Page 17 - BusinessWest August 4, 2021

“Accounting has for many years been an historical-look-back kind of thing,” said Cheney, part of an execu- tive committee now managing the firm. “With the speed that people can now get data, they don’t need us to tell them about what happened six months ago; they need us to tell them what’s going to happen six months from now and help them interpret that.”
For this issue and its focus on accounting and tax planning, Business- West talked with several CPAs about the never-ending tax season, which still hasn’t ended — many are still deal- ing with a large number of extensions, many of them resulting from changing tax laws — and what will come next in a sector that has been taxed (yes, that’s an industry term) by this pandemic, and in all kinds of ways.
A Taxing Time
Chris Nadeau, CMA, CPA, CVA said he spent most of the past April — the height of tax season — in Florida. And hardly any of his clients knew he was working and handling their needs from more than 1,000 miles away.
“No one would have known unless I told them,” said Nadeau, a director
“I’m a glass-half-full person, and if there is a positive from the past 16 or 17 months that we’ve been dealing with, it’s taught
us that we need to be more flexible, more mobile, and more adaptable — and understand that people don’t have to be actually sitting in their offices to get their job done.”
with Hartford-based Whittlesey, which has offices locally in Holyoke, adding that he would never have considered such a working arrangement prior to the pandemic, but COVID provided ample proof that a CPA doesn’t have to share an area with a client to get the work done.
This anecdote speaks volumes about just how profoundly the land- scape has changed in the accounting and tax-planning world over the past year and a half. There have been a number of seismic shifts, and where people work is just one of them, said Nadeau, who has come to his office on Bobala Road in Holyoke only a few times since St. Patrick’s Day of 2020 and was in on this day only to meet
with BusinessWest.
Others we spoke with told of similar
learning experiences during what has been a year and a half of acting and reacting to everything that has been thrown at them since those days in mid-March of last year when everyone — well, almost everyone — packed up and went home for what they thought would be a few weeks.
As everyone knows, that certainly wasn’t the case, and thus accountants, like all those in business, had to adjust to a new playing field, finding new and sometimes better ways to do things and communicate with clients and fel- low team members alike.
Among the many lessons learned from COVID, Julie Quink says, is
the need for more flexibility in when and where people work.
As managing partner, Jim guided MBK through many transitions over the past decade. He was an active listener, preferring to lead through the art of asking thoughtful questions, a trait that his clients and colleagues appreciated about him.
When he walked into any room, people were drawn to his strong leadership, warm smile and sense of humor. He knew how to balance the stress of our profession with a funny story, a pat on the back or one of his famous fist bumps as he would make his rounds through our office.
Jim set a great example with his work ethic and desire to always improve MBK. His leadership contributed to MBK’s long-standing reputation as a leading professional service firm in New England.
Jim was a great leader, mentor, friend and brother to the entire MBK team. We will work to honor his memory for years to come.
330 Whitney Avenue | Suite 800 | Holyoke, MA 01040 | 413-536-8510 | mbkcpa.com 413-536-8510 | mbkcpa.com
ACCOUNTING & TAX PLANNING
AUGUST 4, 2021 17
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