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A serial entrepreneur Aaron Sylvan who lives in New York, contrasts the circumstances to requiring to hire both a carpenter and an architect when building a house. An accountant can analyze the big picture of your financial situation and offer strategic advice as he/she produces key financial documents, like profit-and-loss statement, if needed, and files a company's taxes. An accountant can also act as an outsourced chief financial officer, advising an entrepreneur on financial strategies, like whether to secure a line of credit against receivables when introducing new products after tax season is over On the contrary, a bookkeeper's jobs are the day-to-day hands-on tasks: making sure new employees file all the right paperwork for the company's payroll, submitting invoices (promptly) and following up on them, and paying the bills. The bookkeeper also tracks company expenses or company financial statements and can assure that every cost has been entered - and recorded correctly - into software like QuickBooks so that the business is ready for tax time along with filing any other reporting to, say, creditors or investors. "I don't keep receipts; they're a pain," says Sylvan, who runs Sylvan Social Technology, an ecommerce-services company. "Every month I get a bank statement with a gazillion transactions," such as taxi rides, meals, conferences and other expenses he has placed on his company's debit card. He said his bookkeeper spends a few hours a week sorting it all out. Consequently, Sylvan has a better idea about how his expenditures stack up in opposition to his budget. He is certain he won't bill clients wrongly or miss important payments. "Knowledge is power," even when it comes to the small details, Sylvan says. "If you don't have a bookkeeper, you're probably not being as strategic as you could be in how you spend your money." When to Bring in a Bookkeeper Sylvan has typically hired a bookkeeper for a few hour

Janet Yellen said in prepared remarks to be delivered in a confirmation hearing on Thursday that the Federal Reserve helped restart the economy after the recession, but still there's more work to be done. "We have made good progress, but we have farther to go to regain the ground lost in the crisis and the recession," reads the statement. Yellen is at present serving as vice-chair on the Federal Reserve Board, she is nominated by President Obama to succeed Ben Bernanke as head of the central bank. Bernanke's second term ends January 31, and in spite of the protests from a few Tea Party members, Yellen is mostly anticipated to be long-established for the position before then. Ten in the morning Eastern, Thursday, her hearing before the Senate Banking Committee is scheduled.

By Maria Gallucci - Global economic growth is expected to dip this year, following the fiercely cold winter that plagued the United States and turbulence in Ukraine and the world's financial markets. The World Bank on Tuesday said it reduced its global growth forecast to 2.8 percent this year, down from a January projection of 3.2 percent, Bloomberg News reported. The U.S. forecast was cut to 2.1 percent from 2.8 percent, and outlooks for Brazil, Russia, India and China also fell -- a sign that emerging economies aren't moving fast enough or investing sufficiently in domestic structural reforms, which are needed to accelerate economic expansion, according to the Washington-based institution. It recommended smaller budget deficits, higher interest rates and productivity-boosting measures to stave off future financial unrest, Bloomberg said. The growth setbacks, however, might be short-lived. The 2015 projection for global economic growth held steady at 3.4 percent, Bloomberg noted, and growth is expected to regain speed this year despite earlier weaknesses, the World Bank said in its Global Economic Prospects report. "The financial health of economies has improved. ... But we are not totally out of the woods yet," Kaushik Basu, the lender's chief economist, said. "A gradual tightening of fiscal policy and structural reforms are desirable to restore fiscal space depleted by the 2008 financial crisis. In brief, now is the time to prepare for the next crisis."

The Corliss Online Group Financial Magazine: Financial Tips for Boomers Looking to Retire Abroad As baby boomers continue to redefine retirement, many are looking to settle abroad to launch the next chapter in their life. Whether you are seeking a warmer climate, better tax advantages or more adventure, financial planners say retiring to a foreign land can present a number of financial challenges. To help create a retirement guidebook for boomers looking to leave the country to live out their golden years, I spoke with Michael Ward, CEO of USForex - North America and Europe, who detailed how retirees can preserve their income and avoid losing money when living abroad.

IT'S time to come clean about our dirty credit card habits and how we can avoid them eroding our wealth. While we've all been slowly reducing our outstanding credit card balances, with $34 billion still owing, they remain the scourge of most families. It's fair to say credit cards are the most potent weapon of mass financial destruction since the loan shark. Their convenience and flexibility means it's so easy for them to get out of hand and lead to serious financial distress. We need to be vigilant in ensuring our credit cards work for us and don't destroy our finances. To avoid getting into trouble in the first place, or get back in control of an existing debt, here are our five golden rules for using credit cards.