I need to set up an account to keep track of land contract payments, How?!

Johan0820

I was a State Farm Agent with corporate sponsored Quicken. I had the account set up at the office. When ST no longer sponsored the Quicken I bought Quicken Premier 2018 for my home computer. I can't figure out how to set up the account to receive payments and decrease the balance. Please help. Admitted computer motor! K.I.S.S, :)

jacobs

The Mac version has a loan feature that handles only the most common loan types: for mortages and similar loans to you, from a lender. There is no automated functionality for a lender loan where you are the lender and receiving payments.

But it's not too hard to work around manually. As @Tom Young explains in the post above, your loan is an asset, so create a new Asset account with the balance you are owed. When you a loan payment is deposited in your checking account, you use the Transfer field to transfer the amount to the asset account, reducing its balance. If interest is part of each payment, then your deposit transaction needs have a split, with some of the payment amount going to an Interest Income account and some going to a Transfer to the asset account.

Quicken Mac can't calculate that split for you; fortunately, there are many online websites with loan amortization calculators. Use one of them to calculate the monthly split between interest and principal for the length of your loan, print it out, and use that report to record the proper split in Quicken each month. Once you've set it up, it takes only a few seconds a month to adjust the split amounts.

If any of this isn't clear, please post back what you're not understanding and we'll try to clarify.

Tom Young

I know nothing about the Mac version of Quicken.  I can only tell you that from a tax standpoint you treat a land contract EXACTLY as you'd treat a mortgage receivable.  That is you establish it as an amortizing loan (an asset) with payments received being split between interest income and a reduction of the outstanding principal. 

Quicken for Windows has this capability, albeit in a somewhat funky manner.  You first establish an "Other Asset" Account, telling Quicken the balance in the Account as of the date you establish the Account.  Having established the Account you then click the gear wheel in the upper right hand corner of the Account's register and select "Convert to a lending loan".  The Quicken "wizard" then elicits the necessary information required to establish the proper amortization of the loan receivable and creates reminders that allow the receipts to be accounted for properly.

Perhaps the "Mac" version has the same utility but somebody who actually uses the product will need to respond.

If Mac can't handle this in a similar fashion then you'll need to establish the loan receivable Account in Quicken and record receipts as a "splits" between interest income and a reduction of the receivable Account.

jacobs

The Mac version has a loan feature that handles only the most common loan types: for mortages and similar loans to you, from a lender. There is no automated functionality for a lender loan where you are the lender and receiving payments.

But it's not too hard to work around manually. As @Tom Young explains in the post above, your loan is an asset, so create a new Asset account with the balance you are owed. When you a loan payment is deposited in your checking account, you use the Transfer field to transfer the amount to the asset account, reducing its balance. If interest is part of each payment, then your deposit transaction needs have a split, with some of the payment amount going to an Interest Income account and some going to a Transfer to the asset account.

Quicken Mac can't calculate that split for you; fortunately, there are many online websites with loan amortization calculators. Use one of them to calculate the monthly split between interest and principal for the length of your loan, print it out, and use that report to record the proper split in Quicken each month. Once you've set it up, it takes only a few seconds a month to adjust the split amounts.

If any of this isn't clear, please post back what you're not understanding and we'll try to clarify.