OCHO RIOS, St Ann -— UHY Dawgen Chartered Accountants has upgraded its satellite location in the Pineapple Complex in Ocho Rios to an expanded office and has promised customers full professional services at reasonable cost.

Managing Partner Dawkins Brown said the opening of the Ocho Rios office should allow the company to provide more services to its clients in the parish and neighbouring St Mary and Trelawny.

“What we bring is a suite of professional services for small and large businesses, those include taxation, accounting, consulting, HR solutions and just about anything that a business would need to operate,” said Brown.

The expanded facility was officially opened during a recent ceremony at which president of the St Ann Chamber of Commerce Kumar Sujanani described the move to offer more services from Ocho Rios as welcomed.

“This is very important for a growing economy here in St Ann to have the presence of such organisation like an international firm of chartered accountants because as more people enter into business they can be very instrumental in assisting people going into their own business,” Sujanani told the Jamaica Observer North East.

Seven persons will be employed at the office and Sujanani said any business that wants to establish locations in the parish and contribute to the parish’s economy and job creation has the chamber’s support.

“Any business that sets up in our area, we are very happy to have them because the more businesses that are set up is the more employment we will have and the more the economy will be strengthened,” he said.

Meanwhile, Brown said there were a lot of business opportunities in Jamaica, but he pointed out that in most cases, professional assistance was lacking.

“They (businesses) need professional services, somebody who is going to hold their hand and guide them through the process, somebody who is knowledgeable and I think that UHY Dawgen has demonstrated that, and this branch would actually complete what we would call our full-fledge islandwide service,” he added.

He said the company would be offering a special accounting software, called Easy Books, to small businesses served by the Ocho Rios office and that the software will be free for 12 months and will allow clients to access their accounts at any time.

Brown said small businesses would also benefit from comprehensive services, including taxation and monthly filing.

UHY Dawgen is a member of UHY, an association of independent accounting and consultancy firms, whose organising body is Urbach Hacker Young International Limited.

Included among the services offered by the company are audit and assurance, business solution, corporate finance, corporate governance, corporate recovery and insolvency, corporate services, forensic accounting, management consulting and a range of tax services.

The Ocho Rios office brings to four the number of locations across the country. Its other offices are located in Mandeville and Montego Bay with the head office in Kingston.