The most important principle in deciding how to structure the interface is that the choice must be based on the work processes your system supports, not on the structure of the data. Pay attention to what your users are trying to accomplish, and structure the system to support those activities

Beginners don't want to know what "menu item" means; they want to know how to create an invoice

Are you forcing users to think about "editing records" when what they want to think about is "changing addresses?"