We interviewed Nat Jeanneret, a Graphic Designer from Hobart, Tasmania, to find out how using Hnry has saved him $2,500/yr on accounting fees.
How did you hear about Hnry?
Hnry turned up on my socials. I saw an ad which caught my eye. It said: “Never think about tax again. Hnry automatically pays and files taxes for self-employed Australians”. As anybody who has worked in business for themselves knows, there’s never enough time to sit down and do the books. It can be a real struggle. So a service that promises to sort out tax for people in self-employment appealed to me massively.
Did you have an accountant or did you do your tax work yourself?
Ten years ago I did it all myself but then I racked up a nice tax debt so I felt I needed to get an accountant. They were lovely people and I had no problems dealing with them. But it was expensive and as a small fish, when you are a solopreneur, generally you feel like you are the least of their priorities.
It was also cumbersome. I was using Xero, Receipt Bank, and Harvest for my estimates and invoicing and then I would have to sync all my invoices over to Xero to keep the accountants happy. I’d be doing all the account reconciliation and generating a report. Then the accountant would generate their own report and charge me for the privilege. It got to the point where I started to think, what am I actually paying for?
Incidentally I found Xero really difficult. As a visual person and as a graphic designer, I found it really frustrating to use.
Did moving over to Hnry make a difference?
Yes. With Hnry I feel confident my tax commitments are going to be sorted.
I used to get really frustrated with having to put money aside in advance, trying to work out how much was mine and how much I owed the taxman. Hnry sorts all that out for me in real time.
There’s also a significant cost saving. I probably save between $2000 and $2500 a year. I’m no longer paying an accountant $400 a quarter for BAS lodgement plus another $1800 for accounting at the end of the year. I’m also saving money by not having to pay subscription fees for Harvest, Xero and Receipt Bank.
Hnry’s fees are just 1% of my earnings capped at $1,500. That’s a no brainer for me. It’s fantastic.
Are there any downsides to using Hnry?
It doesn’t do everything I could do before – like I can’t pretty up my invoices quite as much as I could in Harvest. On the other hand, I’m no longer spend heaps of time stuffing around trying to pretty up invoices. There are bigger tools out there. But I don’t need bigger tools. I just need one that actually works.
What convinced you to sign up as a client?
Actually, I needed quite a bit of reassurance to make the decision.
One thing that gave me faith in the company was I love New Zealand. I know they’re only just getting started in Australia but Hnry has been established in New Zealand for a few years and it seems the Kiwis are really happy with them.
I turned up a discussion on Reddit where there were some Kiwi contractors talking about it. That proved to me that, OK, obviously this is a product that has benefits and is working for real people.
It probably took me about a week or two of looking at it on and off, watching the videos and reading up on them. At the end of the day I thought I’m sick of managing this accounting stuff. If Hnry does what it says on the tin, then I’m in.
Have you recommended Hnry to anyone else?
Yes, I have as a matter of fact. I taught a diploma of graphic design and I knew that most of the people on the course would go on to be self-employed. And I’m like this is a new solution, this is what I’ve moved to, and I’m really pleased with it.
How’s your experience been so far?
I’m three and a half months in and at the moment it’s fantastic. I’ve yet to go through the end of year tax process. I want to see how it works with the tax lodgments too - which is a big part of the appeal for me. But so far everything looks good and it seems to be working well.
It really has taken a load off my mind and given me one less thing to worry about. I’ve employed people in the past but at the moment I’m just happy to be earning my money and doing my thing as a sole trader and for my bookwork not to be a stress.
It’s also nice to see they’re making improvements to the platform all the time, you know, such as now being able to add extra formatting to the text field. That’s reassuring to me as a customer that there are people behind the scenes who want to make the experience better. It’s a bit more fresh than Xero. Which has a very stale feeling and I was with them for five years.
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