Hi Steve - I feel your pain! I am new to all this as well but over the last couple of weeks I have got it off to a tee for casual observing the next objective is to Polar Align!
I can't really add much to what has been said except make sure that you enter the date as mm/dd/yyyy - I know I didn't at first...lol!! Make sure you include daylight savings +10 for you. I align using Sirius and Alderban and it's usually done in a couple of minutes. Oh! One last thing is to make sure your finder is aligned correctly. The was I did this was using the moon...............I know everyone says use a street lamp etc but as I am partially sighted in my dominant eye it's bloody hardwork! Anyway, I manually lined up my scope to the moon and then using the directional arrows on the GoTo control aligned the moon in the scope. Then checked the Finder and adjusted until the moon was in the centre of the Finder. Probably all not right but it worked............PS the moon is blinding!!
By the way what Raymo has put is spot on .................top bloke he is
Cheers - Craig