We pride ourselves on building and maintaining relationships with our clients, and are constantly focused on providing top-quality advice and exceptional service wherever in the world they do business. Even before the various COVID restrictions, which saw a radical shift towards remote working arrangements, we had everything in place to be able to service clients hundreds of miles away.
That was the case for our clients, Knoydart Foundation Limited, who are located in Knoydart in the West Highlands. Knoydart Foundation Limited is a community run charity that has two subsidiaries, Knoydart Renewables and Knoydart Trading. Knoydart is traditionally known as ‘The Rough Bounds’ and ‘Scotland’s Last Great Wilderness’ because of its remoteness in the West Highlands. The Knoydart Foundation was set up in 1997, and provides low rental housing for residents, green energy for the population of Inverie through Knoydart Renewables, employment, accommodation for visitors through Scotland’s Favourite Bunkhouse, manages the land through effective deer control and forestry and provides goods to locals and visitors through the SHOP.
Before deciding to move to EQ, Louise Grant, Partner in our Dundee office, and Lynne Vaughan, Senior Manager of EQ Accounting, travelled to Knoydart in XXXX to meet with XXX , and while they were instantly captured by the beauty of the location, they were able to convey our dedication to still offer a personal service, without having to have regular face-to-face meetings.
As Xero Platinum Partners, we are well versed with Xero’s core features and were able to fully support our client who were moved across to Xero shortly before joining us. Our EQ Accounting team are able to use Xero to prepare the monthly payrolls and quarterly management accounts for all 3 of the companies, removing the need for any paperwork to be handed into the office.
Craig Dunn, Operations Manager of Knoydart Foundation, commented:
“We have worked hard to transform Knoydart for local residents and businesses by offering affordable housing, planting trees and supplying electricity around Inverie Bay through Knoydart Renewables. We have never felt as though EQ were ‘too far away’ with Hannah and Gary in regular contact via emails and Louise always just at the other end of the phone. We recently moved our Audit services to EQ and in preparation, we were happy to have Andrew travel across Scotland to see us without any hesitation.”
Despite the distance, we have been able to build up a good relationship with Craig and his team by traveling to Knoydart when needed, using video calls for attending the AGM and being in regular email and phone contact with Louise Costello, Financial Administrator at Knoydart, to answer any queries/questions that she has and to get any further information that we need for our work.
Louise added:
“Knoydart Foundation is going from strength to strength being able to support their aims and ambitions is important to us. Having the technological advances to speak via video calls has really helped cement our relationship, and we feel very much a part of the team, as if we were residents of Knoydart ourselves. We have recently started preparing annual statutory accounts for Knoydart Foundation Limited and Knoydart Trading Limited and the annual CT600 for Knoydart Trading Limited. “
If you would like to stay at the Knoydart Foundation Bunkhouse, or if you would like to ‘Become a Friend of Knoydart’, visit their website: https://knoydart.org/
For more information on how we can support your business, no matter the distance, please get in touch with your usual EQ contact or contact one of our offices.