Generally speaking, Access out of the box comes with settings set up for 95% of requirements. The one thing I do when developing is to change the view from tabbed documents to overlapping windows (File>Options>Current Database). With overlapping windows, you can have tables/forms/queries etc open side by side, resize them etc. - much better than flitting between tabs. Whether you go back to tabbed documents once the app is finished is up to you.
Recommend the other setting to change is to put Option Explicit at the top of every module which will identify errors when you compile rather than at runtime. If you subsequently get runtime errors, this usually means an issue with the data. You can have this happen by default for new modules by going to Tools>Options in the VBE and ticking 'require variable declaration'
Beyond that - 'normal' coding behaviour - avoid spaces and non alphanumeric characters in field and table names and make them meaningful (don't use ID or Date use customerID, invoiceDate. For relationship fields I prefer to use customerPK/customerFK (Primary Key, Foreign Key) so I know which end of a relationship a field relates to). Document as you go as to what the code is supposed to be doing etc
Be aware of reserved words - should not be used for table/field names.
If you have come from an Excel background and new to databases, read up on database normalisation. Be aware that Excel combines data and presentation into one view whilst databases store data in tables and use queries, forms and reports for presentation. Consequently Excel tends to store data horizontally (short and wide) whilst databases stores data vertically (tall and narrow). Trying to apply Excel methods to Access will at best result in a app that is difficult and time costly to maintain and at worst, won't work at all.
) you will wonder what you were trying to do 6 months ago.
