card. So whether I purchase in Cdn or US funds, I can pay it all in USD.
Its only when it comes to tax time when it becomes a gamble. If you keep your US payments in US funds throughout the year, the CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) will use its annual average to covert your US income into Cdn income for tax calculations. Depending on how wildly the Cdn dollar has flucuated, it can be good or bad for the tax payer.
I've been doing this for a couple years now.
Couldn't Paypal be a good option? Then Google only has to deal with Paypal for those who opt in, and keeps sending checkes to all others. I think you can have a PayPal account in almost every country?
'As you know, AdSense participants currently receive payments via check in US Dollars. Unfortunately at this time we do not offer alternative payment methods or currencies. However, we hope to add additional payment options in the coming months. Thank you for your patience as we expand our program.'
Sounds like it could be a bit of a put off - but maybe just maybe they are working on something.
Both Kanoodle and Quigo (AdSonar) had reps there and I believe that they both stated that their programs paid in PayPal. If this is an important issue to anyone, you may want to try these out for a while and test test test (as Jen said). Personally, I am skeptical that either will have the type of return as AdSense, so I will wait my net-30 and smile.
Also, The AdSense rep answered some questions during the Q&A. Myself, I asked whether they would be offering an exchange of funds between AdSense earnings and AdWords debts. We had discussed this on here and it only makes sense since their terms say that they can hold an AdSense payment in the event you have outstanding debts in AdWords.
The reaction was interesting in that it truly seemed like they had NEVER thought of this. When the rep asked the crowd if any would find this useful (not thinking there would be a response) almost 100% of the crowd raised their hands. Hopefully the response will make them chew on the idea and work it out so that AdSense Pubs who are also AdWords advertisers can create a cyclical exchange of earnings and expense through Google.
The point of my post is this.... if you did not make it to this Conference, MAKE IT TO THE NEXT ONE! Thanks Brett, Jen and all Mods. I'm gonna go play on the Poker Table I won :)
