Starting a small business -- expenses question?

Learn. I have owned my own business for nearly 20 years and I had to learn Quick Books and basic business boookeeping. In the beginning, I could not afford an accountant (except for a little initial consult and to help me file quartlerlies and end of year taxes). I took some evening classes on Quick Books and found it really helped with the business of being in business. It takes both to suceed, you know. Whatever it is you do like cake baking, toaster repair, or lawn care- that is your business. You need to be good at that obviously, but then there is the business of being in business- billing, client relations, bookkeeping, business decisions on how much to spend on supplies and where to buy them, how much advertising and where, how much inventory to keep,etc. Many business have gone down the drain becasue the owner knew their business but did not know enough about being in business. You can't tell if you are making a profit until you clearly understand your expenses. I run Quick Books reports all the time to see which of my clients provided the most jobs this month, what items are selling the best, how much gross income I made in the last month, how much my expenses are averaging per week. I make a lot of business decisions based on what I learn from these reports. Even today, I do not have a full time accountant. And while I don't mind tax help, I need to know what is going on to make future decisions about my business and I do some data entry in Quick Books at least once a week (sometimes two or three times)to keep up.