Like one of the other posts said - figure out WHY you want to do this. I GUARANTEE you that it's more time consuming than you think it's going to be.
Write out a business plan and have someone reliable look it over.
Retain a GOOD accountant. You might not need bookkeeping from them but a good accountant can keep you out of a LOT of trouble.
Plugging numbers into Quickbooks or some other program is really easy to do. It also doesn't mean a damned thing if you don't know what the numbers mean or if they're showing up the way they're supposed to. Learn what a Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow statement are.
After you've done all that, go talk to some other business owners in the field you're looking to get into or similar fields and see what they have to say. Don't do this first because 90% of what they say will be different than what you have just learned.
Go back to the accountant and tell him/her what the other business owners have said and make sure that you can reconcile THEIR answers with the accountants answers (a GOOD accountant will be able to explain what, why and how what you heard from others is BS or good advice).
......Plugging numbers into Quickbooks or some other program is really easy to do. It also doesn’t mean a damned thing if you don’t know what the numbers mean or if they’re showing up the way they’re supposed to. Learn what a Balance Sheet, Income Statement and Cash Flow statement are......
This is the best advice on the thread. If you can play with quick books and one of their canned models and understand what you are doing, you are in better shape than reading books.