Project reference · Company set-up & outsourcing
A company founded in wartime, from the first registration to the monthly payroll.
A European trading group decided in 2023 to trade from inside Ukraine, during the war, with a manager on the ground and its board abroad. We made the manager able to work before the company existed, founded the company for a board that never travelled, equipped it with every document Ukrainian law asks for, and have run its HR administration and payroll every month since the first salary.
Before day one the manager was working legally and paid months before the company existed
Structure
12 compliance documents and processes in place at the start
Compliance
Every month pay, reports and HR papers since the first salary
Payroll
2023 → today one client, four stages, still running
Continuity
The shape of it
Four stages, one team
Each bar is one workstream we ran for the client. The bridge came first, the company second, the routine has not stopped.
The brief
What the client actually needed
The group wanted a small trading company in Ukraine: a manager, a trader, logistics and an office, buying and exporting goods. It wanted to start lean, as a dormant company, and only spend money when the trading volume justified it.
The manager was ready long before the company could be. The board decided everything from abroad, and every euro had to be approved by group treasury in advance. They asked us for one partner who could found the company, keep it compliant and run its people administration, with prices they could approve line by line.
Wartime
The war changes the order of things
In peacetime you found a company and then hire. In 2023 the manager had to be working first: we registered him as a private entrepreneur, wrote his service contracts with the group and invoiced his work monthly, so he was legal and paid for the months the company took. Under martial law, notice periods, bank checks and currency control all work differently, and our offers said so before the client signed.
The hard parts
Where it gets difficult
Working before the company exists
A manager on the ground for months with no employer in the country. A private-entrepreneur status with clean contracts and monthly acts bridged the gap, and ended when the company could employ him.
A board that never travels
Charter, resolutions and powers of attorney in two languages, signed and apostilled abroad, couriered in, and signed again when a certificate expired before the registrar saw it.
Proving who owns the owner
Ownership disclosure rules wanted the parent company's full ownership chain, back to its ultimate owners. We built the scheme and the explanations the registrar accepted.
Banks that ask everything
Two banks, two rounds of know-your-customer questions, letters on plans, customers and suppliers, and currency control for the first euro of capital.
Budgets approved line by line
Group treasury approved each service separately: HR administration, payroll, accounting, compliance, capital, VAT. Each offer showed exactly what it covered, in the currency of payment.
Planning our own hand-over
When the group moved its books onto its own accounting server, we selected and contracted the software provider ourselves and kept HR and payroll, so nothing broke at year end.
What we did
Bridge, found, equip, run
- 2023 — Bridge. Private-entrepreneur registration, bank accounts and service contracts for the future manager; first offer for the company within weeks.
- 2023–24 — Found. Name, activities, charter, parent resolutions, powers of attorney, ownership disclosure, registration, two banks and the charter capital.
- 2024 — Equip. Labour rules, pay and bonus policy, trade secrets, data protection, safety management, business-trip rules, contracts, a VAT refund guide and the company's first payroll.
- 2025–26 — Run. Twice-monthly pay, timesheets, leave, trips and reports, every month; accounting handed over to the client's own team when its server was ready.
Founding a company is a few weeks of paperwork. Making it work in wartime, for owners who decide from abroad, is the part that takes judgement.
How we work
We do not show you another company’s name
The client, its owners and its people are not named here, and they will not be named in a meeting either. We are glad to talk this project through in detail. What we will not do is discuss the last client that way with you, or you with the next one.
Next step
Opening a company in Ukraine from abroad?
Tell us what you want to do in the country and who will run it. We will tell you honestly what the set-up takes, what it costs month by month and what the war changes.