[00:00:00] Fi
Hello Instagram, it's so great to see you. I am here live on Instagram to talk about why I love Soul Traders so much, and I am going to be joined by Ollie, who is the amazing founder of Rounded, which is be beautiful. Uh oh, I see Ollie's coming now. Great. So the founder of Rounded, so Rounded is a beautiful bookkeeping software application that's designed exclusively for sole traders, especially creative sole traders.
So I'm going to add Ollie in now. Can't wait to introduce you to Ollie. So let's see if we can get him in now.
Olly
Hi Fi. Hi Ollie. How are you? Really well, thanks. How are you?
Fi
Awesome, Ollie. It's so great to be with you here on Instagram Live. This is the first time you've been on Instagram Live. It is, but it certainly is not your first radio.
So you have been in business for quite some time now. You're a season professional in the small business world. Would you like to tell us a little bit about why you love. Soul Train is,
Olly
I just love the diversity. I mean, uh, you know, the, one of the great things about having been involved with rounded for nearly 10 years is that it's just unbelievable the way that, you know, the ideas that people have that they can build a career out and the creativity of, of, uh, Australians just never, you know, never ceases to Aate.
So, you know, that's just, I, I've, I've always found that like, wow, you know, have people. Sole traders, uh, who use around it, who do the most unbelievable things. So there's, there's one guy that makes custom sales for yachts. There's another guy who does sheep ultrasound, so he has an ultrasound machine and he, his customers are farmers and he goes and he scans sheep and he tells the farmers which ones are pregnant and which ones aren't.
Outside of that, obviously we've got the photographers, the graphic designers, the copywriters, the web designers, and everything in between. It's just fascinating.
Fi
I love it. Yeah, look, I think, I mean, I am a passionate supporter and diehard of the small business world. I just love small business so much.
I've been working with small business owners for 25 years now. I know I only look like I'm 20, but I'm not Just kidding. And yeah, one of the things about sole traders is that sole traders make up the majority of small businesses in Australia. There's millions of us. And we are contributing so many incredible things to the Australian economy.
I love how small business owners like the two people you just mentioned, someone doing ultrasounds on sheep and somebody making sales for yachts. Like where would you even go to find those particular services and products if there wasn't an amazing sole trader doing it? So, yeah, absolutely love that we have that sort of shared passion for what sole traders bring to the Australian economy. It's awesome. Yeah.
Olly
Oh, absolutely. And, uh, you know, part of the challenge of being a sole trader is finding other people that have that same passion and, and you know, again, what what connects, uh, sole traders, I think, is that everybody loves what they do. Mm-hmm. You know, they're really passionate about their chosen skill.
They're really passionate about, you know, running their business and supporting their clients. And, uh, you know, obviously in these days they need, uh, you know, the tools and equipment to be able to. To do that properly?
Fi
Mm. Let's take a little sidetrack. I'm gonna go full accountant mode. Some of you may or may not know that I actually am a chartered accountant.
I'm very highly credentialed in the accounting world. I wanna go for a minute into what is a sole trader and how that differs from being a company. We won't get into the full on technicality of it. So a sole trader in the legal sense is where you run your business. On your own, your business, and you are effectively the same legal entity.
You have an ABN, but essentially all the money that's coming in and out of your business as a sole trader is the same as if it was coming in and out of your sort of personal bank account. The way that your tax is treated is as though it all happened to you. A company is where you are. Employed by a company that you own.
So the company set up is generally for people who [00:04:00] want to either pay themselves wages or they want to have a team and or they've got a bigger business and they want to start kind of getting a little bit serious. Now what I'm seeing is a lot of. Sole traders who are operating as companies. So we have lots of different diversity in terms of the sole trader legal identity.
And then we have the solo business owners like myself. So I work as the sole director in my company, and I employ lots of creatives and contractors through my business. So I think it's. Good to just kind of unpack the difference between what actually is a sole trader in the legal sense and how that differs from a company, but then also this really big move towards, you know, being a sole trader who might be operating through a company or, or something like that.
What are you seeing in your client? In terms of sole trader company, that sort of thing?
Olly
Yeah, look, I think the first thing to say is I'm not an accountant, right? So, you know, I have to be quite careful about, you know, how I talk about these things. So if I do say anything wrong for you, please do do correctly.
So I think being a sole trader is often we view it as. The most simple way to be able to get into business for yourself, right? What, what it means is that you're not worrying about employees. Uh, you know, you're not worrying about the sort of the legal structure about being a business. It basically says, here I am.
I'm Ollie. I'm gonna do X, Y, and z. And here's, you know, here's how I do it with my, very simply, with my A BN. And, uh, you know, as you know, may or may not need to, so we won't even get into the whole GST thing. But essentially that means that you're, you're able to provide services, provide products. You're telling the a TO that you know, you are running a business, you are self-employed. And also from a, an accounting and a tax point of view, it means that it's the simplest way. To also to look out a after your money. Mm-hmm. Uh, in that you employ what's called cash accounting. We're getting a little bit technical there, but essentially it means that when you're paid, you mark you, you know, you log that income when you have an expense, when money goes out, you log that expense and it's just what comes in and what comes out when [00:06:00] it comes in, when it comes out.
And at the end of the day, you pay your tax based on personal income tax. So that's, you know, really simple. But there are. Obviously, uh, restrictions with that around things like payroll and employees. So as a sole trader, there's nothing to stop you collaborating with people, working with other sole traders or working with companies to provide additional products and services. But you can't have employees, can't payroll people. And I guess that's, uh, part of the journey. You know, we see a lot of our customers that will start perhaps as a side hustle, you know, something they do on the weekend or, or at night in conjunction with. You know, a more traditional employee role. Uh, and as their business grows, they go, right, we're gonna take the leap and we're gonna start our own business. And they start as a sole trader and their business grows and grows and grows and they get to that point, but they then it's like, oh, I have to register for GST. So they register for GST and they get bigger and bigger and bigger. And some, some continue to be sole traders, but some have ambitions beyond that and quite naturally.
And then they say, okay, well, you know, my accountant is advising me that legally, if. I need to get employees, or I need payroll, then I need to sort of now step up into being a company. And again, that has pros and cons. It's, it's more complex. The regulatory and reporting requirements are, are a lot more onerous, you know, and you need different tools and you then have to start worrying about, perhaps worrying about employees.
And that kind of thing. So, so there's pros and cons, but it does allow you to build a bigger, more substantial business. So I think, you know, for us, we're always saying, you know, make sure that you've got the right people in your corner. You know, an accountant that you can trust, somebody that's giving you the right kind of advice to say, you know, at your staging business, this is where you need to be.
Fi
Love that. There was a question in the comments, which you actually kind of answered, but I'll answer as well. As an accountant who's not a tax agent but is a BAS agent. So Zoe's asked, can you still be a sole trader and bring in subbies? Yes, absolutely. So a sole trader can do almost anything that a company can do.
It's just that it is a different structure, a different level of risk. So you'll find that if you are employing a lot of subcontractors or your [00:08:00] business is really growing, like maybe it's getting above a hundred K turnover, maybe it's 150, 200 K turnover, that's when you go to your accountant and say, Hey, do I need to review my structure is being a sole traders.
Still appropriate or should I be moving into, you know, a company, but I don't know about you, Ali, but I kind of feel like being a sole trader is kind of like a vibe. It's not necessarily just about whether or not you are technically a sole trader or a company. I feel like there's this kind of vibe, this movement of, there's an amazing book called Company of One by Paul Jarvis, who I'm sure most people here will have read.
And the idea is that. Why are we always pursuing bigger when instead we could be pursuing better? And I think that's what I love about this kind of vibe, this community of sole traders, is that we may or may not have teams of people and they might be employees or they might be contractors, but it's kind of doing things in a way that allows us.
To stay nimble, agile, and to be able to take on [00:09:00] crazy projects like building an ultrasound machine for a sheep. I'm quite fascinated with that, that you just can't do. Once you start to get bigger. It's harder and harder to take kind of big creative moves once you have a bigger kind of business machine.
But what I really wanna understand is you saw a gap in the market. You had a look around at zero mild QuickBooks. God help us. And you said to yourself, there is a gap here for small business owners who are sole traders with their bookkeeping. Tell us about the features that you included in Rounded and what you strategically didn't include in rounded, because we, yeah, just really wanna understand.Stand your thought process about creating rounded?
Olly
Well, yeah. I mean, uh, it was, it was nine years ago. I wish I could say that the original idea was mine. It wasn't. It was my now business partner Grant who was a freelancer, video maker, videographer, photographer himself. Cool. He found, you know, at the time that there was just nothing that was fit for [00:10:00] purpose.
You know, products out there were either too expensive and too complicated, overblown not fit for use in the Australian marketplace. Didn't understand things like GST and that kind of thing, and just not really well built. I mean, as recently as, as nine years ago, you know, there was really no such thing as sort of mass market.
Consumer software now it's different. We're all used to Spotify, Netflix, all of those things. The kind of software that we're all sort of familiar with that are built for the individual to use. Mm-hmm. And we're used to very high quality experiences, but back then there was nothing. So Grant built the first version of Rounded to suit his own purpose, which was a, A fit for purpose counting tax admin software that was for use in the Australian, in the Australian marketplace.
And uh hmm. So, but that was kind of the, the first step that he took. And not only that, you know, of course Xero was around and Myer was around, but they, they're built for, again, they're built for small business and, and to our previous part of the discussion, you know, small business and so [00:11:00] traders, they're very, very different.
They're different people. They need different things, different tools. So it's not to say that zero Maib and all the rest of them aren't great tools. They are, but they're not built for sole traders. Where rounded at the time was the first. Uh, you know, one in the local marketplace really to, to be built for that.
So, you know, we looked at it and we thought, well, you know, what do sole traders need as an accountant? I know you may disagree with me, most of our customers don't need a balance sheet. Agree. Right? Okay. And so we did, we haven't built one, uh, you know, a sole trader by definition doesn't need payroll.
Mm-hmm. So we've left that out. And so rounded is defined as much by what we don't have as, as what we do. And, and, uh, you know, we've never chased small business. We still don't have payroll despite repeated requests. A dashboard still doesn't give company tax rates because you can't just give company tax rates in isolation.
That suggests we offer for, for a company when, when we're not, even though there are many pty yds that, that use us regardless. So we are very, very fixated and focused on the a BN sole trader in Australia that need to [00:12:00] get paid on time. Mm. They need to be able to, you know, take payments from multiple sources, credit cards, pause, whatever it may be.
They need to be able to track their time and expenses, which is why we've built a, a time tracker and they need to be prepared for tax. Whether that be, you know, the quarterly PAYG, whether that be GST management, whether that be the end of year income tax, they need all of that stuff. So they're the things that we focused on and there's a, you know, a thousand features in on the periphery around to help support those things.
They are the. The main focus of, of what we do.
Fi
I love it. Somebody that's with us live now, Kira is my podcast editor and admin assistant. She's amazing. She uses rounded and freaking loves it. Some of the clients that are in my Good Money club, Janine Staton, who is an amazing web designer, Renee from Cultivate Assembly, who is a designer and brand strategist.
They're obsessed with rounded, like obsessed. And I think what they really love about it is that they tell me that when they go in there, it just feels calm. Everything just [00:13:00] makes sense. It's pretty, it's beautiful. I agree that most business owners do not need a balance sheet. And in fact, it's the one report that most business owners.
Struggle with the most, and as a sole trader, a balance sheet is to some degree, a little bit irrelevant. There are still things that we need to make sure are correct, like your bank account needs to be the correct amount and you need to know how much DST to pay, et cetera. But I just love that you've actually leaned into thinking what are the things that are hard?
For small, really, you know, solo business owners, tracking time, getting paid, getting the bass lodged, having an understanding or a rough idea of how much tax you're going to need to pay in the future. And then just keeping it really simple, light and agile. I think it's a, it's an incredible product and yeah, I just keep hearing about how incredible it is.
So well done on, yeah. Seeing that awesome gap in the market, the, the only other thing to mention is that there are ways to make managing your business finances a little bit less intimidating.
Olly
And, and part of that is just the terminology used, right? So if you use a, a traditional platform, you know, you're worrying about debtors ledger and charts of account.
Some things like that, which are all very sort of accounting terms, but instead of a debtors ledger, we just show you a list of overdue invoices in instead of a chart of accounts, we just show you an expense report. Mm. You know, so we try and make the terminology unintimidating. We try and make the user interface unintimidating and pleasing on the eye, and they see they could seemingly be sort of seen as fairly sort of superficial things. But they're not, not for the sole trader, not certainly not for creative sole traders. Yeah. Um, you know, who kind of want things to, to look nice and appear nice and feel friendly and, uh, you know, we hope that our customers who see value in what we do also see rounded as a, as a fairly freelancer and sole trader friendly company.And we try to be empathetic to our customers and understand that, you know, most of our customers are really super passionate about what they do. They're very skilled and very talented, but not all of them have a great deal of business training, and that's the customer that we aim to try and support.
Fi
This is a really good segue, talking about this sort of desire that we have now for beautiful software. We are very spoiled, to be honest. The amount of platforms, apps. Really affordable subscription based options that we have at the moment compared to 10 or 20 years ago. And I think what's happened is the sole trader kind of world to me, as someone who's worked, uh, with sole traders for 25 years, I feel like in the last decade or so there's been a really big shift in terms of what we think about with a sole trader.
I used to think of a sole trader as like a. Plumber or someone that was like a tradie kind of physical work, that sort of thing. But to me now, when I think about a sole trader, of course there are a lot of tradies that are sole traders, but from my perspective, most sole traders are actually creative.
Passionate freelancer style businesses? Is that what you are seeing in your rounded community?
Olly
Yes and no. I mean, rounded gives us a really [00:16:00] direct insight into the current state of small business in the country. So, you know, where when we started, uh, you know, our biggest demographic and biggest growth came from creatives.
But right now, the growth in that area is certainly being impacted by things like ai. Mm-hmm. You know, where there's a lot of work that can be automated, perhaps the, uh, you know, there, there aren't quite the, the volume of opportunities out there that, that there used to be for somebody coming into the industry right now.
Whereas, you know, you look at the trading side of things where, you know, certainly in, uh, Melbourne, Sydney, you know, one of the biggest challenges that we have as a, as a society right now is housing. Mm-hmm. You know, and there's all sorts of infrastructure projects. So the requirement for tradies is huge, and we are actually seeing at the moment that our biggest growth is on the trade side of things because opportunities seem to be there.
But what we're also finding though is, is that those people like yourselves who've been in the the business and the industry for a while, they're learning ways. To be able to adapt as we all do. It's like, okay, well maybe I can't just pump out 300 words as an easy blog now, but I can talk from experience, I can analyze, I can do things that AI can't do.
And it's the same on the creative side with graphic designers and that sort of thing. So what we're finding is, is that the. Bar is being lifted, you know, on that creative side by the, the input of ai and those freelancers and sole traders who are still absolutely dedicated to their craft and dedicated to running their own freelance business are, are just adapting and finding different ways to do things.
Fi
Yeah, I love that. I wanna touch on this point that one of the big problems in Australia at the moment is housing availability. I think a really big problem that sits alongside that is housing affordability. And one of the things that you and I both know is that. So many Australians are sole traders and self-employed, and housing affordability is even more difficult when you are a business owner because for whatever reason, the banks have decided that we are less of a sure thing than somebody who is [00:18:00] employed.
So what I love about Rounded and even the work that I'm doing, and we'll talk about Ripple Festival in a moment, is we want. Sole traders and small business owners to be financially viable because if you want to be able to tackle, you know, sure there's housing availability, which is a huge problem that's been happening for decades.
But on the other side of it, it's, we need sole traders to be making some freaking money. Like when you look at the stats about what sort of profit and take home pay. Sole traders are actually making the numbers are really terrifying. So, uh, in, I think it was the 2023 census that I got this data from, 25% of small business owners are bringing in less than $50,000 a year.
So a quarter of our sole traders. Aren't bringing in 50,000 or more, and that's before expenses. So there is a big issue with financial viability in the sole trader world, and what I love about rounded and your whole [00:19:00] approach to just owning and loving the sole trader. Space is let's get you paid, let's help you to work through the money side of your business by trying to make it as easy as we possibly can.
Yes. I just wanted to note there that I see rounded as actually being a really helpful part of that housing affordability problem that sole traders have.
Olly
Well, I think there's, there's, there's a couple of things there. You know, one is if you're, you're somebody that wants to borrow money, whether that be for a mortgage or a personal loan or, or anything else.
You know, being able to demonstrate to a, a, a finance company that you have, uh, properly structured, well managed business finances is a huge thing. Again, it might not change the, the numbers. But being able to talk about your business, talk about your income, talk about your finances with confidence is a massive part of being able to, to persuade somebody to, to lend you money. And, and that's one of the things that rounded, strives to assist our customers to do is, is be confident. With their finances and make more informed, uh, and more confident decisions about what they're able to do. And so that's just something that we find is a constant challenge to be able to say to people, you know, who we get.
You know, we have conversations all the time with people that say, I'm not, I'm not good with my finances. I'm. Not confident with my finances, but we, we aim to try and, and demonstrate that actually it doesn't have to be hard, it doesn't have to be overwhelming, especially tax time. If you can add a little bit of structure and you've got the right tools, that can take a lot of the grunt work out of it for you.
That, that it can be easier and, and, you know, I guess the number one, you know, starting a business 1 0 1. Get a business bank account. Mm. You know, one of the things that makes managing business finance is so much more difficult is when you're having to sift through Woolworths and coffee and you know, stuff for the kids and whatever it may be, where really if you had a business bank account with a, a credit card or a debit card that's connected to it, and all your money, all your money for your business guys in there and all your out.
Coming outgoings and expenses comes out, you know what you're looking at. And that in itself can transform how long it takes, uh, somebody to, to manage their business [00:21:00] finances and to keep things on track. So I think, uh, yeah, you know, it doesn't have to be that hard if you're just prepared to kind of focus on it a bit and kind of take ownership of it.
Fi
You are singing my language. I think the simpler that we can make money, the more money that we can make. That is what my whole business is about. Look, that seems like a really good segue to talk about why Mia and I. Have created a festival for sole traders. So we think that the, you know, the small business world has really evolved.
We've been through a really strange kind of five years. We think we all need to get together in one space to work out how can we be more sustainable as sole traders and small businesses. How can we be profitable? How can we tap into creativity to fight against. AI and all of these things that are kind of changing the landscape of what we are doing.
How can we be innovative? How can we collaborate? How can we do things differently better? And the reason why we've created this festival [00:22:00] in the way that we have is because we actually wanna have fun too. Like why shouldn't sole traders and business owners be able to go to an event where they're learning, they're developing, they're networking, they're meeting other business owners, and they're also kicking back and listening.
Listening to amazing live music, seeing art happen before their eyes and listening to comedy. So that is why we have created Ripple Festival and we really would love for Soul Traders to consider coming to Ripple. We're pretty sure that Ollie and some of his team for Rounder will be at the festival too.
So yeah, I think it's a really great opportunity to. Get in real life with some other business owners, talk to 'em about what they're doing. Are they using rounded? Is that part of their structure? If so, how do they use it? How does it work for them? Learning about how to use ai, I must say I'm a dinosaur. I don't use tap GPT at all.
Uh, one day I am sure I'll have to, but you know, I think because there are so many small businesses and so many sole traders in Australia, there are [00:23:00] millions of us, like literally millions of us. When we see ourselves as sitting alone in these little silos, it's really hard to be motivated and excited about your business, but when you realize that you are part of this huge community of small businesses, sole traders doing amazing things, like making sales for yachts, doing ultrasounds for lambs.
Editing podcasts, creating designs, building beautiful websites, teaching people about money and business, which is what I do. That's why we've created Ripple Festival as a celebration of all that small business is, and we know that the majority of people there will be sole traders. At least 60 to 70% of our audience is a sole trader.
So, yeah. Any last thoughts from you, Ali, about your love for sole trainer?
Olly
Well, look, I mean, I think what you're doing with Ripple is, is brilliant. I love the fact that you found, uh, something slightly different to, to do with the conference. That over and above just, uh, the speakers and, and the networking, you know, like all great partnerships [00:24:00] that we get involved in, uh, it was brought to our attention by a mutual contact and a rounded customer said, Hey, you guys have just gotta see what these guys are doing.
And, and so that's how it all kicked off. And, you know, we've got a, a long history of. Trying to support these sorts of events. So it's great that we're still in discussion around how, uh, you know, rounded will be able to support Ripple more broadly as well. So, uh, you know, to me it sounds like a, a really good idea.
Hopefully you guys are gonna get a lot of people there and, uh, it's going to, you know, become everything that you hope it will.
Fi
Love it. Any last thoughts for anyone wanting to try rounded? What's the best way for them to get in touch or find out more about your awesome. Platform to go to the website.
Olly
It's really simple. You can set up a free trial, no credit card required, so it's absolutely a free swing. Pretty sure that you'll know within a few minutes whether you're gonna love it or you hate it. It's pretty, uh, you know, as English people call it, it's Marmite, you know, there, there's no middle ground.
You're either gonna love it or hate it. We have, uh, live chat support that's there, uh, nine 9:00 AM to 8:00 PM Monday to Friday, and on the weekends as well. Well, so if you've got any questions, if [00:25:00] you need any help, we are there to, uh, we are there to help. So please give us a go. I've got any questions, let us know.
You can access the live chat via website as well. So yeah, it should, uh, we, we look forward to, to welcoming all the, the, the Ripple customers. I love it. You are breaking the mold with amazing customer service. You do not hear about that very often from a tech platform. So love that. So just to wrap up, we both love sole traders.
We think that they're doing incredible things in the world. We think that the easier we can make money for them, the better and rounded really helps to make money easier, simpler, faster, and just having what you need rather than every single thing. We think that all Soul Traders should consider coming to Ripple Festival in November, 2025, and I think that all sole traders and.
Sole traders by, you know, association should be having a look at rounded as their bookkeeping platform. Thank you so much for your time today, Ollie. I'm sure we'll see you again somewhere on a computer screen or email. Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully in person at Ripple Fest as well. Yes, [00:26:00] let's make it happen.
Thanks for your support. Thanks a lot. You too.
