This is the perfect time of year you get your finances in order. To help you stay on the fiscal straight and narrow, we've gathered together a number of financial management applications to see how much you need to spend to get software that will really do a number on your finances.

We've looked at the two giants of personal finance software, Microsoft Money and Intuit Quicken, and we've also considered Times Money Organiser, which provides solid money management at a budget price. If your recent profligacy has left you too poor to afford even these, then check out our trio of free finance packages or look at our guide to using Microsoft Excel to manage your money.

MICROSOFT MONEY 2004
When you use Money for the first time, it performs an exhaustive audit of your accounts. Current account, savings, mortgage, pension, credit cards are all assessed, with debits on one side and credits on the other. When it's done, you'll have a complete picture of your net worth.

Now to set some targets. How is your pension looking? Do you want to budget for school fees? Are you going to erode credit card debt gradually? As you set goals for each area of your finances, you reap the immediate benefit of getting your books in order and putting plans in place for the future.

Realising that many of us glaze over when presented with figures, Money presents historical and future data in graph and chart format. Want to know how big a slice of your income is going on rent? Money will generate a pie chart. Need to know when that loan will be paid off? Click for a line chart and see when you cross into credit.

Money is a simple product, a glorified spreadsheet providing data to let you budget, plan and cut down on waste, but Microsoft has put a lot of work into a friendly look and feel.

The web browser-style interface was incorporated into Money a few versions back and, although having to continually get online for information can be tiresome (and slow for anyone with a dial-up connection), the homepage-style layout generally works well. Within a customisable page, all your accounts, selected graphs and reports and links to MSN Money are easy to access.

Some of Money's features will never be employed: the ability to calculate capital gains and the will creator are certainly useful, although we'd always suggest going to a solicitor for the latter. But are you going to use the Air Miles tracker?

However, Money is a handy tool to get your finances in order, create a continuous snapshot of where you are in relation to your current financial goals and plan future ones.

Good points: Easy to set up and use, good online support.
Bad points: Keeps dragging you back online.
Price: £25
Rating: ****
Contact: Microsoft 0845 700 2000
www.microsoft.com/uk/money

INTUIT QUICKEN XG
Quicken has a very different look to Money. The default white backgrounds give a much looser, less crowded feel but, when it comes to setting up the software and using it, it's very similar.

Getting started is easy. The application pumps you for information about your financial status, runs through setting goals and adding accounts, then produces a tidy home page with all your information at a glance.

Quicken puts figures into a palatable form that anyone can quickly grasp, producing pie, flow and myriad other charts to help you see why you are in the red and where you are headed.

Planning is high on the agenda, with tools to help you project savings and retirement plans. You can print out cheques and set the calendar to ensure you don't miss bill payments.

Intuit has recognised that many users will employ only a fraction of the tools on offer and you can streamline the package to focus on the bits you need. My Data Tab gives an overview of tasks for today and you can minimise reports or features, Windows-style, on the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen.

Around its core function of being a spreadsheet, Quicken adds bank account and credit card tracking, cheque book balancing, reminders and alerts, cashflow reporting, foreign exchange rate downloads, stocks, investment and unit trust price updates.

It also features links to the online content, inviting you to 'make better financial decisions with over 50 links to UK investment content'. Take these with a pinch of salt: there are many great finance websites out there, and you don't need to buy Quicken to reach them.

Good points: Slick, tidy homepage; walks you through set up.
Bad points: Might have too many features for many users.
Price: £28
Rating: ****
Contact: Intuit 0845 606 2161
www.quicken.co.uk

TIMES MONEY ORGANISER
The strength of Money and Quicken is that the software does the work during set-up: all you do is answer questions, which is a great way of easing the pain. After all, good software shouldn't make you work to understand it.

It's only when you come across a package like Money Organiser that you realise just how good the competition is.

Not that Money Organiser skimps on information in the instruction manual. Far from it - a 70-page PDF document appears on your Desktop for reference. If you're not scared yet then open the workspace, where you are confronted by a blank sheet with an array of buttons and menus. Now what?

Hit Help and you'll find the Getting Started guide. Pick your way to the Create New Account dialogue box and you'll find Account options and two blank windows demanding Low balance level 1 and Low balance level 2. We had no idea what those meant when first faced with them.

Persist with the package and things get better. The guts of any money management application aren't going to be so different, whether it's top-end or budget. And let's be fair, this is £7 worth of software.

Money Organiser has the basic spreadsheets that comprise a finance package and from these it constructs useful charts, diagrams and reports. It gets its maths right, it does its job, but getting that far may prove to be a bit of an ordeal for many users.

We'd bet most people either won't understand what information Money Organiser is prompting them to enter or will give up when presented with the enormous set-up demands.

Good points: Solid, basic money management and very cheap.
Bad points: Doesn't offer an easy way into managing your finances. Lacks slickness, features and website backup
Price: £7
Rating: *****
Contact: GSP 01480 96666
www.gsp.cc

Do it for free
If you're trying to get your finances on track, you may not relish the thought of splashing out on software. If you want to exercise a little financial prudence then why not try out some of the very good packages available for free online? We've picked out three that really impressed us.

AceMoney Lite is a lean download (just 972Kb) that helps you organise and manage your finances quickly and easily. Track spending habits, create and manage budgets and handle your online bank account.

AceMoney allows financial analysis in multiple currencies, performs a multitude of calculations and downloads exchange rates from the internet. Bank account and credit card information can be protected by passwords, and a link gives you quick access to the developer's site for updates or help. At a pinch, it could cope with the finances of a small business.

Alternatively, Ingen Money has a logical and lively interface that fits naturally with the way most of us visualise our finances. Not as a terrifying juggernaut about to career out of control, but as a dynamic virtual calendar that rolls on as time goes by.

Load upcoming and regular expenses and bills are then handled by an automatic distribution of income every time revenues are processed. As due dates approach, the bill rolls onto the calendar, and the money is accounted for, in theory at least.

Of course, you'll have to provide the self-discipline, but this is a nice little package that keeps things simple for the majority of us who don't really 'get' money.

Finally, we were very impressed by Loan Master. It tackles just one area of your personal finances but as loans, be they mortgage, bank loan, financed purchase or credit card, are the back door through which your wealth escapes, this is fine by us.

Shift around dates and interest rates to see just how dramatically restructuring your debt can change your financial health. A great little application.

Using Excel
Most of us use a Windows-based PC and will probably have Microsoft Office. If so, you'll be familiar with Excel, a powerful spreadsheet that can form the basis of a household budgeting system.

It's not as pretty as Money or Quicken, and you will have to teach yourself how to construct formulae (Excel's Help function makes that easy), but there is a definite upside to this.

Excel may not lead you by the hand but it is much more flexible and adaptable to your needs than the bespoke packages. It's potentially much more powerful and it's free, if it's already on your PC. Money and Quicken are only glorified spreadsheets anyway.

If you're going to use Excel to manage your finances, you'll need to set up a worksheet with a column for credits (such as your salary) and debits (all your expenses). You can itemise the latter in as much detail as you wish.

Using Excel's chart functions you can see what proportion of your income is going where and work out percentage spends on various categories.

Calculate your expenses using Excel to offset outgoings against incoming payments and calculate the VAT you are due back, and if you have to submit figures to an accountant or financial adviser, it's easier to do so using the ubiquitous Excel forms - which every other PC user will recognise - than those from Money or Quicken.

Excel has a steep learning curve, but it's essentially simple. It will teach you maths, and leave out the appealing but unnecessary extras of the dedicated packages.

Master your money
Whether you want to buy a financial management package, download one for free or even create your own using Excel depends on your demands and your confidence in financial matters.

The most comfortable option is to go for Money and Quicken, as they lead you by the hand and are easy to use. If you are going to go for them, you may want to opt for the Suite versions - the tax software makes both packages great value for money.

Money Organiser may seem like great value for money, but it's not intuitive to use and the software's a false economy if it lies unused on your PC.

We recommend that you download the three freebies. In isolation none will do as thorough a job as Money or Quicken but they are leaner packages and each has areas of strength: Ingen is very user-friendly, Loan Master is a financial wake-up call, and AceMoney Lite is good for foreign exchange and budgeting.

However, if you can bear to do it yourself, then educate yourself in Excel. It looks simple, but most of us don't even scratch the surface of this powerful spreadsheet tool. Given time and careful housekeeping, you'll find it produces accounting and graphical information that far outstrips its flashier competition.