This is a guest post is Submitted by Tina, the finance blogger at Pro Finance Blog. She is an avid writer and loves to write about money management and financial topics. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

Not keeping a record of financial whereabouts can be a blunder for an individual. In case of a dispute with the credit bureaus or the banks or any other financial institution, he may have to produce it.

It’s a good thing that people now understand the importance of keeping financial records. They are now taking their finances more seriously than ever before. Some are even hiring professional accountants so that their finances are taken care of.

Do you need one?

What should you do? Should you hire a professional accountant or handle it all by yourself? The answer is not that easy. If you have exposure in finance (may not be formal) or handled financial duties before, then you are better off not hiring one. But if you are a naive person, who gets intimidated by the complexities of finance, then hiring a personal accountant may not be a bad idea.

Consider the following things before taking a decision:

Take an expert’s opinion

If you are in a dwindling state of mind, not sure whether hiring a personal accountant will be good for you, take an expert’s opinion. The expert will ask you questions regarding your finances. If he feels that your way of handling your finances is okay, then he’ll won’t advise you to hire an accountant.

But if he finds out that you don’t pay your bills on time, don’t have a prepaid debit card, or your credit card debt has been too high before you cleared it, then he may advise you to hire an accountant. Experts recommend us to pay for non-required utilities from spurious sources of income and required utilities from stable sources. If you can’t follow this, then you might need an accountant.

Software at your service

Are you a techie? If you are, then you can manage your finances without hiring an accountant. Financial software have become really advanced and they allow you to manage your finances without needing anyone’s help.

In the past, people were afraid to handle their finances themselves, because they lacked budgeting skills, were intimidated by lengthy asset management steps and difficult calculations. But now financial software can take care of all of these; a person only needs to get an idea of how to operate the software, that’s all.

Assuming you don’t know which software to use, here’s a list of them. The list not only includes personal financial management software for individual use but also for small business use.

Affordability check

Do you have the financial resources to hire an accountant? Find the answer first, and then head to an accountant’s office. According to PayScale, a personal financial accountant makes around $50K a year, which is a moderate amount. Their charge is between $25-$50 an hour.

You can pay this amount, so can many others. But that’s not the point, the point is whether an hour-long service of an accountant can fix your financial problems. As far as common sense goes, the answer is no. You have to enter into a contract with the accountant and that would be expensive.

The many nuances

Most people don’t know the differences between a certified public accountant (CPA) and a financial planner. The two are very different; the consultation and services they offer are also different. If you have decided to hire an accountant, then first understand the nuances in finance, or else, you’ll go to the wrong guy.

You can go to a bookkeeper, an accountant, a CPA, a financial planner or a financial advisor. They have expertise in different areas, which means they can help you but in different ways. Go to a bookkeeper if you want to lower cost because their hourly rate is $15. An accountant and a CPA has similar background, only an accountant has limited exposure. As for the differences between a financial advisor and financial planner, see this.

Financial incentives

Nothing motivates a person more than financial rewards. By hiring an accountant, you can lay your hands on such rewards. Eager to know how? Okay, here’s how:

IRS data indicate in 2015, the average tax return per person was $3000. That’s interesting because among the taxpayers, who filed for return, many were millennials whose earning falls in the $30K range. This means they got a return of 10% of their yearly income.

The yearly income range is a bit high for baby boomers, add to that their life savings and the tax return doesn’t look that impressive. But the US Congress has been cutting the social security for boomers, maybe because they feel the boomer burden is a myth. Anyways, the point is here is tax return is a financial incentive for the boomers as well.

Aside from tax return, a shiny credit score also qualifies as a financial incentive because it can make it easy to to get loans at flexible terms, and for a credit score over 700, you may need an accountant to look over your credit card statements.

Conclusion

Consider everything discussed here in this article before you take a decision on hiring or not hiring a personal financial accountant.