Our Team

Paula Harrison

If you have ever dropped in our office at Dracut, to get a glimpse of the nitty-gritty; or dropped us a line to pow-wow with our people, you’ve met Paula!

She’s the first pair of eyes you’ll see or the first voice you hear, and we sure glad it’s her. She’s a total professional and loves her job. Once you meet her, you’ll immediately know that she’s an indispensable part of our team.

Here’s a snippet of Paula’s specialties:

• Professionally greeting visitors and solving their inquiries.
• Setting up Client Projects, Preparation of Engagement Letters.
• Processing Tax Returns, Invoices, and Bank Deposits.
• Overseeing office workflow, delegating tasks, and supporting program goals.
• Ordering supplies and monitors expenditures.
• Co-piloted staff meetings to coordinate workflow changes and improve processes.
• Human Resources, Management of facilities.
• Plan and organize team-building events for morale, community awareness, and team unity.
• Support and maintain Firm Information Management System.
• Coordinate firm CPE files and CPE budgets.
• IT Network Support through IT Vendor.
• Preparation of engagement letters.
• Prepare Firm Operational KPI’s.
• Process Invoices with Bill.com

Peter Witts, CPA

Email: pwitts@wittscpa.com

Peter Witts is a Certified Public Accountant with over twenty years of Government Contract Accounting experience. His background includes tenure with the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), Northeastern Regional Office, until leaving in September 2000 to found his own public accounting firm.

While with the DCAA, Peter was involved in a wide variety of audit related activities for large aerospace contractors as well as small business contractors in the Northeastern region of the DCAA.

Mr. Witts has designed and implemented government contract accounting systems, prepared incurred cost submissions, developed forward pricing rates, conducted NIH A-133 Program Audits and supported several DCAA audits for clients.

Some of Mr. Witts’ accomplishments with DCAA include:

• Technical Program Specialist for the following major program areas in the Northeast region (MA, NH, ME, RI, CT, NY, MI and Europe): Cost Accounting Standards, Financial Capability Audits, Health Care Finance Administration audits, Compensation and Direct Billing initiatives and responsible for providing audit guidance to DCAA field auditors throughout the Northeastern region.
• Member of an audit team completing a highly visible audit of a Michigan anthrax vaccine producer’s extraordinary financial relief of contract terms claim. The Undersecretary of Defense and the Director of DCAA commended the audit team on the high quality of the audit in a week’s turnaround time.
• Leader of the Northeastern Regional team in the development of a new Cost Accounting Standard audit programs for CAS 410 and CAS 420.
• Developed a two-day training seminar for Northeastern Region auditors in the audit of contractor’s financial capability.
• Conducted presentations on the Cumulative Allowable Cost Worksheets and the new closeout procedures for contracts to Contractor personnel and DCAA auditors.
• Focal point for the audit of Peer Review Organizations (PRO) audits for the Health Care Financing Administration in the Northeastern region.

Lyka Mae Mendoza

Times they are a-changin! So we needed to change too. That’s where Lyka steps in. Innovative and creative, marketing savvy, well-organized, a great writer, and an awesome communicator.

She helps us with numerous marketing touchpoints and makes great digital campaigns to enhance our online presence.

Here’s a snippet of Lyka’s specialties:

• Creating marketing initiatives
• Managing our mailing lists
• Editing marketing material
• Exploring marketing trends
• Coordinating marketing events
• Developing content for various digital platforms
• Optimize our online presence

Jashmyne Dela Paz

Jashmyne is a recent addition to our PWCPA team.

She is amazingly detailed, quick-witted, no-nonsense, yet full of spunk and fun.

She brings a great new attitude to the PWCPA team.

Here’s a snippet of Jashmyne’s specialties:

• Effectively managing general ledgers
• Carefully balancing entries of accounts
• Bank reconciliation and monthly reporting
• Recording transactions — incomes and outgoings
• Produce client billing statements and invoices

Tatiannah Fevry

It’s never too early to join the race, and that’s exactly where Tatiana wants to be.

As a new part of our Peter Witts CPA family, she has endeared herself to the team through dedication, diligence, determination, and showing us that she is very much willing to put in the work to gain the knowledge she seeks.

Here’s a snippet of Tatiannah’s specialties:

• Processing bills in Bill.com.
• Scanning documents.
• Assembling Tax Returns.
• Depositing of Client Checks.
• Organization of Client Files.

Tim Armand

Tim Armand is a Certified Public Accountant in MA with over thirty years of Government Contract Accounting experience.  He earned a Master’s in Public Policy from Georgetown University in 2013.  Tim retired from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), after 32 years to explore new opportunities with his considerable qualifications and experience.

While with DCAA, Tim supervised contract auditors for over 15 years.  Most recently, he worked at DCAA HQ’s Quality Assurance Directorate which allowed him to work collaboratively with field audit teams, seeking win/win relationships with audit teams as he evaluated their conformance with stringent compliance requirements. Working at HQ helped Tim improve his library of best practices and methods of auditing and documentation, implementation of guidance and training, and data analytic applications.

Mr. Armand performed or supervised engagements at various major defense contractors, small contractors, and universities.  His experience includes final incurred costs on government contracts, forward pricing proposals, truth in negotiation audits, accounting system reviews, external restructuring audits, agreed-upon procedures, disclosure statements, and CAS compliance audits. Tim has the extensive quality and compliance training and helped audit teams improve their audit planning and documentation while educating them on recent audit quality issues and how to avoid them.

Tim was responsible for developing junior auditors and providing audit guidance to DCAA field auditors; has conducted training presentations on how to evaluate and audit forward pricing proposals for new and follow-on contracts, and for indirect rates on government contracts.

Tim started with Peter Witts CPA in August 2021, as Senior Government Accountant.  He will also be involved in preparing various types of Income Tax Returns.  He has been a CPA in Massachusetts since 1997.

Susan Smith

Susan Smith has been working at Peter Witts CPA since June of 2013. Her tenacity and hard work have always rubbed off on everyone. It’s no wonder she’s our Supervisor of CAS. Susan is an amazing teammate, a no-nonsense individual who gets the job done ahead of time and with a smile.

Here’s a snippet of Susan’s specialties:

• Susan is our go-to when we need to train our accounting staff.
• She can process monthly financials, complete journal entries, and reconcile accounts.
• In order to handle multiple tasks for multiple clients, Susan shows us her time management and multitasking skills.
• She communicates with clients and makes sure that their needs and underlying essentials are understood, and met.
• Susan prepares and reviews government vouchers for accuracy.
• She does this through her proficiency in every office tool and software we have.