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Smith & Howard Advisory
Smith & Howard Advisory is the wealth management practice of Smith & Howard, an Atlanta-headquartered accounting and advisory firm that has served...
Smith & Howard Advisory
Smith & Howard Advisory is the wealth management practice of Smith & Howard, an Atlanta-headquartered accounting and advisory firm that has served privately held businesses and their owners for decades. The RIA was built to capture the natural adjacency between ongoing tax and audit engagements and the personal financial needs of the firm's client base — a model common among top-100 US accounting firms that launch wealth arms. The group serves entrepreneurs, corporate executives, and multi-generational families predominantly in Georgia and the broader Southeast, though the parent firm's client roster extends nationally. As an advisory practice, the firm's investment approach is planner-led and goals-driven. The strategy emphasizes asset allocation, tax-aware portfolio construction, and retirement-income modeling rather than direct private-market dealmaking. The group typically deploys client capital across public equities, fixed income, mutual funds, and ETFs, with alternatives and private investments playing a secondary role when they appear at all. The firm's geographic concentration is weighted heavily toward metro Atlanta and the surrounding Sunbelt growth corridors, where the parent accounting firm has built its strongest referral networks among business owners and professional-services clients. Smith & Howard Advisory operates without a disclosed AUM figure, and the firm does not publicly break out headcount for the RIA unit separate from the broader accounting partnership. The parent firm, Smith & Howard, is a mid-tier regional player in the US accounting industry. The advisory unit's scale is likely in the hundreds of millions, consistent with embedded wealth practices at similarly positioned CPA firms. No adjacent venture fund, family office platform, or club-deal consortium has been publicly associated with the group — the advisory arm appears to function as a focused in-house capability, not a standalone brand. Structurally, the firm's edge lies in its CPA-firm backbone. Unlike a standalone RIA that must prospect cold, Smith & Howard Advisory inherits a pre-qualified pipeline of affluent clients already sharing sensitive financial data with the tax team. This captive-distribution dynamic is common among accounting-embedded wealth practices and creates a sourcing moat that pure-play advisors in the same market cannot easily replicate.
General information
Firm type
RIA
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Atlanta
Corporate office
Atlanta, GA, United States
Frequently asked questions
How does the advisory practice relate to the Smith & Howard accounting firm?
Smith & Howard Advisory operates as the dedicated wealth management and registered investment advisory unit of Smith & Howard, a regional CPA firm based in Atlanta. The accounting firm provides tax, audit, and business advisory services, while the RIA handles personal financial planning and investment management for the firm's clients. This structure allows the advisory team to coordinate directly with the client's existing tax preparer — a common arrangement at accounting-firm-embedded wealth practices.
What types of clients does the firm typically serve?
The advisory unit serves entrepreneurs, business owners, corporate executives, and high-net-worth families, most of whom are already clients of the parent accounting firm. The client base is concentrated in the Southeast, with a heavy tilt toward metro Atlanta and Georgia. The firm's wealth management engagements are built around comprehensive financial planning, retirement strategy, and investment management rather than discrete alternative-asset placements.
Does Smith & Howard Advisory make direct private investments or participate in venture deals?
The firm does not publicly position itself as a direct investor in private companies, venture capital, or real estate deals. Its investment model centers on publicly traded securities — equities, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs — within tax-aware portfolios. Clients seeking private-market exposure would likely need to look outside the firm, though the advisory team may coordinate on tax implications of any outside private holdings.
What differentiates Smith & Howard Advisory from a standalone Atlanta RIA?
The core structural differentiator is the captive client pipeline from the tax and audit practice. Rather than relying on marketing campaigns or referrals, the advisory unit draws from a book of business owners and executives who already trust the CPA firm with sensitive financial matters. This integration also allows the advisory team to model tax scenarios in real time during portfolio decisions — a workflow that standalone advisors must outsource or approximate.
Is the advisory firm available to clients outside Georgia?
The firm's physical presence is anchored in Atlanta, but the parent accounting firm serves clients nationally, and the RIA can likely accommodate clients in other states subject to registration and licensing requirements. In practice, the advisory team's relationships remain concentrated in the Southeast, where Smith & Howard's accounting brand has built the deepest referral density among privately held businesses and their owners.
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