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About Our Firm

Sommerville & Associates, P.C. incorporated in 2002, is a public accounting firm providing an array of tax, accounting and compliance services to nonprofit organizations and the people who serve them. Elaine Sommerville, CPA, the firm’s sole shareholder, leads our team in offering tax, bookkeeping, payroll and consulting services to nonprofit organizations as well as individual tax and consulting services to the individuals serving the nonprofit sector. The firm’s operating philosophy is to have highly trained professionals work directly with our clients to bring immediate impact to the issues. We endeavor to specifically train staff to be knowledgeable in areas of our practice involving our nonprofit clientele and believe in bringing the highest quality of work to the client at the fairest price possible. Our focus on offering services to the nonprofit community is intentional and we enjoy long standing relationships with many of our clients.

Not only are we dedicated to providing a highly-trained staff, but our firm strongly believes in educating those who work with and for nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit organizations can better achieve their missions when they are built on a strong foundation. A strong foundation is secured by engaging experienced and competent outside professionals as well as hiring experienced and competent internal team members. Therefore, we are actively involved in educational forums throughout the country including co-hosting the Ultimate Financial & Legal Conference held each October, a conference specifically geared to educating those working with religious organizations.

Our Team

Elaine Sommerville, Shareholder

Elaine Sommerville is considered a leading national tax professional in nonprofit tax issues. Elaine has been in the practice of public accounting for more than 30 years, concentrating her clientele in the area of nonprofit organizations both religious as well as other types of organizations. Her experience with nonprofit organizations and churches is unique in that she has had the opportunity to assist in the representation of four large case IRS exams involving organizations with annual budgets more than $100 million, in addition to other IRS examinations of smaller nonprofit organizations. This IRS examination experience includes assisting in the representation of several church examinations.

Elaine currently devotes her time to handling various IRS issues, including personal taxation issues for individuals and federal and state compliance issues for nonprofit organizations and churches. Elaine frequently assists organizations in gaining their tax-exempt status with the IRS. Over the years, Elaine has successfully filed more than 100 exemption applications for organizations. She is regularly sought out by other CPA’s and law firms to provide tax services in connection with litigation or regulatory proceedings, has participated in large case IRS compliance reviews, and researches tax issues for special client situations. In addition, she performs several IRS compliance reviews each year for her clients to assist them in staying in compliance with both federal and state regulations. Her firm currently prepares more than one hundred fifty Forms 990 or 990-EZ for nonprofit organizations.

In addition to working with nonprofit organizations in areas of regulatory compliance, Elaine has a passion for training those who work for nonprofit organizations. She is a regular speaker for The Church Network, including teaching a portion of its certified church business administrator curriculum, the Houston Church Co-Op, the Texas State Society of CPAs, the Shelby Systems Annual Conference, and the Texas Society of CPAs. Elaine is an instructor for the AICPA’s 8 hour CPE courses on the preparation of the Form 990. She is a contributing author to PPC’s Nonprofit Tax and Governance Guide as well as contributing editor for various publications provided by Christianity Today. In 2011, she was inducted into The Church Network’s Outstanding Service Providers’ Hall of Fame.

Elaine is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Texas Society of CPAs and The Church Network.

Shannon Wood, CPA, Tax Manager

Shannon Wood joined the firm in August of 2003. Shannon is a certified public accountant and currently serves Sommerville & Associates as the Tax Manager for the firm. She graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Taxation. Shannon has been in public accounting since 2000.

Shannon supervises the preparation and filing of the tax returns as well as contributing to many of the consulting projects performed by the firm such as the IRS Compliance Reviews and individual research questions. She is experienced in filing returns for corporations, partnerships, nonprofit organizations and individuals.

Shannon is a member of the Texas Society of CPAs and is active with the Fort Worth Chapter’s Nonprofit Group. Shannon also serves on the planning committee as the committee chair for the Texas Society of CPAs Nonprofit Organizations Conference.

Sandra Fowler, CPA, CPP, Payroll Services Manager

Sandra Fowler joined the firm in August of 2002. Sandra holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from Southwestern Assemblies of God University and Masters of Science in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington. In 2008, she achieved the status as a certified public accountant. In 2020, Sandra became a Certified Payroll Professional with the American Payroll Association.

Sandra is one of our firm’s most well rounded team members. She started part time and has held almost every position we have in the office. However, today her predominant area of service to the firm is in the preparation of various tax filings. She manages the payroll return filings and payroll processing services for our clients as well as provides experience in return preparation services for our clients filing Forms 990 and Forms 1040.

Sandra is a member of the Texas Society of CPAs and has spoken at several conferences on tax and compliance issues including the Co-op Ministry Conference, The Church Network conference, and the Shelby Systems Annual conference. She is also a member of PayrollOrg and the Board of Contributing Writers for the organization's magazine, Paytech.

Dondi Hayhurst, CPA, Accounting Services Manager

Dondi Hayhurst joined the Sommerville & Associates staff in 2010 and has been serving non-profit organizations since 2000. Prior to joining S&A, she worked for the firms of PSK, LLP and Weaver and Tidwell, LLP, as well as serving as the Director of Finance for the Mansfield Area Chamber of Commerce. She has a working knowledge of Shelby Systems, QuickBooks, and Aplos accounting softwares and is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor. She holds a Master of Professional Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Dondi works with our clients in all areas of accounting, general ledger management, financial statement preparations, and audit preparations.

Dondi is a member of the Texas Society of CPAs, the Fort Worth Chapter of TSCPA and the Greater Fort Worth Chapter of The Church Network.

James Hargrove, Accounting & Tax Professional

James Hargrove joined the firm in 2009 as an intern with the firm. He continued to work part time with the firm while completing his Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting from the University of Texas at Arlington. After completing his degree, he joined the firm full time and works with our clients on both accounting and tax matters. James has a working knowledge of QuickBooks and Aplos software.

James prepares Forms 1040 and 990 as well as quarterly and annual payroll tax filings for our clients. He also provides bookkeeping and outsourcing services to our clients.

Naomi Mack, Accounting Staff

Katalla Fairbanks, Accounting Staff

Tim McDermott, CPA, Tax Professional

Cheyenne Cardona, Tax Staff

Bill Green, Accounting & Administrative Staff