Many months ago when I started using Access, I had no clue. I think that generally for accounting databases that aim to render Balance sheet and the full accounting ability to most kinds of businesses, the following features are important. I am confident that we are on the right track.
1. Entities like, Employees, Customers, Suppliers, Creditors, Banks we have 12. Each with own table and query.
2. We created a CombinedEntity table and query. Ken Sheridan taught me how. The 12 entities combine here and it work well.
3. Documents like Purchase Invoice, Sales Invoice, Payment, Receipt and Journal all have their own table and query.(Main and Sub)
4. The same as the entities, we created a CombinedTransactions table and query that brings all transactions to a combined query.
5. An invoice(most documents) use many fields in a long line, one line in the main form and possibly multiple on the subform; Discount, Vat and Total. I opt to set up Union query because these separate transactions on the same invoice must end up one below the other to be able to get them all in a Ledger. (hope you understand me.)
6. Our eyes and ears are always wide open to learn.