Loan and credit card accounts

The basics, and the minus sign

Loans and credit cards normally carry negative balances: a card you owe 500 on is -500. The account form reminds you of the convention at creation, and only an account genuinely in credit gets a positive number. From there, what elevates the account from a balance to a model is the optional detail.

Loan details worth filling

• Interest Rate (%) with its accrual basis: set it and every repayment's interest/principal split is calculated for you, and the accounts list gains an estimated payoff with principal and interest shown separately. Leave it blank and you enter interest per payment instead; both work, one types less.
• Repayment Type: repayment or interest-only, which changes what a payment does to the balance.
• Payment extras: the recurring non-interest parts, escrow, property tax, insurance, each mapped to an expense category so repayments prefill completely.

Credit card details worth filling

• APR (%) and Credit Limit, the rate for the planner and the limit for utilisation.
• A promotional rate with its end date, for the balance-transfer card whose 0% has an expiry the planner should know about.
• A minimum-payment definition, fixed, percentage of balance, or percentage plus interest, shared with loans and read directly by the payoff planner.

What next

Recording the payments themselves is the loan repayments guide; putting the whole structure to work on a debt-free date is the payoff planner, next door.