In my AA (Administrative Assistant) job, I have to keep the books. We use QuickBooks to record financial business. At home, I use Quicken.

learning new software

I am working on learning the ins and outs of Quicken, (my graduation from spreadsheets), and now I have to work on learning QuickBooks too. At work they’re planning a training session for us to learn more about QuickBooks. At home, I’m on my own, which is fine.

Usually I click around to learn new software, it’s part of the fun for me. But, I’m in a bit of a hurry now. I need the key information, not extra stuff right now.

I bought 2 books for bookkeeping and Quicken. In reviewing the Quicken book, I found I’m going to have to sift through a lot of ‘related’ material. There’s a lot of aside information that is too far afield to be called theory. Along with getting what I need, a manual for the application, this book seems to try to incorporate bookkeeping and accounting training. And, it is infused throughout the book. So, I expect big fun trying to get around/through all that.

writing the book review

Once I’ve read through enough, (I just got the Quicken book today), I’ll make my determination on whether or not I’ll recommend the book. I was actually surprised by how much extra stuff was in the book. What I was looking for was a dedicated software book. Interestingly this book is the closest I’ve come and it doesn’t cover my particular version of the software.

Once I’m done scanning/using the book, I may write a detailed review of what I got out of the book. I see that I’ll have to sift through the distracting stuff. But it looks like the book will show me some things I haven’t figured out yet. It may turn out that the book is perfect the way it is…I’ll let you know.

Are you learning anything new? Do you take a class or buy a book first thing? Or is structured learning your last resort?