Credit Card loan

EFKelm

I have a credit card with an option to pay over time. 0% for 36 months. I'm setup with the CC company to pay $300/month until the balance is paid off. two questions. 1) how do I prevent the spending graph from including the balance due. 2) Only options for payment reminders seem to be either minimum payment or pay the full balance. No way to set a set payment amount?

Sherlock

EFKelm said:

I have a credit card with an option to pay over time. 0% for 36 months. I'm setup with the CC company to pay $300/month until the balance is paid off. two questions. 1) how do I prevent the spending graph from including the balance due. 2) Only options for payment reminders seem to be either minimum payment or pay the full balance. No way to set a set payment amount?

1) If you do not want to include the spending in an account on a graph, I suggest you customize the graph to exclude the account.  Note: A spending graph should not include balance due.
2) To set a fixed estimate on payment reminder, I suggest you using a manual bill reminder not linked to an online bill.

EFKelm

NotACPA, yes there are occasional transactions that are made on this card. When I update the account, these charges are added to the total. There are typically small amounts and will not affect the fixed amount covering the minimum. As I get near the end of the promotion period, I will have to adjust the fixed payment and will ultimately change it to pay the balance.
Thanks,
Frank

Sherlock

EFKelm said:

I have a credit card with an option to pay over time. 0% for 36 months. I'm setup with the CC company to pay $300/month until the balance is paid off. two questions. 1) how do I prevent the spending graph from including the balance due. 2) Only options for payment reminders seem to be either minimum payment or pay the full balance. No way to set a set payment amount?

1) If you do not want to include the spending in an account on a graph, I suggest you customize the graph to exclude the account.  Note: A spending graph should not include balance due.
2) To set a fixed estimate on payment reminder, I suggest you using a manual bill reminder not linked to an online bill.

NotACPA

Will there be ANY other transactions on this card?  Or just the initial charge (loan) transaction and your payments?

IF there are other transactions, how will they be handled? And how will the total (combined?) balance be shown on statements?

EFKelm

NotACPA, yes there are occasional transactions that are made on this card. When I update the account, these charges are added to the total. There are typically small amounts and will not affect the fixed amount covering the minimum. As I get near the end of the promotion period, I will have to adjust the fixed payment and will ultimately change it to pay the balance.
Thanks,
Frank

Tom Young

If I'm understanding you correctly, every once in a while you make a charge on the credit card and then somehow signal to the credit card company "I want to pay this off over 36 months at an interest rate of 0%."  Accordingly, each subsequent credit card bill has a charge on it of 1/36th of the initial charge.

Here's one approach, the one I'd take:

1. When I made the initial charge, let's say for $1,500, I'd set up a liability Account in Quicken and enter the charge in that Account, with an offset to whatever Category or Account that's appropriate.
2. I'd customize whatever Report or Chart I'm looking at to include that liability Account  as one of the Accounts feeding information to the Report or Chart.  That way the "spending" is properly captured and accounted for in the period in which the charge was made. 
   
3. Each month when the credit card bill arrived that includes that $41.67 ($1,500/36) charge I'd account for that charge as a reduction in the liability Account.  You could even set up a transfer Reminder to make this entry for you over the 36 month period.  If you're downloading from the credit card company Quicken should find this charge as a "match."  This will drive the liability Account down to $0 over the 36 month payment period.

If you don't want to see that $1,500 charge show up as "spending" in the month you incurred the liability, (not correct "accounting", but then you can do anything you want in your own file), then simply go with the Reminder transfer of $41.67 per month.