Loan and Mortgage Balances

For each home loan and mortgage stored in Home Loan Interest Manager, it is important to understand the difference between the loan amount and the loan balance.

 

Loan Amount vs Loan Balance

In simple terms:

  1. The loan amount is the original home loan or mortgage amount you agree to borrow from your bank or lender.
  2. The loan balance is the current amount you have left to repay to the bank or lender.

The following example will quickly show the difference:

If a person took out a mortgage for 100,000 three years ago, and they currently have 75,000 left to repay, then:

  1. The original loan amount is 100,000
  2. The current loan balance is 75,000

You need to set up these two amounts correctly in Home Loan Interest Manager, so that the summary screen and reports provide you with the correct information.

 

Loan Amount

When you add or edit and account you will be prompted to enter a Loan Date, Loan Term and Loan Amount, all of which refer to the original amounts you agreed to borrow from your lender or bank. This information is normally found in your home loan or mortgage contract.

 

Loan Balance

When you add or edit statements (or any transaction within a statement) you will be prompted to enter the statement balance. This figure reflects what you currently owe and will increase and decrease with each transactions entered.

If you follow this simple rule when processing you loan and mortgage statements, then your information will be correct:

The statements you create in Home Loan Interest Manager should have the same date range and opening balances as the statements sent to you by your bank, and you should create one transaction in Home Loan Interest Manager for each transaction that appears on your statement.

 

Amount and Balance Notes

  1. The current balance on the summary view screen is always calculated from the last statement, not the loan amount on the account. Therefore, if there are no statements on the account the current balance will always be zero, no matter what value you enter into the account loan amount.
  2. In Home Loan Interest Manager the loan amount and loan balance figures are set up as negative amounts to show you owe money. A positive number would indicate the bank owes you money, and this is only appropriate for Offset Accounts.