Confused by Mortgage & Loan Scheduled Payments

[David T.]

I have been trying out the Mortgage & Loan Scheduled Payment druid, and can't for the life of me get it to work out right. Whenever I create a new loan using the druid, it creates an extra payment at the loan's start date. No matter what I do, I get this extra payment entry, which throws off the entire line of scheduled transactions.

I searched the wiki and googled "extra payment" in gnucash, but didn't find any info, and the help pages don't explain in enough detail.

For example, say I create a new 4-year loan that was approved 10/7/08 and which had its first payment on 11/1/08. I enter 10/7 as the Start Date, 48 in the months. The druid sets Months Remaining to 46 for some reason, which I change to 47, since one payment has already been made. Later, I fill in Repayment Frequency at monthly, with a Start Date of 11/1/08 (the first payment date), "every" at 1 months, and "On the" to 1st. The druid then shows me the payment schedule, with the first payment on 10/7 and a second on 11/1. Of course, the principal/interest ratios are all off. If I try to outsmart it and say the start date (either of them) is 11/1, the druid creates an entry for 10/31, and a second one for 11/1. I can't seem to get it to create a payment schedule starting when I want it. 

I get the same result when I try to create transactions for an existing loan.

Further, I am confused by several data elements in the Druid, what they mean, and how they interact.

First, I assume that the Start Date on the first screen is used to determine the accurate amount of interest charged. But it seems that this date also interacts with the repayment schedule that gets entered on the third screen, and I don't know why that would be. 

Second, I am really confused by the Repayment section on the third screen, though. What does the Frequency element do, and how does it relate to the "every" entry directly below it? If one controls the frequency of scheduled transactions, what does the other do? How does the Start Date here relate to the one on the first screen?

Could someone explain to me what's going on, and how to achieve the results I'm after?

Thanks!
David