Mortgage/Loan druid comments

Tim Wunder tim@thewunders.org
Sat, 13 Jul 2002 12:08:26 -0400


Woohoo, trying the mortgage loan druid for the first time!
Thanks!
Some comments:
 - The first box is where I'm supposed to specify an Account. Which account is 
supposed to go here? The loan account, or the account from which the loan 
gets paid? I'm gonna assume it's the loan account.
 - Can periods remaining be automagically calculated based on Start Date and 
Length? Ahh, probly not worth it...
 - In the Repayment dialog, would it be possible to create an account? Not a 
big deal, but I got half-way thru and decided I wanted to set up an Escrow 
account. Easy Enough to do from outside the druid, but it would've been 
convenient to just select "New" when assigning an account to the Escrow.
 - It seems that the druid should calculate the payment amount based on the 
input of the loan amount, the interest rate, and the term. Will it?
- Perhaps the Repayment dialog should display (in a non-editable format) the 
calculated loan payment amount (principal and interest only), and then a 
field for each amount checked in the Options dialog. All options with "via 
Escow account" selected, could be accounted for with one entry field, an 
Escrow amount. If "via Escrow account" isn't selected, the user could be 
prompted for amounts for each individual field. A final calulated field would 
then be the Total Payment amount, which can only be changed by changing the 
Esrow amount, or the other editable fields in the Repayment dialog (based on 
select options).

Something like (assuming all options are selected):

<PMT>	Loan Pament (P&I)
Options
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amount	Account			Option
[          ]	[Account name][v]   Taxes
[          ]	[Account name][v]   Insurance
[          ]	[Account name][v]   PMI
[          ]    [Account name][v] 	Other Expense
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
<Total>	[Checking        ][v]

if Taxes and Insurance have "via Escrow account" selected, then it becomes:

<PMT>	Loan Pament (P&I)
Options
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amount	Account			Option
[          ]	[Account name][v]   Escrow (Taxes and Insurance)
[          ]	[Account name][v]   PMI 	
[          ]    [Account name][v] 	Other Expense
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
<Total>	[Checking        ][v]

if only Taxes and Insurance are selected, and both have "via Escrow account" 
selected, then it becomes:

<PMT>	Loan Pament (P&I)
Options
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amount	Account			Option
[          ]	[Account name][v]   Escrow (Taxes and Insurance)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
<Total>	[Checking        ][v]

Well, those are my first comments. I hope you find *something* useful there. 
Looking forward to seeing the completed druid sometime soon... It's looking 
real promising! 

Regards, 
Tim

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