Loan with no payments made. How to properly track.

DoctorBrown

I loaned my brother (Yea, I know the pitfalls) money to help his startup business. The start of the payback was deferred for two years. The Quicken loan account was tracking correctly, interest was accruing, balance increasing accordingly. Now that time has come and he is unable to start the payments. Up until the payments were to start, Quicken correctly calculated the accruing interest. But now, how do I make the needed entries to keep the loan on track, i.e., interest keep accruing, etc. How do I get Q to continue to calculate the interest?

Boatnmaniac

What I have done in the past (yeah, I made a loan to my sister and she missed the first several payments and then was inconsistent in making future payments) was to simply skip the Loan Reminders as they became due and payment was missed. For each skipped payment Quicken would add another payment on the tail end of the amortization schedule. It would also change the amortization amounts adjusting the principal and interest for each future Reminder. It seemed to do a pretty good job accruing the additional interest and in the case of my sister's loan it actually ended up increasing the total number of payments some because of the additional interest charges caused by the later payments.

Boatnmaniac

What I have done in the past (yeah, I made a loan to my sister and she missed the first several payments and then was inconsistent in making future payments) was to simply skip the Loan Reminders as they became due and payment was missed. For each skipped payment Quicken would add another payment on the tail end of the amortization schedule. It would also change the amortization amounts adjusting the principal and interest for each future Reminder. It seemed to do a pretty good job accruing the additional interest and in the case of my sister's loan it actually ended up increasing the total number of payments some because of the additional interest charges caused by the later payments.

DoctorBrown

Thanks for sharing. Sounds like it will work. I hope you got repaid. But as we both know that's not a given.

Boatnmaniac

https://community.quicken.com/discussion/comment/20439139#Comment_20439139

Well, I got repaid most of the principal but the interest received made up for the loss on the principal so I'm OK with how it all ended up.

I've made "loans" to several of my family members over the years but in my mind they really were gifts, not loans. If they pay me back (and most of them did pay me back), then great. But if they don't or only pay back some of it, then I'm OK with that too. They are family, after all, and I know they weren't simply trying to take advantage of me. And I know they would do the same for me if the tables were ever turned.

DoctorBrown

That's the attitude I have about the loan I made. When used to help a startup it's always a risk.