Last night I started—finally—entering in all my QuickBooks data. It took a few hours to figure out the best way for me to enter the financial data, but once I figured out how QuickBooks was architected beneath the layers and layers of GUI, it became a lot simpler to understand. Starting over also helped, and knowing I’ll be able to do some pretty cool reporting is very exciting. It’s about time I got my crap together.

As I entered the various accounts, vendors, and items on-the-fly, I realized that part of the reason I’m able to deal with QuickBooks now is that I’ve been doing my own business taxes for about 8 years now. As a result, I have a good idea of the various expenses are, and I have a basic “My First Book of Accounting, For Ages 4-7” level of understanding regarding AP, AR, cashflow, etc. And the Tax Code starts to make a weird kind of sense when you realize that it’s driven by one basic principle: if you receive a benefit, through any means, above and beyond what the government deems as the baseline, they want a piece of the action. And unless you have something to do with churches or babies, they will take their piece. Reminds me a bit of the Mafia.

Anyway, I’ve noticed a learning pattern in myself: I can be introduced to a new process and set of ideas once, and even if I don’t do anything directly related to them, in about five years something seems to ripen and the task is easier. I actually first tried to use QuickBooks about 5 years ago, and found it confusing and lame. In the five years since, I became more familiar with relational database concepts, the idea of categorizing expenses, and the tax filing process. All these experiences have percolated together for a long time, creating a rich base that made my 2005 QuickBooks Initiative more successful. Of course, the product itself may have also improved in terms of user interface. To me, though, it still acts like two separate pieces of software: the database-driven accounting engine, and the wizards-based GUI. They don’t quite mesh, because the overall principles that drive the system aren’t expressed in a system view that clearly relates the two activities. But I digress…what’s interesting is how some kinds of learning are akin to fermentation of concepts over a long period of time. Suddenly, you just get it.

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