Microsoft Money 2003

Money starts with an audit of all your financial accounts. Current, savings, mortgage, pension and credit cards will all be assessed, with debits on one side and credits on the other. If you've let things slide then you will be assembling a pile of papers next to your PC as you punch in the information, and when it's done you'll have a complete picture of your net worth.

Next you set targets: How is your pension worked out? Do you want to budget for school fees? Maybe you just want to gradually erode your credit card debt? As you set plans and goals for each you reap the immediate benefit of getting your books in order, and of setting plans for the next years or decades.

Realising many of us glaze over when presented with figures, Money's strong suit is in presenting historical and future data in graph and chart format. Want to know how big a slice of your income is going on rental payments? Money will generate an easy-to-read pie chart. Need to know when that loan will be paid off? Click for a line chart and see when you cross back into credit.

Money is a very simple product; basically a glorified spreadsheet providing data to allow you to budget, plan and cut waste. So what can Microsoft find to do new each year? After all we're now on version 11. It has put a lot of work into a friendly look and feel - Money went over to a browser-style interface a few versions back. And though the reliance on continually dashing online for information can be tiresome (and slow for anyone with a dialup connection) the home page concept generally works well. Within a customisable page, all your accounts, selected graphs and reports and links to www.ft.com and MSN Money are easy to access.

Contact: Microsoft 0870 601 0100
www.microsoft.com/uk/money

System Requirements:

• Windows 98 or above
• 166MHz or faster processor
• 32MB of Ram (64MB recommended)
• 75MB of free hard disk space
• Internet Explorer 6 or above
• Double-speed CD-Rom

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