BDO

BDO is an accounting, tax, and advisory firm with an office located at 1801 Market Street, Suite 1700, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Philadelphia location is one of many offices operated by BDO USA across the country, and it serves businesses, nonprofit organizations, government entities, and private clients throughout the Greater Philadelphia region, including the surrounding suburbs of southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware. The office can be reached by phone at +1 215-564-1900.

As a professional services organization, BDO operates in a space that extends well beyond traditional bookkeeping. The firm's work typically spans financial statement audits, corporate and individual tax compliance and planning, transaction support, risk management, and a range of consulting engagements related to technology, operations, and regulatory matters. The Philadelphia office functions as a regional hub for these services, drawing on both local practitioners and the broader national and international resources of the BDO network.

Background and Network

BDO USA is part of BDO International, a global network of independent public accounting, tax, and advisory firms that operate under a shared brand and set of standards. The international network was established in the 1960s by a group of accounting firms from different countries that wanted to serve clients with cross-border needs without merging into a single entity. Today that network includes member firms in well over one hundred countries and territories, giving each participating firm access to professionals abroad who understand local tax codes, statutory reporting requirements, and business customs.

The U.S. practice has a long history of its own, with origins tracing back to the early twentieth century in New York. Over the decades it grew through organic expansion and a series of combinations with regional firms, building out a national footprint of offices in major metropolitan markets. That growth strategy is part of why BDO occupies a distinctive position in the accounting profession: it is large enough to audit publicly traded companies and handle multinational tax structures, yet it has historically positioned itself as an alternative to the largest four global firms, with an emphasis on partner and senior-level accessibility on client engagements.

In recent years, BDO USA has also drawn attention within the profession for restructuring its ownership model to include an employee stock ownership plan, a move that gave its workforce an ownership stake in the business. That structural decision has been widely discussed in trade press as an unusual approach among firms of its size.

Services Offered

While the specific mix of work handled out of any single office varies with the local client base, BDO's practice areas generally fall into three broad categories. These include:

• Assurance services, including financial statement audits, reviews, and compilations; employee benefit plan audits; agreed-upon procedures engagements; and attestation work required by lenders, investors, regulators, or grantors.
• Tax services, covering federal, state, and local tax compliance; international tax structuring and transfer pricing; state and local tax nexus studies; credits and incentives such as research and development tax credits; compensation and benefits taxation; and private client services for high net worth individuals, families, and closely held businesses.
• Advisory services, encompassing transaction advisory and due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, valuation, forensic accounting and investigations, dispute advisory, business restructuring, risk and internal audit support, cybersecurity assessments, technology and digital transformation consulting, and managed outsourced accounting functions.

Many engagements combine elements from more than one of these areas. A company preparing for a sale, for example, may need valuation work, sell-side due diligence, tax structuring advice, and audited historical financials, all of which can be coordinated through a single office relationship.

Industry Focus

BDO organizes much of its work around industry specialization, on the premise that accounting and regulatory issues differ substantially from sector to sector. Industries commonly served include life sciences and pharmaceuticals, healthcare, technology, manufacturing and distribution, financial services, real estate and construction, retail and consumer products, professional services, nonprofit and education, government contracting, and private equity.

That industry lineup aligns closely with the composition of the Philadelphia regional economy. The area is home to a dense concentration of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, academic medical centers, universities, hospital systems, insurance and asset management firms, and a substantial nonprofit and foundation sector. Manufacturers, logistics operators, and construction firms are also well represented across the surrounding counties. For organizations in these fields, the questions that come up in an engagement tend to be technical and sector specific, ranging from revenue recognition for licensing arrangements to grant compliance and single audit requirements under federal funding rules.

Location and Accessibility

The office sits in Center City Philadelphia on Market Street, within the city's central business district and close to City Hall, Rittenhouse Square, and the concentration of law firms, banks, and corporate offices that line Market and Chestnut Streets. The location is convenient for in-person meetings with clients and advisors based in the city, and it is served by regional rail at Suburban Station and 30th Street Station, as well as by SEPTA subway and bus routes running along Market Street. Commercial parking garages operate in the immediate vicinity, and access to Interstate 76 and Interstate 676 is short for visitors driving in from the suburbs or from New Jersey.

The building offers a wheelchair accessible entrance, a wheelchair accessible restroom, and a wheelchair accessible parking lot, which makes visiting practical for clients and guests with mobility needs.

Practical Information for Prospective Clients

Professional services engagements at a firm of this scale usually begin with a scoping conversation rather than a walk-in visit. Prospective clients typically contact the office by phone to describe their situation, after which they are connected with a partner or director in the relevant practice or industry group. From there, the firm generally outlines the proposed scope, timing, staffing, and fee structure in an engagement letter before work begins.

It is worth noting a few practical points for anyone considering an engagement. Independence rules restrict the range of non-audit services a firm can provide to an audit client, so those conversations often shape which services can be bundled together. Audit and tax work is also seasonal, with heavy demand from January through April and again around calendar year-end reporting deadlines, meaning that early outreach tends to make scheduling easier. Organizations subject to federal grant requirements, lender covenants, or investor reporting obligations should be prepared to share details about those deadlines at the outset.

The Philadelphia office is also a recruiting point for accounting students and experienced professionals in the region, drawing candidates from the many colleges and universities with accounting programs in and around the city.