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Adding an Auto (Asset) 1 year after the purchase - to LINK or NOT?

juanboy2k

I purchased a car in July 2024. However, I have only this month (Aug 2025) gotten back to getting everything up to date in QUICKEN DELUXE Classic. I've had this situation in the past as well.

If you have an asset with a LOAN, and have already made payments (including down payment, etc.) on the vehicle, is there a recommended approach so that the loan and related asset can be tracked? If I setup the asset with a purchase date, value, etc., and attempt to connect the LOAN at the credit company directly (online), then the balance will show the result after having already paid 12 installments on the loan, however, I still have to 'match' and otherwise post all said 12 payments in quicken, from my checking account etc. Quicken doesn't figure out, I don't think, that I've already paid 12 installments and so has no way to line up previous loan payments (in the loan) with my cash disbursements via my checking account.

Instead of a loan, I'm going to attempt to simply create a "DEBT" account, equal to the total of all my payments (including interest) and simply transfer from my checking account the monthly amounts to this debt account, so that it is basically $0 by the time the loan is paid off in 5 years. (I did get 0.9% interest actually on the loan). That way, for the "CATEGORY" assignment of the transactions, they'll simply process over to the DEBT loan, reducing my debt monthly as expected, without any LOAN, interest, amortization, etc., complications that will otherwise occur.

I was, actually, able to link the asset with my simple debt account so I presume, that as I transfer payments to the debt account, my asset value will increase accordingly(?)

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Comments

[Deleted User]

@juanboy2k your asset account won't increase. It should actually decrease due to depreciation. But since you have the loan (debt account) tied to your asset, as you paydown the loan, your equity will increase.

And, since your interest rate is so low, and you've already made payments for over a year, I see no issue with keeping it simple as you are doing.

juanboy2k

Thanks .. here's another one then … I have two mortgage accounts that are also online/connected. When I setup the loan, the automatic payments divide up things between principal, interest, and escrow if any. But the split payments in the loan payment reminder just divide up things into a principal category, and an interest category, rather than associating the principal with the asset or some actual loan account (like the one that the payment is a reminder for). How does quicken know that the principal portion of the split transaction goes to the Loan balance (account) and not just into some random 'principal' category associated in the split transaction? Does it occur only when the payment reminder is "entered" and it accounts for the transaction /principal that way ? In this case, is a Loan Account in Quicken, just a placeholder that is 'accounting' for the transactions, but not accumulating them in fact (like say, a checking account, which balance is directly affected by the money credited or debited)?

[Deleted User]

@juanboy2k the principal piece of the the split transaction should be a transfer from the spending account to the loan account. This will decrease the loan principal balance.

juanboy2k

That's good .. except then why would'nt that be part of the auto matic setup of the reminder for the loan pmt? It's being defined, afterall, from the loan acct itself .. so the reminder should be from what ever spending /checking acct you choose, to the (obviously) current loan in question. 2) here's another mess … my banking institution (USB OHIO) delivers two separate transactions for my monthly loan pmt on the 2nd mortgage. I pay a basic princ/interest payment, plus another nearly $400.00 in extra principal. Quicken makes that easy with the split functions (3 in total, for interest, and 2 principal portions) for a TOTAL of the combined amt - however.. from the bank, these are downloaded as two separate transactions one for the basic amortized pmt, and then another (on the same day) for the extra principal. It appears after a lengthy discussion with tech support, that I'll either have to track the payments downloaded separately, with the regular 'reminder' from the LOAN details/pmts, and then add another 'bill pay' (?) reminder for the principal only, so that the transactions can be properly matched, OR I can create the loan reminder (as it really is) for $1000 as it turns out, and just DELETE all the downloaded split transactions. This is because you can't match downloaded transactions with portions of a split transaction inside a single entry in Quicken.

[Deleted User]

@juanboy2k I see nothing wrong with what Quicken Support told you what you needed to do. Each bank has their own process. Your bank is somewhat unusual that they would post two different payments when an extra principal payment (curtailment) is made.

Ask your bank if it possible to have only one payment when you make an extra principal payment. If it is not possible, then create another mortgage loan payment reminder in Quicken for the extra principal payment. That way, each month, you can easily change the principal payment amount, or skip the reminder if you are not making an extra payment that month.

The payment reminder for the extra principal payment would be easy to create. It it just a transfer transaction from your spending account to your mortgage loan account.