In 2015, after several painful months of job applications and interviews, I got a call from my recruiter.
“They’ve offered you the role,” he said.
“Oh - great,” I said, not really sure how I felt. I was excited, sure, but also wary - the role was a contract role.
The recruiter heard my hesitation and asked what the issue was.
“Well - what do I do about the taxes?” I asked.
“Ah, yes,” he said. “Taxes. Thought that might be on your mind.”
But he didn’t offer me any advice; in fact, he told me he couldn’t offer me advice.
“Your best bet,” he said, “is to do some research online or check out some government websites.”
So I did. After a few hours of research I remember thinking that the taxes would be painful, but that I should be able to manage them. So – I accepted the contract role.
And just like that, I was self-employed.
Making common tax mistakes
In my first week on the job, I probably only worked about half the time. The other half, I was busy on the phone to government agencies, doing online research, and meeting potential accountants. Despite all my best intentions, it wasn’t long before I started making a bunch of common mistakes.
I didn’t realise that accountants don’t actually do all the work for you, I registered as a business unnecessarily, I never knew how much money to set aside for my taxes - and I even got stung with a big tax bill early on that I wasn’t expecting! All the admin of invoicing, expenses and tax filings was piling up and it started to make me miserable – it felt like it just wasn’t worth the hassle.
Getting good with taxes
Over a few years, I started to get the hang of things. I created a few basic spreadsheets to keep everything in check, I set calendar reminders on my phone so that I’d make tax payments on time – I started to feel less confused about tax. As someone who loves a new hobby, it wasn’t long before my financial admin became a little pet project of mine. I’d spend a few hours a week reconciling transactions in my accounting software, making payments, shuffling money around in the vague hope of making a little bit of interest on it (I rarely did).
Whilst I’d gained the confidence and knowledge to know how to do my taxes, I was still losing hours of my life to admin. I had to do something about it – I couldn’t stand all that wasted time.
I started off by just improving the spreadsheets I was using. A few new formulas here and there, a little bit of basic coding. It wasn’t long before I’d started to reduce down all that manual effort of the admin. I still had to do a load of things manually, but at least it felt like an improvement.
When a few friends of mine left their salary jobs and went contracting, I offered to help them with their taxes using my spreadsheets. After all, I’d done all the hard work in learning how to handle my taxes – why wouldn’t I help my friends out?
Taking the next step
As I sat there with my spreadsheets one Sunday, doing the financial admin of 4 people (I know… thrilling stuff, right?), it struck me just how much time all self-employed people must be wasting, having to do financial admin themselves. All those wasted hours – all because they weren’t salaried employees.
I’d already created something that solved a lot of the problem – why wouldn’t I start offering that out for other people to use? So I got together with some good friends, and we set about creating a service that took care of all of the financial admin for contractors, freelancers and anyone earning self-employed income.
As soon as we got started, it became clear just how many people were struggling under the weight of financial admin. Soon we had people from all walks of life joining up to Hnry – personal trainers; midwives; graphic designers; project managers. Each of them joined for the same reason – because life’s too short to have to think about tax, and to worry that you’re not getting it right.
In late 2017, we got accepted into the KiwiBank FinTech Accelerator – a 3-month intensive programme to help startup businesses grow and scale. We took on our first investment, brought on staff, and began building up the business.
A few short years later, and Hnry is New Zealand’s fastest-growing tax agency. We have thousands of Kiwis using our service, each of them getting the peace of mind that all their tax payments and filings are taken care of.
We’ve ditched the spreadsheets and replaced them with web and mobile apps, packed with features to make self-employed people’s lives easier and simpler. Invoicing; expense management; online payments; tax filings – Hnry is here to make sure that self-employment is simple, accessible and affordable for everyone.
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