City view – Paul Topham is managing partner of Azets ’ Durham office .
New name for high-profile accountancy group
PRIZED AZETS
There ’ s a new name above the office entrances of one of the most long-established and respected accountancy practices in the North-East .
Formerly Baldwins , the firm has rebranded as Azets , and is now a top ten UK accountancy firm with the largest UK network of local offices and more than 160 offices worldwide .
Paul Topham , managing partner of Azets ’ Durham office , on the Belmont Business Park , said : “ In September we rebranded as Azets , and now provide corporate finance , a unique banking and finance service as well as the traditional accounting , tax , audit , business and advisory services .
“ It ’ s an exciting time for us because there ’ s a huge amount of extra experience and expertise that we can tap into within the group to the benefit of our clients , in conjunction with the same familiar people that they ’ ve come to know and trust locally .”
The 75 staff Paul oversees in the Durham office are part of a workforce that is more than 200 strong , operating out of offices across the North-East .
Joining the Azets brand will help coordinate and focus growth , to allow the accountancy practice to flourish in a fastchanging world .
Paul explained : “ One of the challenges we were facing as an organisation was we ended up with too many different brands across the group . Having one brand will give us more clarity in the marketplace .
“ It ’ s not a takeover or merger , it ’ s purely a rebrand - new name , same team .
“ For us as a group , one of the benefits of pulling the brands together is it allows us to give one clear message to clients about who we are , our reach and the type of accountancy practice we are .”
Part of that message is that Azets is at the very forefront of digitisation – they are the only accountants who are platinum ambassadors for all the major software accounting packages on the market – the likes of Sage , QuickBook and Xero
Beyond that though , they have developed their own in-house software , CoZone – a customised portal , which acts as a secure document exchange between adviser and client .
“ We ’ re very proud of CoZone ,” admits Paul . “ It ’ s such a good way of doing things , it ’ s a secure and efficient way to send documents digitally between us and clients and is a real time-saver .
“ There is no waiting for the post , and you can imagine the time saving there , particularly when filing deadlines are tight .
“ Clients can of course still use pen and paper . However , we feel that the important thing is to be able to offer that digital service first , as the change to digitisation for everyone is happening quickly .
“ Covid-19 has only accelerated that process .”
The company remains very much aware that not all clients are tech-savvy and for those who are not , the traditional methods will be retained .
Personal contact , solid relationships and attention to each individual client are the hallmarks of Azets ’ service and in-person meetings are still welcomed .
“ We pride ourselves on providing a local , professional service ,” adds Paul . “ We ’ re very conscious you need to have local knowledge .
“ Clients are seeing the value in virtual meetings , saving them the cost and the commute . We have developed tech which will provide time-savings compared to the usual , labour intensive data input processes used in the past .
“ But it is about much more than just being an end-of-year compliance service . Digitisation will be able to free us up to provide timely high-level advice that clients need to run their businesses . “ It ’ s an exciting time ahead .” Find out more at azets . co . uk
wear . business – the voice of business for the Wear region | 19