As boring as it may be, especially when compared to the inherent thrills of light construction, there's no business without bookkeeping. The small business environment is flooded with "easy-to-use" accounting software programs, to help us dispatch this odious task electronically. Apparently, they're not easy enough, as a busy industry of well-attended how-to services and seminars attests. Angelo Ventresca, Jr., the author of Basic Bookkeeping for Beginners & Small Businesses (1999; Angelo Ventresca Associates, RR 5 Box 54, Montrose, PA 18801; 570/278-2721; $20), states that "… one cannot properly operate a computer bookkeeping program until manual bookkeeping is understood." The accuracy of computer data is often summarized with a related thought, "garbage in, garbage out." So, even though
