An accountant or a certified public accountant and a financial adviser are very important when it comes in managing finances. For money matters, these two professionals are the best choice to help you out. Did you know that there are many virtual personal assistant services online that offers accounting and financial planning? They can even do and help you with your personal tasks and other businesses at the same time.
An accountant and a financial advisor both work in the industry of finance. Undeniably, they have the same goals for a business or a person they work for. But, what is the difference between the two? Financial advisers work side by side with you for income generation through investment. While an accountant may concentrate on a business or individual’s taxes. That’s the most common definition you might hear from time to time when comparing the two specialists.
But what do you really need? It’s easy, we just need to know their scope of work and what assets of yours they will be dealing with. In some cases, a financial adviser can be also an accountant and vice Versa. But in other cases, both the scope of work can be handled by a single person. But that would be a bit difficult if you have a large corporation, a massive business income, or a large amount of money in the bank. Normally, two separate professionals should be handling your assets and income.
Now let’s get to the definition of a financial adviser and an accountant to compare their differences.
Financial Adviser
A financial advisor is a professional whose job is to give advice to individuals towards money, retirement, insurance, and investments. They help manage your wealth and reach goals by creating plans. Also, they provide guidance as you grow along the way. The best thing about a financial adviser is the way they see things with saving money, reducing debt, and investing wisely with your wealth.
Nowadays, there are two types of financial advisers, the traditional one and the online financial adviser. There are many companies and services online to look for a financial adviser. You just have to search the companies online where you want to commit.
Accountant
An accountant, on the other hand, does more than a financial advisor. The day to day work of an accountant could be exhausting and tiring because of the numerous tasks at hand. But somehow, their tasks depending on their area of expertise and the size of a company they work for. The normal tasks of an accountant vary from:
- Business revenue and expenditure analyzation
- Accounting policies and budget development
- Monthly accounting reports for assets and liabilities
- Submission of business audit and investigation reports
- Financial health report submission
An accountant and a financial advisor can be incorporated as a single person. The mere fact that both fields can be done by either professional makes it cost-effective for a company when looking at hiring someone for their business.
Online Financial Advisors
The new trend for financial advisors can be found online. And take note, they are computer programs! Artificial intelligence is slowly conquering the world and competing with humans. The choice is yours if you want to have traditional financial advisers or computer programs. Honestly, nothing can ever beat traditional financial advisors or what we call traditional advisors. Computers can think like humans, but “judgment” and “decisions” cannot be paralleled by artificial intelligence.
Some “robot’ financial advisers online can do multiple things for your finances. It does automation of investments that are being run by a computer program. It also does in investing your assets to online firms without the need for human contact. The choice is yours, you can choose to seek advice from a person or rather let a computer program decide for you.
Luckily, there are still traditional financial advisors that can be found online. You can choose and compare each according to your budget and needs. Did you know that you can even hire a virtual personal assistant who can be your online financial advisor? It’s true, the scope of online virtual assistants today is so broad. You can assign a task not just for financial matters, but for personal and business tasks as well.
Online Accountant
There are also Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms found online. This is the best choice for those companies who do not have a physical office but have a business tax and accounting needs. Real estate businesses or other large scale investment needs and accountants to work properly. And for startups, you might want to seek the services of an online accountant.
Artificial Intelligence programs are slowly crawling everywhere. But don’t worry, online accountants are humans, not computer programs. You can still have human interaction and conversation with real human accountants.
Conclusion
To answer the question, what do you need, a financial adviser or an accountant? You probably should hire both a financial adviser and accountant if you have large investments, assets, finances, real estate properties, insurance, and all that pertains to monetary subjects. But if you are starting to grow your business, we can fairly say that you can start with an accountant. They will be the ones to handle all your taxes and accounting matters so that your business can run smoothly, avoiding tax debts and smooth-sailing cash flow.
When your finances are getting heavy on the pocket and your bank account is getting quite big, that is the time to get a financial advisor to avoid overspending. Giving you advice on what or where to invest and not having your money on a stagnant phase, financial growth, and cultivation.
With many services now available on the go, instead of hiring an accountant or a financial advisor for your every financial need, you could also opt for online tools e.g a paystub maker can help you generate a paystub with correct tax calculations in minutes.
