PHILOSOPHY

Our firm was founded under the guidance of the following mission statement:

"To be a leading local CPA firm in Central Massachusetts by providing the highest quality audit, tax, and general business advisory services to each of our clients in a professional, timely, and economical manner."

"To hire and retain the services of the best available professional and support personnel in order to achieve our goal of continuous first rate, first class service to all of our clients."

BACKGROUND

The theme, or hallmark, of our firm is that we have blended years of national firm experience into a local firm setting. Our firm's partners have combined national and local public accounting firm experience that exceeds one hundred years. Those years of experience have exposed each of our partners to a wealth of organizations, businesses, accounting systems, auditing, taxation, and consulting experiences.

In view of our national firm backgrounds, we have respectfully "taken a page" from big firm philosophy, that of offering specialized industry practices to such clients as manufacturing, contractors, not-for-profits, insurance, and financial institutions.

FACILITIES

Our main office is ideally located in downtown Worcester where superb facilities allow us to offer full and professional service to each of our clients.

We enjoy fully automated office, accounting, auditing, and tax capabilities. We have state-of-the-art word processing functions; advanced computerized tax return systems; and significant accounting, auditing and financial statement electronic capabilities.

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We enjoy a fine professional reputation with the area's leading banks, law firms, businesses, colleges, political and community leaders, as well as various area chambers of commerce. Our skills and our reports are well recognized by each of those constituencies.

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Our partners are actively involved in an appropriate way in a wide array of civic, cultural and social organizations within this surrounding area. Our personnel currently serve as trustees, directors, volunteers, or financial officers for the Boy Scouts of America, Children's Friend Society, and UMASS Cancer Center.

SIZE

We are considered to be a medium size CPA firm. We find our size to be perfect to serve our current client base - small enough that close and very personal attention will be offered, yet large enough that a full and appropriate complement of trained, experienced, and qualified partners and professional staff will be assigned to each engagement.

PROFESSIONALS

Many of the professional staff comprising our firm's management group are also national firm trained and experienced. Those that are not are considerably experienced as well, having joined us from other fine area CPA firms.

All of our professional staff are certified public accountants or are finalizing the requirements for certification.

CLIENTS

Our clients are located in various geographical areas - many with branch divisions, affiliated companies or subsidiaries throughout most New England states and in several other countries.

Our clients represent a diverse cross-section of varied industries observing various fiscal year-ends throughout the year. Thus, our practice is not dominated by a single client, a single industry or a single year-end.

Our representative lists of clients are also of various sizes - physical plant; sales volume; number of locations; subsidiaries or affiliated companies. They include $250,000 service organizations up to $150,000,000 groups of companies - and everything in between.

Our clients are primarily from the Privately Held Commercial and Not-For-Profit Industries.

PRIOR SERVICE

Many of our clients, in fact nearly 80%, that are presently serviced by our firm were formerly serviced by national CPA firms. We are proud to say that our style and our quality of service, and all of the attributes that philosophy of service embraces, has compared very favorably, and frequently surpassed that which those clients previously enjoyed.

RESOURCES

Our accounting, auditing, and tax library and its publication services is the most advanced and complete of any firm our size in this region. These services allow us to be constantly informed of accounting, auditing, consulting and tax issues facing our clients.

Our library includes primary services from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB), Research Institute of America (RIA) and the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA).

Additionally, we have sophisticated electronic tax research and tax planning resource capabilities constantly at our reach through our own in-house network computer system. This is an electronic network which allows us access to a clearing house data base so that current, up to the minute tax court cases, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, tax statutes, tax regulations, etc. can be used for research support on even the most isolated and unusual of issues.

QUALITY

In order to ensure the observance and maintenance of the quality of our practice and of the service to our clients, our firm is a member of the Private Companies Practice Section of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Membership in this division is voluntary. It involves certain quality control prerequisites and a peer review of the quality of a firm's accounting, audit, review and tax practice.

Recently, our firm was given another "clean" opinion by the peer review team commissioned by the Massachusetts Society of Certified Public Accountants to undertake the study and review of our firm's standards. Our receipt of the highest level of approval from that peer review will now give added and continued comfort and assurance to each of our clients that they are receiving the highest level of quality service that meets the guidelines and standards of the public accounting profession.