Fractional CFO Services in Louisville
Fractional CFO and controller services for Louisville construction, contractors, distribution, manufacturing, and service businesses. NuLu office.
Ohio Valley Office
Louisville is one of our anchor offices.
Vessel Advisors maintains a Louisville office serving companies across Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and the broader Ohio Valley. We work with manufacturers, logistics operators, healthcare services groups, and the family-owned businesses that anchor the regional economy — owners building toward generational transition, third-party sale, or PE recapitalization.
The Ohio Valley business community moves differently than the coasts. Long-tenured ownership, longer time horizons, and finance functions that often haven’t been touched in a decade.
How can we help?
What’s going on in your business and where would you like help?
An Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Company for two consecutive years.
The Market
The Ohio Valley company is a different kind of company.
Louisville sits at the intersection of three economies — Midwest manufacturing, Southern logistics, and Appalachian-edge resource industries. UPS Worldport runs nightly. Ford, GE Appliances, and a constellation of automotive suppliers shape the industrial base. Bourbon distilleries, food processors, and building-products manufacturers fill out the picture. Healthcare — Humana, Kindred, and the regional hospital systems — is the largest white-collar employer.
The companies we work with here tend to be older, more conservative, and more closely held than what you find in growth markets. Owners are often the second or third generation. Books may be cleaner than what we see elsewhere — but the finance function is often built around a single bookkeeper or controller who has been with the company for 20 years and is approaching retirement. When that person leaves, the institutional knowledge leaves with them.
What we see most:
- Family-owned manufacturers with 30+ years of history and no documented finance processes.
- Logistics and distribution operators serving regional and national customers from Louisville’s central position.
- Healthcare services groups expanding regionally — physician practices, ambulatory care, behavioral health.
- Construction contractors — commercial, industrial, infrastructure — scaling with the regional industrial base.
- Owner-operators preparing for transition, often without ever having modeled what the business is worth.
Industries
Where we work most in the Ohio Valley.
Manufacturing and distribution
Automotive parts, food processing, building products, durable goods. The recurring work: inventory accuracy, gross margin visibility by product line, standard cost discipline, and turning a long-tenured but informal finance team into a documented, repeatable operation. Our manufacturing case study illustrates the gap.
Logistics and transportation
Louisville’s position as the UPS Worldport anchor and a central distribution corridor produces a deep base of regional carriers, 3PLs, and warehousing operators. Margin analysis by lane, fuel-cost recovery, and customer profitability are where finance has to step up.
Healthcare services
Multi-location physician practices, ambulatory surgery, dental, behavioral health groups expanding across the Ohio Valley. Roll-up integration, payor mix, and EBITDA quality of earnings are baseline finance work for the platform sponsors driving this consolidation.
Construction and the trades
Industrial, commercial, and infrastructure contractors serving the regional manufacturing base. WIP accounting, retention tracking, equipment depreciation strategy, and bonding capacity are the recurring pressure points.
Kentucky Taxes and Compliance
Kentucky taxes your income at 3.5%, and Louisville Metro taxes it again.
Every Louisville business files with the state and with the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission, and an LLC or S corporation owes Kentucky an entity-level tax even in a year it loses money. The 2026 legislative session also changed sales-tax nexus, federal conformity and the inheritance tax that shapes family succession.
Taxes
Income tax
3.5% flat, with no cut scheduled
Kentucky's individual rate fell from 4.0% to 3.5% for 2026. The budget test for a 2027 cut missed by $7,587,282 and the test for 2028 failed too, so the trigger allows no cut in either year. Corporations pay a flat 5% on income apportioned by receipts alone.
Louisville net-profits tax
2.2% of net profit, with a return due even at a loss
Louisville Metro taxes the apportioned net profit of every business entity, including S corporations, partnerships and LLCs. The base adds back state and local income taxes and net operating losses, and there is no minimum and no profit floor. The return is due the 15th day of the fourth month, with quarterly estimates once the annual tax tops $5,000.
Limited liability entity tax
0.095% of receipts, owed by LLCs and S corporations
Every corporation, LLC and limited partnership pays the lesser of 0.095% of Kentucky gross receipts or 0.75% of gross profits, phased in between $3 million and $6 million, with a $175 minimum owed even at a loss. A services company has no cost of goods sold, so $20 million of Kentucky receipts means about $19,000. Tax above $175 is credited only against Kentucky income tax on that company's income, and any excess is lost.
Federal conformity
No bonus depreciation, no research expensing
Kentucky follows the federal code as of a fixed date, and HB 757 moved it to December 31, 2025 for 2026 returns. Kentucky still keeps domestic research costs on five-year amortization, and its depreciation rules stay frozen at 2001, with no bonus. For 2025, Kentucky used the code as of December 31, 2024, so the July 2025 federal law didn't apply at all.
Sales tax
6.0% in Louisville, with no local add-on
Kentucky has no local sales taxes, so the state's 6% is the full rate. It reaches about 50 services, including SaaS since 2023, website design and hosting, and janitorial and landscaping work. Since August 1, 2026, data brokering is taxable too, and a remote seller must register once its Kentucky sales top $100,000 in a calendar year, with the 200-transaction test gone.
Inheritance tax
Nieces and nephews joined the exempt class in 2026
For deaths on or after January 1, 2026, nieces and nephews inherit free of Kentucky tax, as children, grandchildren and siblings already did. A son- or daughter-in-law pays 4% to 16%, and an unrelated successor such as a key employee pays 6% to 16%. For deaths on or after July 1, 2026, the tax is due within 24 months, with a 5% discount for paying within 14.
Employers
Louisville payroll tax
2.2% from residents, 1.45% from non-residents
The resident rate is 1.25% for Metro, 0.20% for TARC transit and 0.75% for the school boards, and non-residents don't pay the school share. Employers withhold it from all pay for work performed in Louisville Metro, with no wage cap, and deposit monthly once withholding passes $3,000 in a quarter.
Minimum wage
$7.25 an hour, with no local minimum
Kentucky's minimum is tied to the federal rate, and the tipped cash wage is $2.13. State law bars Louisville Metro, like every city and county in Kentucky, from requiring employers to pay a set wage or any fringe benefit.
Unemployment insurance
$12,000 wage base, 9.0% for new construction employers
The tax applies to the first $12,000 of each employee's wages, the most the statute allows. New employers pay at least 2.7% until they have three years of experience. A new construction employer pays the schedule's maximum, 9.0% in 2026, until it has 12 consecutive quarters of Kentucky payroll.
Final paychecks
The later of the next payday or 14 days
Kentucky applies one rule to a discharge and a resignation. All wages are due by the next normal payday or 14 days after separation, whichever comes later.
Not required in Kentucky
No paid leave, retirement-plan or E-Verify mandate
Kentucky has no paid sick leave law, no paid family leave or disability program, no state retirement-plan mandate, no pay-range posting law and no E-Verify requirement for private employers. Bills on retirement savings, pay ranges and E-Verify died in committee in 2025 and 2026.
Crossing the river
Indiana residents working in Louisville
No Kentucky withholding, but 1.45% to Louisville
An Indiana resident who works in Louisville files Kentucky Form 42A809, and the employer withholds no Kentucky income tax. Reciprocity covers state tax only, so the 1.45% Louisville license tax still comes out of each paycheck, and Indiana credits it against the employee's county tax.
Kentucky residents working in Indiana
Clark County 2.00%, Floyd County 1.89%
A Kentucky resident working in Clark or Floyd County pays Kentucky's 3.5% instead of Indiana's state tax, but still owes the Indiana county's tax, because the agreements don't cover local income taxes. The county is the one where the employee's principal place of work was on January 1, and Indiana counties can now change rates on January 1 and October 1.
Indiana's state rates
2.95% individual, 4.9% corporate, 7% sales
The same three rates in Kentucky are 3.5%, 5% and 6%. Indiana's individual rate falls to 2.90% in 2027, and Clark and Floyd counties levy their own income tax as well.
Questions Louisville owners ask
How fast do owners and general contractors have to pay in Kentucky?
On private non-residential and public work, the Kentucky Fairness in Construction Act gives the owner 30 business days to pay a timely, proper and undisputed pay request, or 45 for school boards and public universities. A general contractor pays its subcontractors within 15 business days of being paid, and late payments in either case carry 12% interest a year. Clauses that bar delay damages for owner-caused delay or require more than partial lien waivers for progress payments are void, and residential construction falls outside the act.
How much retainage can be held on a Kentucky job?
An owner can hold up to 10% of each payment until the project is 50% complete, and no more than 5% of the total contract after that, on private and public jobs alike. Retainage is due within 30 days of substantial completion, less 200% of the cost of the remaining work, and late retainage bears 12% interest. Since June 27, 2025, the escrow rule covers private contracts of $2,000,000 or more, up from $500,000: retainage sits in a separate escrow at a Kentucky bank or trust company, and the contract can't waive it.
What are Kentucky's mechanics' lien deadlines?
A subcontractor or supplier without a direct contract with the owner sends written notice of intent to lien within 120 days after its last furnishing, or within 75 days for a claim under $1,000 or an owner-occupied one- or two-family home. The lien statement goes to the county clerk within six months after last furnishing, and a copy must be mailed to the owner within seven days of filing or the lien dissolves. A suit to enforce the lien must come within 12 months of filing.
Does a Kentucky contractor charge sales tax on its work?
No. Kentucky treats the contractor as the consumer of the materials and fixtures it installs, so it pays the 6% sales or use tax when it buys them, whatever the contract type, and construction labor isn't a taxable service. It can't use a government, school, church or charity customer's exemption to buy tax-free. More on fractional controllers for construction companies.
Can a seller's unpaid Kentucky taxes follow the business to the buyer?
A buyer has to hold back enough of the price to cover the seller's sales and use tax until the seller produces a Department of Revenue receipt or a certificate that no tax is due, or the buyer becomes personally liable up to the purchase price. The department must answer a certificate request within 60 days, and never more than 90. The buyer also takes over the seller's unemployment insurance account, and it owes any delinquent contributions, behind the seller, if the state notifies it within six months of learning of the sale. See how we help owners prepare a business for sale.
Can my spouse's share reach business interests in a revocable trust?
Yes, since July 15, 2026. A surviving spouse can renounce the will within six months and claim half of the surplus personal property, and that share now counts revocable-trust assets, beneficiary-designated and joint assets, and gifts made within two years of death. A business interest moved into a revocable trust, or given away in those two years, can be pulled into it. Kentucky is not a community property state, though spouses can opt into a Kentucky community property trust.
Does Kentucky tax business inventory?
Yes. Inventory is taxed as personal property assessed on January 1, at a state rate of 5 cents per $100, and the return is due May 15. Kentucky then credits 100% of the property tax paid on time on that inventory against income tax and the LLET, and the credit is nonrefundable and passes through to owners. Manufacturing machinery is taxed at 15 cents per $100, by the state only.
Does Kentucky give a credit for research spending?
Not on research spending. Kentucky's only research credit is 5% of the cost of building, remodeling or equipping a research facility in the state. It is nonrefundable and nontransferable, applies against income tax and the LLET, and carries forward for 10 years.
Figures verified October 2026 against the Kentucky Revised Statutes, Administrative Regulations and 2026 session laws, the Kentucky Department of Revenue, the Office of State Budget Director, the Kentucky Office of Unemployment Insurance, the Louisville Metro Revenue Commission, Kentucky General Assembly bill records and the Indiana Department of Revenue. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.
Louisville Finance Talent
Louisville's financial managers earn about 18% less than the national median.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 2,670 financial managers, the category that covers controllers and finance directors, in the Louisville metro on both sides of the river. Median pay is $136,970, against a national median of $166,570. One in ten earns $230,840 or more, where the national 90th percentile is $323,270.
The metro has 2,027 business locations with 50 to 499 employees, all drawing on that pool of 2,670 financial managers. A company can get CFO judgment without a full-time hire, so it doesn't have to win that search.
Sources: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, Louisville/Jefferson County, KY-IN MSA. U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023 and Vintage 2025 population estimates.
How we engage.
When It's Broken
Put out the fire.
Interim CFO & Controller. At the loss of a key employee. When things crash or break. We deploy interim professionals — repairing what's broken and keeping the system running while you decide what's next.
When You're Building & Exiting
Advise and serve.
CFO, Controller & Accounting Team. Right-sized financial leadership — and the team to execute. Embedded for the long run. The CFO Power Team: right roles, right cost.
When You Don't Know What You Don't Know
Assessment services.
Financial Discovery Assessment. A structured deep-dive that reveals where your finance function stands today — and what it needs to support where you're going.
Transaction Readiness Assessment. Will the books and reporting tell the right story to a buyer or investor — and do the systems and processes support merger or acquisition activities?
Visit Us
Find us in NuLu.
Our Louisville office serves Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, and the broader Ohio Valley region.
Local Office
Vessel Advisors — Louisville
828 East Market Street
Louisville, KY 40206
866-324-4473
Headquarters
Vessel Advisors
2211 Michelson Drive, Suite 900
Irvine, CA 92612
Our Proprietary Diagnostic
The Financial Discovery Assessment shows you what’s working, what’s missing, and the plan to get where the business needs to go.
Every Assessment applies the same structured examination — accounting systems and technology, processes and procedures, team members and team structure, and team-member will-skill — refined across hundreds of engagements in businesses that look like yours.
The output is the Financial Heat Map System: dollarized findings, hidden inefficiencies, and a sequenced plan. It’s presented at the Executive Action Meeting, where your stakeholders review findings and recommendations in non-clinical, non-technical language they can act on.
We’ve walked into hundreds of businesses at the stage yours is in now. We know where to look. We know how to fix what we find.
Prefer to call? 866-324-4473