There are certainly plenty of good reasons for keeping on top of your finances and Buddi is a simple-to-use accounting program that keeps this as easy as possible.

There are plenty of different versions available. The download here is the Windows installer but there are also versions for Mac OSX, standalone Windows (ideal for USB keys) and various versions of Linux.

The interface is very simple, perhaps at the cost of some help for beginners; some introductory tips or a getting started wizard would offer some valuable aid.

Buddi follows the principles of double-entry bookkeeping but manages to do so without some of the complications that can arise.

Put simply, double-entry means that money cannot just be 'added' to accounts, it must come from somewhere.

Anyone with bad experiences of trying to understand debits and credits will be pleased to see that this is all done in the background. Buddi requires a 'from' and 'to' account for each transaction. This makes the whole process very fast and easy.

There are some basic summary reports for quick reference and more detailed reports are created in HTML to view in a browser. This is a slight disappointment as exporting to a format like CSV would mean easier importing into Excel.

Buddi is set up to autosave information in the accounts every 30 seconds. Save files can also be encrypted, which is particularly important if they are carried on a USB memory key.