Director of Quality Control - Assurance Services

Job Description

Job Description

Director of Quality Control

Do you want a career without limits? Do you want to shape your own future and be surrounded by people who listen?  If so, we have the perfect opportunity for you at Smith + Howard.

Smith + Howard is a family of companies that offers tax, audit, accounting and advisory and wealth management services. We are headquartered in Atlanta with offices across the Southeast, while still offering a local firm flavor.

We offer competitive pay, excellent training opportunities and great benefits. You can help influence our culture and have the support and dedication from our leaders to help you achieve your career goals. Smith + Howard provides a great opportunity for professional growth and advancement within one of the nation’s top accounting firms.

If you are ready to make a career move and join a firm consistently named a “Best of the Best Firms” (Inside Public Accounting), we invite you to complete our employment application.

Summary
The Director of Quality Control – Assurance Services is responsible for the design, implementation, monitoring, and continuous improvement of Smith & Howard, PC's System of Quality Management (SOQM) across all assurance service lines, office locations, and offshore engagement resources. Operating within the firm's Alternative Practice Structure (APS), this role ensures consistent quality, methodology, and regulatory compliance across a multi-office, multi-platform, onshore/offshore environment, while driving standardization and efficiency in audit approach and execution.

This role also works closely with the firm's AI Steering Committee, serving as the audit quality control perspective on emerging technology initiatives to help ensure Smith & Howard remains at the leading edge of innovation while upholding the highest standards of audit quality and regulatory compliance.

This is a firm-wide leadership role requiring close collaboration with office managing partners, engagement partners, the Assurance Services leadership team, and IT/technology teams to ensure quality objectives are met regardless of location or software platform in use. This role also supports and collaborates on firm-wide CPE compliance, including helping to form and oversee a committee that drives and delivers continuing professional education across all offices.

Essential Functions System of Quality Management (SOQM) Oversight

• Serve as the firm's subject matter expert on SQMS No. 1 and SQMS No. 2 (or successor standards), ensuring the firm's SOQM is fully designed, implemented, and operating effectively across all offices and service lines.
• Maintain and update the firm's quality objectives, risk assessments, and responses in accordance with the SOQM, adjusting as the firm's risk profile, personnel, or structure changes.
• Lead the firm's annual SOQM evaluation process and prepare required documentation and conclusions for firm leadership.
• Monitor regulatory and professional standard developments (AICPA, state boards of accountancy, and other applicable regulatory bodies) and proactively update firm policies and procedures accordingly.
• Serve as primary liaison during peer review or regulatory examination processes related to quality management.

Multi-Office Oversight & Standardization

• Oversee quality control consistency across all Smith & Howard office locations, ensuring uniform application of firm methodology regardless of legacy office practices or historical procedures.
• Identify and address gaps or inconsistencies in quality practices between offices, particularly those arising from mergers, acquisitions, or the Alternative Practice Structure.
• Partner with office leadership to embed a firm-wide quality culture while respecting local client service needs.
• Coordinate periodic internal inspections/monitoring reviews across offices to assess engagement quality and compliance with firm policy.

Cross-Platform Methodology Alignment

• Ensure consistent application of audit methodology across offices operating on different audit software platforms (e.g., differing engagement management, workpaper, or documentation systems).
• Work with IT and audit innovation teams to evaluate platform capabilities, identify risks to methodology consistency, and recommend solutions (customized templates, standardized checklists, cross-platform training materials, etc.).
• Lead or support technology transition/integration initiatives to move the firm toward a unified platform environment where feasible, minimizing disruption to engagement teams.
• Develop platform-agnostic quality control checkpoints that can be applied regardless of the underlying software tool.

Process Improvement & Audit Approach

• Continuously evaluate and enhance the firm's audit approach, tools, templates, and workflows to improve efficiency, consistency, and quality outcomes.
• Identify root causes of quality findings (internal inspections, peer review, engagement reviews) and design corrective action plans and preventive controls.
• Lead firm-wide training initiatives related to quality standards, methodology updates, and platform-specific procedures.
• Collaborate with engagement partners and managers to resolve complex accounting, auditing, or independence issues that arise during engagements.
• Recommend and help implement quality-related technology solutions to strengthen the SOQM.

Collaboration on AI & Emerging Technology Quality Standards

• Serve as the assurance quality control liaison to the firm's AI Steering Committee, ensuring that AI and emerging technology initiatives are evaluated through the lens of audit quality, professional standards, and the firm's SOQM.
• Partner with the AI Steering Committee to assess proposed AI-enabled audit tools and workflows (e.g., risk assessment analytics, automated testing, intelligent sampling, workpaper review assistants) for compliance with AICPA and other applicable professional standards prior to firm-wide rollout.
• Provide quality control input and guardrails as the firm evaluates and pilots new technologies, ensuring efficiency and innovation goals do not come at the expense of audit quality, professional skepticism, or documentation standards.
• Help translate AI Steering Committee initiatives into practical quality control policies, procedures, and monitoring protocols once tools are approved for use across engagement teams.
• Monitor the regulatory and standard-setting landscape around AI use in audits and flag emerging guidance or risk considerations to the AI Steering Committee and firm leadership.
• Support consistent, quality-compliant adoption of approved AI tools across all offices and software platforms, working with engagement teams to ensure proper application and documentation.
• Incorporate AI-related risks (e.g., over-reliance, explainability, data integrity) into the firm's ongoing quality risk assessment as new tools are adopted.

Offshore Resource Oversight

• Oversee the quality of work performed by offshore/outsourced engagement resources, ensuring their output meets the same standards of quality, documentation, and firm methodology as work performed onshore.
• Partner with offshore team leadership and onshore engagement teams to ensure consistent training, review protocols, and application of firm methodology, regardless of platform or location.
• Establish and monitor quality metrics, review checkpoints, and feedback loops specific to offshore-prepared workpapers and deliverables.
• Identify and remediate quality gaps or recurring issues arising from offshore engagement work, incorporating findings into firm-wide training and process improvement efforts.
• Ensure offshore resources are appropriately incorporated into the firm's SOQM, including relevant policies on supervision, review responsibility, and independence.
• Collaborate with firm leadership on offshore resourcing strategy as it relates to quality risk, capacity planning, and methodology alignment across onshore and offshore teams.

CPE Compliance Support & Committee Oversight

• Serve as a resource and collaborative partner to firm leadership and office administrators in ensuring CPE requirements are being met by professionals across all offices, in accordance with state board and firm policy requirements.
• Help form and provide ongoing oversight of a firm-wide CPE committee responsible for driving the planning, delivery, and tracking of continuing professional education across all offices.
• Partner with the CPE committee to ensure training content addresses current quality, methodology, and technical developments relevant to the firm's assurance practice, including platform-specific and industry-specific topics.
• Monitor CPE compliance trends across offices and flag gaps or at-risk individuals to firm leadership and the CPE committee in a timely manner.
• Help ensure CPE offerings support broader SOQM objectives, incorporating lessons learned from internal inspections, peer review, and quality monitoring into future training topics.

Risk Management & Independence

• Monitor compliance with independence, ethics, and engagement acceptance/continuance policies across the firm and its APS structure.
• Support consultation processes for complex or higher-risk engagements.
• Maintain documentation supporting the firm's quality risk assessment and monitoring activities for use in regulatory and peer review processes.

Leadership & Communication

• Report regularly to firm leadership (Assurance Services leadership team, Risk Management Committee, and/or Board) on the status of the SOQM, monitoring results, and improvement initiatives.
• Build strong working relationships with partners and staff across all offices to promote buy-in and accountability for quality.
• Represent the firm's quality function in client, regulatory, or professional organization interactions as needed.

Position Requirements Education & Certification

• Bachelor's degree in Accounting or related field required; Master's degree a plus.
• Active CPA license required.

Experience

• Minimum 10–12 years of progressive experience in public accounting, with significant experience in assurance/audit services.
• Prior experience in a quality control, risk management, or professional practice role strongly preferred.
• Experience working across multiple office locations and/or within an Alternative Practice Structure is highly desirable.
• Demonstrated experience with multiple audit software platforms (e.g., CaseWare, Thomson Reuters, Wolters Kluwer/CCH, AuditWatch, or proprietary platforms).
• Experience with peer review processes or AICPA quality management standards implementation preferred.
• Experience collaborating with technology, innovation, or steering committees to evaluate new tools or processes from a risk/quality control perspective preferred.
• Experience overseeing or working with offshore/outsourced engagement teams in a public accounting environment strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with audit and accounting issues across key industries served by the firm, including nonprofit, construction, manufacturing, distribution, technology, and franchising, strongly preferred.

Skills & Competencies

• Deep technical knowledge of AICPA quality management standards (SQMS 1 & 2) and auditing standards (GAAS).
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to assess risk and design practical, scalable solutions.
• Excellent project management skills; able to manage multiple firm-wide initiatives simultaneously across offices.
• Strong interpersonal and influencing skills; able to drive change and standardization across a decentralized, multi-office environment without direct authority over all stakeholders.
• Technology-savvy, with the ability to evaluate and bridge differences across audit software platforms.
• Comfortable engaging with cross-functional committees and stakeholders (including the AI Steering Committee) to provide a quality control perspective on emerging technology and innovation initiatives.
• Able to balance support for firm innovation goals with independent, objective judgment on audit quality and compliance risk.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including comfort presenting to firm leadership and external regulators.
• High degree of professional skepticism, integrity, and sound judgment.

Working Conditions

• Travel to firm office locations required (estimate: 15–20%, adjust based on firm expectations).
• May require additional hours during peer review cycles or year-end/interim engagement quality reviews.

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