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Accounting
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seamless — and flawless.”
And this shift brings a number of benefits for the
company, including a possible reduction of its physi- cal footprint, he said, adding that it is likely that the firm will be able to downsize in Holyoke. “At some point down the road, we’ll see what kind of space we’ll need.”
It also means more and better opportunities to recruit top talent to the company because such employees will be able to work from anywhere, including another state, as Nadeau did earlier this year.
“It’s incredibly challenging to recruit people — I think there are fewer accounting students graduating now, and a lot of the people who do graduate end up going to Boston or New York to work for the Big Four firms,” he explained. “So having a remote-work or hybrid-work policy is an added benefit that we can offer, and one that firms are probably going to have to offer if they want to attract top talent.”
As for interaction and communication with cli- ents, while all those we spoke with said face-to-face is still the preferred option, COVID has shown that Zoom and even the telephone work well — and, as with working arrangements, when it comes to inter- acting with clients, flexibility is the new watchword. “As we’re talking with our clients, we’re seeing a combination of the two, in-person meetings and those by Zoom and phone — some want meetings in person, and other times, a Zoom meeting or phone call is sufficient,” said Nadeau, noting, as others did, a significant time savings from not physically traveling to see clients, so those at the firm are able to do more with the hours in the day.
Cheney agreed, to some extent, but noted there will always be plenty of room for, and need for, in- person service to clients.
“You don’t want to lose sight of that personal- touch aspect,” he told BusinessWest. “You don’t want to do everything remotely — I don’t think clients want to do everything remotely. But they’re OK with some level [of remote interaction] because we’ve got- ten used to it, and they see the efficiency, too.”
Crunching the Numbers
As he tried to put all the changes to tax laws — and changes to the changes — into perspective, Joe Bova recalled the communication he received from the U.S. Small Business Administration concerning PPP loans that came with the header “Interim Final Rules.”
This oxymoron was just one of many challeng- ing measures and changes that CPAs had to make sense of over the past 18 months, a time that Bova described as “a shooting gallery.”
“What’s been different during these past two sea- sons is that tax-law changes have been happening during tax season,” he told BusinessWest. “And when the PPP loans first came out ... the SBA and the Trea- sury were updating their websites almost daily, and there was a lot of ambiguity in the definitions. We [accountants] were kind of on the front lines because people were calling us, even the banks.
“We all had the same information, which wasn’t clear, so people were calling us to help them interpret these changes,” he went on. “You were in the water on the boat, but you were still building the boat.”
In addition to coping with new legislation and changing rules, there was simply more work to do, said those we spoke with.
“Our workload has gone up probably a good 20% without adding a single client,” said Lapier, listing PPP applications, forgiveness, and audit work, as well as helping companies with SBA loans and the unem-
Chris Nadeau says a shift to more hybrid work schedules or fully remote work will help accounting firms in their efforts to recruit new talent.
“
people — I think there are fewer accounting students graduating now, and a lot of the people who do graduate end up going to Boston or New York to work for the Big Four firms. So having a remote-work
or hybrid-work policy is an added benefit that we can offer, and one that firms are probably going to have to offer if they want to attract top talent.
ployment-tax credit as just some of the additional assignments.
Indeed, on top of all that, there was simply more consulting work to do as companies, especially smaller ones, leaned on their accountants as perhaps never before to help them make what were often very difficult decisions during truly unprecedented times.
Now, with the pandemic easing in some respects, the nature of some of this advisory work is changing, said Quink, noting that many business owners are now able to focus more on the future instead of being consumed by the present.
“We’re seeing a lot of clients that are buying and selling businesses, which is a good sign,” she noted. “And overall, people are starting to think forward now; they were in survival mode for a period of time, and now they’re starting to think forward from a busi- ness perspective.”
And there is a lot to think about, she went on, not- ing that what she and others at her firm are advising clients on is how to adapt to change and navigate challenge — such as a global pandemic.
“We’re talking to our clients that we see as poten- tially at risk because they don’t have the ability to adapt or they’re not identifying how to adapt,” she explained. “We know that things can change in the blink of an eye; we’ve seen a client, a third-generation
business, close because it wasn’t able to look forward and move in a way that still made them competi- tive. You can’t rest on what you have — you have to be always looking forward, and that’s a hard thing for some of our more mature clients and businesses who have done things they’ve always done, and it’s worked.”
This additional advisory work, as Cheney noted earlier, is merely an acceleration of a trend that has been ongoing for many years now when it comes to clients and what they want and need from their accounting firm, with the accent on the future and how to be prepared for it.
Quink agreed that this shift, if that’s the proper term, has been ongoing for some time now as tech- nology has enabled clients of all kinds to access data more quickly and more easily than ever before.
“We see robots in all aspects of life, and our pro- fession is going to go that way as well,” she explained. “We’re using technology to do the things we’ve always done by hand; we’re now going to have programs that run that data for us. What we’re seeing and what we’re preparing people in our profession for is a shift to more of an advisory-slash-consulting role.”
Bottom Line
For several years now, Quink told BusinessWest, Burkhart Pizzanelli has closed its doors on Fridays. Historically, those Fridays between Memorial Day and Labor Day have served as comp time for those who logged considerable overtime during tax time, and it’s been a time to recharge the batteries.
This year, staff members have needed those Fri- days off more than ever, she said, adding that, for many reasons — from all the additional work detailed above to the vacations that haven’t been taken over the past 18 months — there have been many signs of fatigue.
It’s certainly understandable. Indeed, while every business sector has been impacted by COVID, those in accounting were affected in different ways, with more work to do, different work to take on, and learn- ing curves when it came to new and different ways of doing business.
They don’t call it the ‘never-ending tax season’ for nothing. It’s far from over, but in many ways, things are ... well, less taxing. u
George O’Brien can be reached at [email protected]
It’s incredibly challenging to recruit
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