This is a time to assess whether your bank account meets your needs and look at the kind of access offered. It might suit you to switch to telephone or Internet banking.

Organising your finances is about a systematic approach to all issues that concern you and your money. It means making decisions based on where you are and where you want to be. But the only way to do that is by knowing exactly where the information you need actually is and what to do about it.

Among the myriad bits and pieces you'll have, the following list contains the categories under which you should organise your papers:

Mortgage: including original offer document and any annual statements showing how much you owe.

Investments.

Pensions, both private or occupational schemes.

Motor and household insurance.

Travel insurance.

Bank and savings accounts.

Protection policies, including life cover, critical illness, medical insurance, income protection, long-term care.

Warranties for major items such as for your fridge, washing machine, television.

Tax, including annual demands and photocopies of each statement you have sent in.

Regular bills sub-categorised into water, electricity, gas, telephone, rent, etc.

The next step is to file your financial documents.

At this stage you should contact every provider - bank, tax office, utilities supplier - to make sure they know your address and that you are receiving the most recent information about where you stand. Add this information to your files.

Then set up a single list of every policy, investment, bank account, mortgage account together with addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, policy and account numbers, expiry dates and so on. Keep it safe and make sure that your partner and/or your lawyer have access to it. You should also make a list of all financial policies.

Merely having information is of limited use though and the important thing is what you do once you have got it all together.

You should now compare the financial products you use with other available opportunities and assess them relative to your needs. Also, make sure you are not unwittingly falling into debt.

Ask yourself are you meeting the targets you have set yourself? This relates particularly to pensions and investments, where the growth of your assets is essential to your future.

You should also consider whether you are you over or under-provided in certain areas? Life insurance, income protection, mortgage-related accident, sickness and unemployment policies, and contents insurance are just some of the things you should be looking at to make sure that you are covered.

The exercise will also give you the opportunity to examine whether you are duplicating cover. For example, if you have contents insurance which protects your belongings when you take them out of your home, you might not need the same as part of your travel insurance.

This is a time to assess whether your bank account meets your needs and look at the kind of access offered. It might suit you to switch to telephone or Internet banking.

Another issue is your bills and whether you are paying them on time with the minimum of fuss. These days you can pay bills by phone or on the Internet, which can save time when it comes to putting cheques in the post.

The purpose of the whole exercise is to decide what you need to do to achieve your targets. This could include:

Setting up of direct debits that relieve the hassle of sending off cheques every month or every quarter.

Cancelling policies you don't need and taking out policies that suit you better.

Make sure you have a watertight system in place to prevent a return to bad habits and try to update all files regularly.

Set specific dates to review your financial affairs. Bills will probably need a monthly check. Pensions can be looked at half-yearly or annually.

There are a number of effective financial management systems that have been developed which may be of assistance. CD-Rom packages, such as Microsoft Money or Quicken, can ease the process of managing your money. They allow you to track your spending, update your investments and fill in your tax returns.

In a parallel development, more and more banks, credit card issuers, fund managers and the Revenue Commissioners allow you to access general information on the Internet. Ultimately, how you gather your information and manage it is up to you. The important thing is to stay organised.