Business Maintenance
Business maintenance are business services in Russia which proved to be most valuable for our customers. We offer them either as an integral part of ExpaTek program or separate:
1. Trade Representation
If you are thinking of presence in Russia but haven’t made up your mind on your own office yet, you can use ExpaTek for that. We can serve as your trade vehicle with great infrastructure. With that you’ll be able to conduct both wholesale and retail trade without creating your own infrastructure in Russia. We can offer you sign a trade representation agreement and localize your startup business with ExpaTek. That will help you sell in compliance with Russian regulation before you open your own office here. This is a great supplement to our Trial Sales tool. With trial sales you still stand responsible for drafting contracts, banking and regulation in Russia. Trade representation covers that making ExpaTek your business administrator in addition to the trial sales function. We’ll charge commission from your trade operations which means $0,00 if there are none. The commission starts from 3-5% and can be more depending on the complexity of your trade operations. ExpaTek has people with engineer’s degree and you can use them to provide technical support, installation and surveillance of your equipment in Russia.
2. Tender Bidding
You can also use ExpaTek as your tender bidder in Russia. Wear rate of Russian infrastructure is 60-70% which is higher than in other BRICS. The government is set to reinvest oil and gas revenues into infrastructure to support expanding economy. For that reason it has recently introduced tender regulations which make application process far more transparent. Another source of opportunities are tenders from big companies looking to modernize their facilities. No matter where a tender comes from, there are big opportunities for technological companies here. Russian suppliers often just do not have comparable technologies. You will submit your information in English to us and we’ll do the rest in Russian. We’ll either bid on your behalf or be your efficient clerk filling out all applications needed. That means you can lock in the whole tender process with us. We’ll charge a flat fee depending on the complexity of your documentation and tender procedures. And we have people with engineer’s degree to provide technical support, installation and surveillance of your equipment in Russia.
3. Company formation
We’ll select the most suitable legal status for you, prepare the formation documents and file them with all kinds of application forms with Russian authorities. The most popular choice is a Moscow based LLC (GmbH, Ltd, Srl as European equivalents) with non Russian members, the price starts from $300. Please note that company formation is a bit more formalistic in Russia than in most developped countries. For instance, right after its formation with Russian Revenue Service, a number of other authorities have to be notified of its existence. All your formation documents will have to be in Russian, part of them need to be notarized but we’ll do all that for you in a diligent and responsible manner.
4. Bookkeeping and Accounting
Russian companies have to keep minutes, registries and protocols. Authorities here rarely want to see them but you are still advised to keep them handy, that is called bookkeeping. Unless you know how to do that and have time for that, you need help. Even if your Russian company has no operations, it already bears tax reporting responsibilities before Russian state. For instance, an LLC (GmbH, Ltd, Srl as European equivalents) has to submit tax declarations each quarter, i.e. 4 times a year no matter whether you have activities or not. Russian Revenue Service has a right to check your tax files no more than once in a 3 month period. Things get a bit trickier when you start hiring because then social taxes apply which have to be streamlined into different funds. Like in any other economy, there are loopholes and different tax brackets which will save you money, all that is called accounting.
The good news is that Russia has lower tax burden on business compared to many developped economies and you can count for bigger margins here. Our experience proves that worthwhile to bundle bookkeeping and accounting as 1 package.
The price depends on the turnover but you will spend less with ExpaTek than hiring your own bookkeeper or accountant in Russia.
5. Recruitment in Russia
ExpaTek will recruit people to staff your company in Russia. Just because we launch your product here from the beginning we know well what kind of people you’ll need to keep the product successful. And just because we are in contact with you from the beginning, we know what kind of people you’ll be comfortable with. We know local professional and educational standards to secure efficient manpower. We recruit sales managers, accountants and administrative staff charging you 50% of their 1st month salaries. To give you a rough idea, an experienced sales manager in Moscow will cost you about $3 000, an accountant will be about $2 000 while administrative staff starts from $1 000 (all salaries are net).
ExpaTek will support your Russian company with its own manpower in case something goes wrong on your newly formed team. That is free within a three month period provided we have recruited the person.