Elliott Davis has been operating as a tax, assurance, and consulting firm since 1920, giving it more than a century of client work across the U.S. Southeast and beyond.
With over 800 professionals spread across eight U.S. office locations and an international presence in Bengaluru, India, the firm sits in a distinctive position: large enough to handle complex, multi-jurisdictional engagements, but structured to serve closely held businesses, healthcare organizations, nonprofits, and high-net-worth individuals with a level of attention that larger national firms often struggle to deliver consistently.
Key Takeaways
- Elliott Davis offers tax, assurance, and advisory services across more than 15 industries from offices in South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and India.
- The firm operates under an alternative practice structure, separating its licensed CPA attest functions from its advisory and consulting entities.
- Its industry coverage spans construction, private equity, healthcare, real estate, entertainment, dental, and more, making it one of the more broadly positioned regional firms in the Southeast.
Who Is Elliott Davis?
The firm was founded in 1920 and is headquartered in Columbia, South Carolina.
It has grown steadily through a combination of organic expansion and strategic mergers, including its recent addition of AMPLOS to build out its Human Capital advisory capabilities.
Elliott Davis is an independent member firm of Moore North America, Inc., which connects it to the Moore Global Network a worldwide alliance of independent accounting and advisory firms.
That affiliation gives the firm access to international resources without operating as a subsidiary of a Big Four or large national firm.
The firm's structure is worth understanding. Elliott Davis operates through two main entities: Elliott Davis, LLC, which is the licensed CPA firm handling attest services like audits and assurance, and Elliott Davis Advisory, LLC, which provides tax and business consulting.
This alternative practice structure is fairly common among mid-sized CPA firms and keeps licensed attest work appropriately separated from advisory services. For clients, it mostly works seamlessly behind the scenes.
Services Offered
Elliott Davis organizes its services into four major categories: Tax, Assurance & Attestation, Advisory, and Digital. Within those categories, the firm covers a wide range of specific service lines.
Tax Services
| Service | What It Covers |
|---|---|
| Federal Tax | Corporate, pass-through, and individual federal compliance and planning |
| State & Local Tax | Multi-state tax obligations, nexus studies, sales tax |
| International Tax | Cross-border structures, foreign tax credits, transfer pricing |
| Tax Methods & Credits | R&D credits, cost segregation, accounting method changes |
| High Net Worth | Estate, gift, and family wealth planning for affluent individuals |
Assurance & Attestation
The assurance practice covers audits, reviews, compilations, employee benefit plan audits, SOC reporting, and internal audit services.
SOC reporting has become increasingly relevant as companies rely more heavily on third-party service providers, and Elliott Davis's offering here is particularly useful for technology and financial services clients.
Advisory Services
The advisory group is where the firm has clearly invested in recent years.
Service lines include business valuation, fraud and forensic accounting, governance and risk, succession planning, sustainability and ESG, transaction advisory, strategy and growth, and the newly expanded human capital practice.
These aren't all equally common for regional firms to offer, particularly the forensic accounting and family law litigation support services, which require specialized credentials and courtroom experience.
Digital Services
The digital practice covers cybersecurity and data privacy, technology consulting, and business systems.
For small to mid-sized businesses that don't have dedicated IT leadership, having these capabilities housed within the same firm as tax and accounting advisory can be genuinely convenient.
Industry Coverage
One of the more notable aspects of Elliott Davis is the range of industries it claims to serve with dedicated expertise. The firm lists 15 industries on its website:
- Closely Held Business
- Construction
- Dental
- Education
- Entertainment & Sports
- Financial Services
- Healthcare
- High Net Worth
- International
- Manufacturing & Distribution
- Not-for-Profit
- Private Equity
- Professional Services
- Real Estate
- Technology
Healthcare and not-for-profit organizations tend to require specialized knowledge around compliance, grant accounting, and regulatory reporting that generalist firms can struggle with.
Elliott Davis has positioned those as core verticals, which is consistent with its roots in the Southeast, where both sectors represent significant portions of the regional economy.
The private equity and transaction advisory practice is worth noting separately.
Elliott Davis works with PE groups on due diligence, quality of earnings reviews, and portfolio company advisory, which typically requires sophisticated financial modeling and the ability to turn around work quickly in deal timelines.
That's a different operational muscle than traditional audit and tax work.
Office Locations
The firm currently operates from eight U.S. locations and one international office:
| Location | State/Country |
|---|---|
| Columbia | South Carolina |
| Greenville | South Carolina |
| Charleston | South Carolina |
| Charlotte | North Carolina |
| Raleigh | North Carolina |
| Franklin | Tennessee |
| Chattanooga | Tennessee |
| Nashville (Vaden Group) | Tennessee |
| Bengaluru | India |
The Bengaluru office gives the firm an offshore delivery capability, which many mid-sized firms have developed over the past decade to handle volume-intensive work like tax return preparation and bookkeeping at lower cost.
It also supports the international tax practice for clients with operations in India.
What Sets Elliott Davis Apart From Competitors?
Regional CPA firms in the Southeast are not scarce. Firms like Dixon Hughes Goodman (now FORVIS Mazars), Cherry Bekaert, and RSM all compete for similar clients. What distinguishes Elliott Davis comes down to a few concrete things.
First, the breadth of advisory services at a firm of this size is broader than most pure-play regional CPA shops.
The combination of fraud forensics, ESG consulting, human capital advisory, and transaction support alongside traditional tax and audit work means clients can consolidate more relationships under one firm.
Second, the firm has maintained its independence rather than merging into a larger national or international platform.
For clients who prefer working with a firm that makes its own decisions and where partners are directly accessible, that structure matters.
Some businesses actively avoid the large national firms precisely because relationship continuity and local decision-making erode when a firm scales to thousands of employees.
Third, the Moore Global affiliation gives clients with international needs access to a vetted network of local firms in other countries without the overhead of a multinational firm structure.
Things to Consider
No firm review is complete without acknowledging limitations. Elliott Davis is concentrated in the Southeast.
A business headquartered in the Pacific Northwest or the Midwest might find the geographic footprint less practical, even with the Moore Global network providing some reach.
The firm's deepest expertise and relationship density is clearly in South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
The website is also light on specifics about pricing, minimum engagement sizes, or the kinds of clients that are the best fit.
That's common for professional services firms, but prospective clients should come into initial conversations prepared to ask directly about those parameters.
Firms with strong advisory practices often have minimum engagement thresholds that can make them a poor fit for very early-stage or micro-businesses.
The digital services practice, while useful, is likely a complement rather than a core strength.
Organizations with complex cybersecurity needs or large-scale technology implementations will probably need to evaluate whether Elliott Davis's capabilities are sufficiently deep for those specific engagements, or whether a standalone technology firm would serve them better.
Firm Culture and Community Engagement
Elliott Davis describes its internal culture around five stated values: doing the right thing, service to others, mutual respect, always getting better, and quality.
The firm runs an initiative called "People Together," focused on inclusion and the experiences of its team members, and a community engagement program called "Elliott Davis Cares."
These programs are worth noting because they signal how the firm positions itself internally for talent retention, which directly affects the consistency of service that clients receive.
The careers page positions growth and employee development as a selling point, which suggests the firm competes on culture as much as compensation to attract professionals.
In an industry with persistent talent shortages, that approach is practical.
Conclusion
Elliott Davis is a well-established regional firm with genuine depth across tax, assurance, and advisory services, particularly for businesses in the Southeast operating in healthcare, real estate, private equity, and closely held structures.
Businesses in those verticals looking for a firm with more service breadth than a boutique but more accessibility than a Big Four are worth having an initial conversation with Elliott Davis.