ITB DIGITAL Sep 2025 v3spreads - Flipbook - Page 36
MEMBER
PROFILE
THE TECHNOLOGY TRAILBLAZERS
LINDSAY ELLIS
GREG UNSWORTH
LINDSAY ELLIS CPA
CO-FOUNDER, ACCOUNTING SUPPORT,
SUMDAY
BURNIE, AUSTRALIA
In 2021, Lindsay Ellis CPA needed a tool to help
his clients account for their carbon emissions.
He was working at ER Advisory at the time,
a Tasmanian-based practice he co-founded with
Jessica Richmond, and says that conventional
spreadsheets were not up to the task. So, he
hired a software developer to build a new
carbon-accounting platform.
The platform showed potential beyond
ER Advisory, so Ellis and Richmond sold their
practice, secured A$2 million in pre-seed funding
and launched Sumday — a cloud-based platform
for accounting and reporting on carbon emissions.
“I’m an accountant, not a coder,” Ellis says.
“But what I learned as a CPA was helpful in
understanding the fundamentals of building
a software company, pitching to investors and
demonstrating that we had a plan for growing
the business.”
36 INTHEBLACK Sep/Oct 2025 SPECIAL EDITION
SHAHAN PIERIS
Ellis began his accounting career at PwC
and completed a master’s in sustainability and
social innovation at HEC Paris Business School.
After returning to Australia, he worked for
a mining company on a large decarbonisation
project before co-founding his practice.
Sumday recently formed a partnership with
accounting platform Xero to offer its 4.2 million
customers free access to Sumday for 12 months.
“There’s been a narrative around carbon
accounting that it’s somehow inaccessible for
small businesses, but with Scope 3 becoming
a focus, larger corporates are asking small
suppliers about their emissions and wanting
that data to be granular and auditable,” Ellis says.
While Sumday’s focus remains on carbon
accounting, Ellis says the company is exploring other
areas of financial and non-financial disclosure.
“Accounting standards are emerging that support
businesses to be consistent and comparable in their
reporting, so natural capital and social impact reporting
are on our road map,” he says. “Businesses have
always needed robust reporting, but they’re now
making those decisions through a different lens.”
