Every move leaks
Day one of real accounting reveals a thesis: money loses a little at every transaction, a leak, una fuga, and the job is to plug the holes. Wise charges per transfer with discounts on larger ones, so three one-million transfers cost more than one three-million transfer; each dollar-to-peso and peso-to-dollar conversion shaves a bit, so cloud services should be paid dollar-to-dollar; Colombia's 4x1000 tax bites every account except the one you register as exempt; and Bancolombia-to-Bancolombia is free. The optimization: send one big transfer to the Bancolombia business account and distribute from there. Plus the DIAN-tidiness move: separate Julia's account from Juan's, because a couple sharing one raises tax-authority suspicion over time.
// trace: where this idea came from
- ↳ video diary @ 17:31 (cada movimiento es una fuga)
- ↳ video diary @ 14:16 (una transacción grande cuesta menos que la suma de pequeñas)
- ↳ Entry 231-2: Two days, then write the humans (las comisiones de Wise que aquí se optimizan)
The investment landed, and with it the first day of real accounting, which surfaces a thesis: money loses a little at every transaction, and the job is to find the holes. Juan calls it a leak, “una fuga,” and the image is exact, “cuanto más se mueve la plata, más se va sacando un poquito” ▸ 17:31. Every hop, every conversion, every tax is a small friction, and the optimization is to move the money as few times and as directly as possible.
The specifics form a map of the leaks. Wise charges per transfer with a discount for size, so three one-million transfers, at say ten dollars each, cost thirty, where a single three-million transfer costs one fee ▸ 14:16. Currency conversion leaks twice, dollar to peso and back, so cloud services billed in dollars should be paid dollar to dollar, a DollarApp card the candidate for that ▸ 17:57. Colombia’s 4x1000 tax skims four pesos per thousand off every account except the single one you register as exempt, which is why locals keep one main account ▸ 19:01. And Bancolombia-to-Bancolombia is free ▸ 18:46.
mueve la plata pocas veces y directo →
The route that plugs the most holes: one big Wise transfer into the Bancolombia business account, then free internal distributions to each founder ▸ 18:38, rather than routing through a personal account, which Gemini warns turns into a bookkeeping nightmare when the DIAN asks why a million-peso salary looks like three million in income ▸ 15:31. The same logic drives the day’s errand: opening a separate Bancolombia account for Julia, because a couple sharing one raises the tax authority’s suspicion over time, and separating them “para evitar dolores de cabeza contablemente” ▸ 21:54. A budget isn’t only what you spend; it’s the sum of what quietly evaporates between accounts…