How Duncan & Toplis has supported businesses through the pandemic

September 21, 2020

Duncan & Toplis provides a range of business support services to businesses and individuals across the East Midlands, supporting clients in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Rutland.

Its services include accountancy, business advice, tax services, HR, IT, audit and payroll as well as cloud accounting and legal and probate services – many of which have been essential for organisations affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through its services, the company has helped almost 500 business clients to access over £10m in support through the governments Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) and it has helped clients access a further £12.99m in other funding.

The Duncan & Toplis team also helped its portfolio of clients (which includes more than 4,500 businesses in the region) to make their business more secure and sustainable, helping them to protect their employees’ jobs and ensure the viability of their organisations.

As well as supporting its own clients, Duncan & Toplis Group has also taken major steps to provide free support and advice to the entire local business community.

Early on in the pandemic, Duncan & Toplis created a new section of its website named the COVID-19 Knowledgebase. Here, the company has published more than 50 webpages of advice and guidance which is regularly updated with the latest information. To date, these articles have been accessed more than 150,000 times.

In addition, the company also created a free Coronavirus Update e-Newsletter which is sent to 10,660 subscribers in the local business community. Initially, these were sent on a daily and then weekly basis during the nationwide lockdown before continuing with fortnightly updates.

In these email updates, the company summarises the latest developments including the latest local statistics, guidance on new support packages and important information to help businesses through the lockdown and the recession.

The company has also written articles for local newspapers, business magazines/journals and websites to give more free information, advice and guidance to businesses across the area.

To help businesses reopen safely, Duncan & Toplis published COVID-19 related posters and signage created by its in-house graphic designers for other businesses to use, helping them to meet COVID-secure guidelines, free of charge.

On top of this, Duncan & Toplis also supported the BBC Big Night In charity fundraiser, with team members from across the country logging into work in fancy dress to raise money for BBC Children in Need and Comic Relief.

Duncan & Toplis employs a team of more than 400 people across the region and it quickly took the necessary steps to enable its entire workforce to do their jobs remotely while providing the same level of support to clients. The company has supported its teams with regular wellbeing checkups and it’s even sent them lockdown hampers as a thank you present.

These efforts have been greatly appreciated by Duncan & Toplis’ team members, clients and other businesses who have sent many notes of thanks for the support they’ve received. The company’s support during the pandemic has even led to it being recognised as a finalist for the Community Impact category of the Leicestershire Business Awards 2020.

Duncan & Toplis is continuing to support businesses as they recover from lockdown and manage reopening in difficult economic conditions and circumstances.

For more information on Duncan & Toplis and to access the company’s COVID-19 Knowledgebase, visit www.duncantoplis.co.uk.