Setting Up Loan Payments

gw1500se

I have a loan set up however, when I make a payment to that account it applies all of the payment to principle and nothing to interest thus the remaining balance is wrong. How do I set up the payment so Quicken properly splits the payment based on the set up loan information? Thanks.

Greg_the_Geek

I don't believe you can change account types. You would need to create a new Auto Loan account and move or cut and paste the transactions from the old account to the new one. Please make a backup first.

gw1500se

Let me rephrase that. The monthly interest charge is not automatically calculated and added to the loan balance. How do I set that up?

Tom Young

You need to set up the loan using the "wizard" designed for this.  In the setup you indicate origination date, number of payments, interest rate, compounding period and payment schedule,  At that point Quicken will establish an amortization schedule and will either remind you of an upcoming payment or actually enter it in your checking Account, depending on how you set this up.  The monthly interest charge will be automatically calculated and charged to whatever interest Category you've established for this loan and the remainder of the payment will serve to reduce the loan balance.

gw1500se

Thanks for the reply. That is what I did but there are no interest calculations. I did not set up automatic entry and there does not seem to be a reminder generated. Is there a special way to set one up? I am having to add the interest each month manually.

Tom Young

If you click on the Account, click on the "Loan Details" button in the upper right hand corner, then click on "Edit Terms...", are you seeing everything properly entered there?  Opening date, Original balance, Current interest rate, Original length, Compounding period, Payment schedule, and the correct dollar amounts in Current balance and Monthly payment?

Back at the Loan Details page, if you click the "Edit" link next to the Monthly Payment amount, are you seeing the correct Next payment due date, and the split between Principal and Interest, amounting to a correct Total Payment?  On that same "Loan Details" window that shows the Monthly Payment information there's an "Edit Loan Reminder..." button.  The "Edit Loan Reminder" window is where you set the Auto entry option.

If everything looks proper on all these pages then my first guess would be some data corruption of some sort that might be fixed by a validation of the file.  If things are not looking right then I'd suggest trying to set up the loan again.  If you've kept your loan properly stated despite the problems you've encountered because you've been making manual entries to correct the split of the payments, then it might be easier to set up a new loan Account using the current balance as the "Original balance" and the last payment date as the Opening date, and the remaining term as the Original length.  Then close the old Account.

gw1500se

Thanks again. I'm using H & B 2017 and there is no "Loan Details" button. The only button is "Reset". The gear drop down menu has only "Edit details" which is all correct.

Tom Young

Based upon what you're seeing I'm guessing that you set up the loan to download information from the financial institution?  (I have no loans with an actual outside financial institution so I have no opportunity to set up a loan in that fashion and see if I'd get similar results, in terms of the display, as you report.) 

If your answer to my question is "Yes" then you may be experiencing a problem with the information being sent to you by the financial institution.  You could probably look inside the OFX log and figure that out but Quicken certainly is capable of handling a regular amortizing loan so the other approach would be to create a new loan Account as a "manual" loan, then zeroing out the old loan Account.

gw1500se

It was set up manually. Apparently I did something wrong in the setup so the problem is what and how do I fix it?

Tom Young

I'm leaving in a few minutes for a long vacation so I won't be able to respond for a while.

I'd suggest trying again with a new Account, one that starts with the current loan balance, remaining loan term, etc., just to see if that works for you.  If everything's perfect in your current loan then I can't see what could be done to get the Account working properly.  But a picture of what you're seeing might allow someone to spot an error.

You might want to post screen shots, redacted as necessary for personal identification purposes.  I know other SuperUsers will look at this and jump into the conversation.

gw1500se

I think I found the problem. The account type is "Credit" rather than "Auto Loan." I don't see how to edit that.

Greg_the_Geek

I don't believe you can change account types. You would need to create a new Auto Loan account and move or cut and paste the transactions from the old account to the new one. Please make a backup first.

gw1500se

I was afraid of that. Thanks.