When to hire an Accountant?

[Marc Gallegos]

2015 was my first year as a grownup... Would love some help/ advice here. Heres the timeline!

Jan 2015 bought first rental property on an interest only note. Graduated college May 2015. July 2015 Finished 5k in renovations to the rental property. August 2015 was my 1st year anniversary with my wife. In September we got a great new tenant for great cash flow.

I've been a mortgage broker since July 2015 so I'm learning how to write off business expenses and rental property expenses. Would this be a good time to get my first accountant or am I just being a baby and can handle the situation?

School tuition write offs, rental property renovation,  and business write offs are all the areas I have questions on. Should I hire an accountant or just work on it myself?

First time dealing with real tax advantage situations....I'm a novice.

[Jeff B.]

First, the names matter and there's a world of difference 'twix an accountant/bookkeeper and a CPA - - compare Bachelors vs PHD.

Second, although I aced accounting, I hate it.  I do the raw data entry as it's just dumb to hire someone to do that and then pass it on to the CPA.

So I enter bills, payments, po's, invoices and payments, but that's it.  Mr CPA gets to do the depreciation, amortizations and the State/Fed tax returns.

As soon as there's more than one assest to manage, outsource ALL of it.