Clients

We Are Committed to Our Clients' Success

Who We Serve

At Smith + Howard, we work with the mission-minded – whether it’s personal, professional or organizational. We pair our passion for what we do with our clients’ passion for what they want to accomplish. It inspires our strategy and the service we deliver every step of the way. We specialize in serving middle-market businesses, nonprofits and affluent individuals and families.

Our clients, covering a wide range of industries, operate in the U.S. and in countries around the globe. Many are U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations. We are particularly adept at partnering with those who have complex tax, accounting and operational situations who are seeking comprehensive expertise and an invested relationship to help them move forward. For insight into our experience with particular industries, see below.

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Privately Held

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Nonprofit

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National

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Privately Held Businesses

Serving privately-held businesses means taking care of the business and the people driving it. To that end, we listen closely to you and your team to understand your needs, goals and challenges. Once we are all on the same page, we’ll bring an energized approach to sharing our knowledge and practical advice, a proactive approach and our relentless commitment to personal service. In addition to tax and audit services, we help CEOs, CFOs, CIOs and Controllers maximize the opportunities for growth through financial projections, technology and cyber risk management + compliance solutions, transaction advisory services and others that may benefit the business and its owners.

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Nonprofits

Nonprofits across the country are facing challenges from every direction: funding, workforce, competition, increasing need and increasing (and confusing) regulations. The reliable advice and expertise of accountants and advisors is critical to sustaining and accomplishing the mission of each organization. Smith + Howard’s nonprofit team and knowledge is as strong as it gets.

We have been serving nonprofits for 50 years and have a team of smart, engaged and passionate professionals who understand both the technical and nuanced aspects of nonprofits. We see and understand the mission of these organizations but also understand the business elements that are sometimes overlooked by others. We love what we do for every client, but we have a special passion for helping nonprofits thrive. For more on our nonprofit practice, go here.

Business colleagues discussing project in office

National Businesses

It is becoming commonplace for businesses to expand to other cities and states – and often quite rapidly. With this type of growth comes new opportunity as well as new challenges and ways for businesses to get tripped up in the vastly different tax and business regulations from state to state. Knowledge of and compliance with various state laws and regulations can be impossible for business owners and leaders to keep up with, yet non-compliance can carry negative financial implications.

Smith + Howard works with clients that operate across the country and provide solid, reliable advice and services that help you worry less about compliance and focus more on running your national business.

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Global Businesses

Our clients operate in countries around the globe and include many US subsidiaries of foreign corporations. This comes as no surprise, as today’s global marketplace has an effect on just about every business – whether it is a mom and pop shop around the corner, or an industry’s global leader.

Smith + Howard’s international business consultants can serve the needs of any company no matter their location, through our in-house expertise and professionals, as well as through our global reach as an independent member of the BDO Alliance USA. Our global business consulting services include:

  • Tax Planning and Compliance
  • Accounting Regulatory Compliance
  • Foreign Reporting Packages
  • Entity Structuring
  • Assistance Establishing Cross-Border Operations
  • Assistance with Expansion Opportunities, including Due Diligence
  • Planning for Asset Transfers Between U.S. and Foreign Countries
  • Techniques for Repatriation of Earnings and Use of Foreign Tax Credits
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Industry Knowledge + Expertise

We serve a broad range of industries and bring a true understanding of the challenges you face.

Construction

Our construction professionals look behind and around the numbers to deliver value, advice and deliverables that keep you moving forward.

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Distribution

Your business has as many moving parts as your distribution channels. We’ll provide confidence in the road ahead.

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Franchising

Smith + Howard’s deep bench of franchise professionals brings clarity and confidence to you and your stakeholders.

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Healthcare

Professional guidance to healthcare organizations with our specialized services and multi-industry experience to benefit every area of your business.

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Hospitality

Our team keeps your business in compliance and future-focused, allowing you to concentrate on building a resilient, sustainable model.

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Insurance

Your role is to give customers peace of mind and high caliber service – let us do the same for you.

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Manufacturing

We help you gain clarity in your operations and financials so that you can approach the future with confidence.

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Nonprofits

Smart professionals, a collaborative mindset and a focus on your mission drive us to eclipse the service you’ve always expected.

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Professional Services

Our strong team brings accounting, tax and advisory solutions that allow you to move forward with confidence.

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Real Estate

We bring rich real estate experience and appreciation of the nuances of your business to provide certainty in critical areas.

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Construction

Building futures for today’s builders

Those savvy enough to have a vision for building the future know that the challenges facing the construction industry are many, but that opportunities are on the rise for those who are well-positioned to capitalize on them. Though the hurdles of availability and cost of supplies and the challenge to find enough qualified workers continues, financial and operational health are vital.

That includes sound financial and tax strategies. With a 50-year legacy of construction knowledge, we have a strong foundation on which to build sound advice and an efficient, value-driven process for every project and partnership. In addition to accounting, audit and tax services, we focus on tax minimization, process and control improvement, KPIs, incentive compensation plans, succession planning and cyber risk management + compliance security.

We offer education and training on accounting and financial topics to all levels of construction company personnel, and our team is heavily invested in and supportive of the construction community.

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Distribution + Logistics

Delivering a secure supply chain

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated challenges faced by the supply chain including workforce shortages and distribution issues related to heavy reliance on overseas sources. The hardships led many businesses to reevaluate their overall approach, with a view toward increased domestic reliance. For those operating in the U.S. or abroad, it’s prime time to consider the complex tax and financial strategies that can fuel long-term success.

You need insights from a partner that specializes in understanding and taking advantage of tax credits and incentives while complying with U.S. and international tax laws and rules, and ensuring financial reporting is accurate and more than sufficient for stakeholders. Plus, it’s crucial to identify and mitigate cyber risks throughout the supply chain to ensure ongoing operational and reputational security.

Just as you coordinate complex elements to achieve the big picture goal, Smith + Howard’s team brings this operational mindset to you with expertise in tax, audit, advisory and cyber risk management + compliance services.

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Franchising

Managing the Moving Parts

A cornerstone of the U.S. business landscape, franchising presents a complex, interesting business model. While sustaining and growing the business, franchisors must also present clear, quality financials to regulators and be prepared to explain some of the nuances around timing differences in collection of franchise fees and recognition of the revenue. For their franchisees, they must be prepared to communicate use of ad fund revenues and other fees.

Partnering with Smith + Howard’s deep bench of franchise experts brings clarity and confidence to the financials and equips you to communicate the right information with your various stakeholders.

Our franchise team is bolstered by membership in the International Franchise Association (IFA), and we bring a strong network of professional advisors (attorneys, bankers and others) that specialize in franchising – meaning we work as a team to provide franchisors with well rounded, expert advice. You also gain access to our audit and tax expertise, and we also offer guidance on equity structure, governance and transaction advice when needed.

Our strategic advisors have vast knowledge and networks but strive to keep it simple, translating complicated issues into easy-to-understand solutions.

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Healthcare

Ensuring Your Financial Health

Every medical organization faces tremendous pressure to earn patient satisfaction with a balance of state-of-the-art health services and cost efficiency while maintaining strict control over the privacy of personal information – not to mention achieving profitability for shareholders/physicians. It’s a complex business problem exacerbated by a rapidly evolving industry and regulatory landscape.

While you focus on the well-being of your patients, let Smith + Howard work with you to strengthen your business. We serve as the tax, accounting and advisory partner for medical practices, their shareholders, and healthcare organizations. We also offer guidance on the cyber risk management + compliance concerns prevalent in the industry.

Our medical practice management solutions include:

  • Tax planning and compliance services for physicians
  • Buy/sell agreements
  • Compensation matters
  • Billing and collections
  • Internal controls
  • Coding
  • Billing and documentation audits

Our cyber risk management + compliance services to healthcare organizations focus on the identification, prioritization, and mitigation of risks across the business. Our information security experts are qualified to work to produce reports and certifications including:

  • ISO 27001 Certification

You can expect your Smith + Howard team to work efficiently and communicate clearly to make the process simpler and more effective for your business.

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Hospitality

Fostering a resilient industry

Few industries experienced a more significant impact from the COVID-19 pandemic than the hospitality industry. But amidst staffing and labor shortages, wage pressure, cashflow challenges and changing consumer behavior, the industry remained resilient and continued to adapt.

We are committed to the recovery and strength of businesses like yours and are deeply engaged in industry-related associations. Our dedication and involvement help us deliver on keeping hospitality businesses compliant with evolving tax laws, allowing owners to focus on building and refining a resilient, sustainable model.

For many, that started with our guidance to determine the best paths for financial relief, including PPP, PPP2 and the SBA’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund. Tax credits provide opportunities to substantially minimize the business tax burden; we have teams devoted to staying on top of these as they develop. We not only inform clients on available relief, we also ease their burden by assisting with application processes and make sure they take advantage of appropriate tax credits in a compliant manner.

There is strength in our team, in the diversity of our hospitality client family and in our relationships in the hospitality community. We work with franchisees/franchisors, multi-concept restaurant groups and single-unit concepts owned and located across the U.S. To each client, we promise our personal service, attention to detail and informed strategic guidance that helps your business recover and thrive.

Our services include income tax preparation and planning for business and ownership; fixed asset review for missed deductions; quarterly and year-end tax projections; calculation of employee retention tax credits, state and local tax, sales and use tax, exit planning, audit defense and more.

Contact us to start a conversation about how we can help. We’ll provide a complimentary review of your prior tax returns to give you insights into where you may be able to maximize future deductions or take advantage of credits.

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Insurance

Certainty in an uncertain world

In the insurance industry, your role is to give your customers peace of mind – let Smith + Howard do the same for you. Faced with unique challenges and fast-moving changes, you rely on well-grounded expert advice from accountants and advisors. Accurate financial reporting, intelligent counsel, and mitigation of risk are paramount.

Many insurers – from life, to property and casualty, and holding companies – seek access to capital and are considering merger and acquisition options. Smith + Howard knows this landscape well and offers deep subject matter expertise ready to go to work for you. Our partner-led team starts with understanding your goals and delivers strategy with an experience that’s proactive and responsive.

We seek to help insurers through our services that include tax compliance and tax strategies, cyber risk management + compliance services, internal control reviews, process automation, exit strategies, mergers and acquisitions and other key advisory services.

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Manufacturing

Resiliency and Growth

The COVID-19 pandemic left its mark on the manufacturing sector, especially for operations with heavy reliance on overseas supply chains. These challenges inspired manufacturers across the nation to reconsider their big-picture strategy and lean more on domestic sources to avoid similar issues in the future. Workforce – both quality and quantity – plagues the industry. Add evolving tax laws and the growing concern about cyber security, with targeted ransomware attacks on the rise and vulnerabilities known and unknown exposing the business. A lot is at stake.

The manufacturing specialists at Smith + Howard know that. Our team includes leaders in our audit, tax, advisory and cyber risk management + compliance practices. We understand the industry, take time to learn about your business and work with you to ensure your operations are secure and financials are strong so that you can approach the uncertain future with confidence.

We partner with you on tax planning, federal and state tax credits and incentives, audits, buy or sell side transactions, due diligence, international tax consulting and cyber risk management + compliance services, including assessment, prioritization and mitigation of cyber risks. And as always, we are a sounding board for our clients; easy to get in touch with and easy to talk to.

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Nonprofits

Advancing your mission

We admire nonprofits for their distinct, purposeful missions to improve our world. We also know that along that journey, you must abide by complex regulatory and reporting requirements, find success with a unique business model that relies on direct financial involvement from funders and endure a constant critical eye on operations amid expectations of a high level of transparency. There’s tremendous financial complexity for organizations that aren’t even looking to make a profit.

And yet: nonprofits are businesses. They have financial and operational challenges and opportunities like the private sector and must demonstrate the return on funders’ investments. They face real estate decisions, competition for funding, tax reporting requirements, and often audit requirements. They also are under intense pressure to ensure the vast amount of donor and employee personal information they hold is highly secure and that their risks are minimized.

Couple these challenges with the post COVID-19 environment that severely impacted the ability of many nonprofits to attract returning donors, whose charitable giving may have shifted to COVID-19 related causes to meet the immediate needs presented by the pandemic.

Our nonprofit clients include:

  • Arts + culture organizations
  • Independent schools
  • Religious organizations
  • Service organizations
  • Foundations
  • Trade + membership associations
  • Governmental agencies

Our nonprofit team – with specialists from each of our practice areas – is steeped in education and training specific to nonprofits. We believe in sharing our knowledge through Smith + Howard-hosted nonprofit workshops, whether virtual or in-person, that give nonprofit executives opportunities to engage with outside experts covering topics from fundraising to leadership and culture. It is our goal to help you look at your organization as a whole.

There is no better partner for nonprofits than Smith + Howard. Our exceptional strength in all areas of service to nonprofit organizations includes accounting, nationally recognized expertise in the tax Form 990, board governance, strategic planning, benefit plan audit requirements and cyber risk management + compliance services. Collaborating with you and your team, we overcome challenges and devise innovative approaches that help you advance your mission.

We reinforce our professional commitment to nonprofits with personal involvement in nonprofit organizations and boards by our team and individuals across the firm. This direct experience with the nuts and bolts of nonprofit operations lends us a distinct edge in our approach to delivering services that are in the organization’s best interests.

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Professional Services

Solutions that build confidence

Professional service organizations like yours spend increasing time navigating ever-changing laws and regulations that impact their business, while developing growth strategies to thrive. As a professional service organization ourselves, we understand these challenges – and everything else competing for your attention –and bring an empathetic “we’re in it with you” perspective to our accounting, tax and advisory solutions.

Smith + Howard works to align with your current state and aspirations and proactively find ways to minimize your tax liability. We also address one of the most pressing issues of the day for professional service organization: cyber risk management + compliance. As holders of personal private information of customers, clients and employees, your organization is under pressure to identify, assess and mitigate risks now – before there is a breach or breakdown in information security.

Smith + Howard’s strong tax, accounting, audit and cyber risk management + compliance teams have partnered with architectural firms, design/build firms, law firms, insurance firms and other professional service businesses to help them tackle these challenges and move forward with confidence.

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Real Estate

Developing a plan for success

The COVID-19 pandemic reached into seemingly every area of real estate, and many uncertainties remain. Real estate with a public-use component especially continues to be impacted, and long-term implications remains to be seen. That leaves real estate businesses and their owners weighing the different issues and searching for seemingly elusive solutions.

Though we can’t solve supply and cost problems, we can – and do – provide certainty in critical areas. Our real estate tax professionals help you save tax dollars through strategies such as accelerated depreciation through cost segregation, qualified opportunity zone investments, Section 1031 deferred exchanges, repairs and maintenance accelerated expensing. If you’re the business owner, we work closely with you on estate and succession planning for long-term goals.

The ongoing challenge to find talent is frustrating for business leaders in just about every industry, real estate included. So retaining the employees you do have is more important than ever. We can support your retention efforts with advice on benefit and retirement plans that help you attract and keep talent, and plan for transitioning your business to key employees when that time comes.

Smith + Howard’s real estate accountants bring rich industry experience, and our client base is diverse — including office, warehouse and shopping center developers and lessors, land developers and subdividers, individual investors with numerous residential investments, residential builders and more.

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What clients are saying

“We use Smith + Howard for our audit, tax and special project work. Their advice and counsel is exceptional. Most recently, without Smith + Howard’s advice, we would have missed out on a $4M refund from a tax incentive program.”

David Seem, CFO, Miller-Zell

“Their mindset is different. They’re constantly looking to see what our objectives are and they’re giving us the best possible advice and keeping up with all the rules and regulations. It’s like having an expert looking over your shoulder with what you’re doing.”

Raj Anand, CEO, Southern States, LLC

How can we help your business?

If you have any questions and would like to connect with a team member please call 404-874-6244 or contact an advisor below.

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