Mortgage Setup Issues

TomVee

Let's say my mortgage payment is $1300, and $800 dollars of that is principal and interest, and the rest is escrow for taxes and insurance. When I set up the mortgage in Quicken, it calculates my principal and interest payment as $800.01, with no way for me to correct it to my actual principal and interest payment, and it never asks me anything about my escrow account. It adds a bill reminder for $800.01, which doesn't match my P&I payment or my total mortgage payment. I guess I can just set everything up manually, but it sort of surprises me that 90% of homeowners have mortgages with escrow accounts and Quicken can't automatically handle them. Am I missing something? Can I change the Quicken-calculated P&I payment on a loan I add to quicken? And can Quicken add an escrow account to my loan? Or do I have to do that myself? And if I add it myself, how do I fix the automatically calculated amount in bill reminder to include the escrow? It doesn't seem to allow me to edit the "Split" transaction it automatically created. Quicken doesn't seem to be designed to handled residential mortgage loans.

Sherlock

If you set up the mortgage as an offline loan account, I suggest you open the loan account, select edit below MONTHLY PAYMENT, Edit to the right of Other, enter the transfer to the escrow account, select OK, and OK.  The subsequent loan payments entered should automatically calculate the interest and principle.  One way to enter a loan payment is to open the loan account, press Ctrl + Shift + N, and select Enter Loan Payment.

TomVee

Sherlock - thanks. That seems even harder that using a spreadsheet, though.

UKR

TomVee said:

Sherlock - thanks. That seems even harder that using a spreadsheet, though.

Setup of a loan may be a little tricky, but it can be done.

If the setup process is off by a few cents, you may be able to adjust it by entering the difference as "additional principal payment", leaving the Quicken-calculated P & I amounts unchanged.

NotACPA

TomVee said:

Sherlock - thanks. That seems even harder that using a spreadsheet, though.

@Sherlock's process is a ONE TIME EVENT.  After you've set up the loan and the payment, then you can use Memorized Transactions after that point to record your payments.

bdadams1

Having the same problem with Quicken not calculating correctly the amount to reduce my mortgage...any fix in the future? Other versions did not have this problem..

UKR

bdadams1 said:

Having the same problem with Quicken not calculating correctly the amount to reduce my mortgage...any fix in the future? Other versions did not have this problem..

Please start a separate NEW DISCUSSION and give us all the pertinent details, including your exact version, edition level and release of Quicken. US or Canadian version? Windows or Mac?

This makes it possible for us to try and provide solutions to your specific problem.

Show us the loan setup with the exact numbers that you entered, the loan amounts that Quicken calculated and explain the differences to your mortgage statement's amounts.

Are you using the correct interest rate (APR vs APY)?
Are you making one monthly payment or are you paying every two weeks or some other payment schedule?