Setting up a mortgage and transactions entered in arrears (4 numbered questions)

Peter Underwood peterunderwood1 at gmail.com
Thu May 12 11:06:10 EDT 2011


Thanks. I was going from start of year with the balance of the mortgage and
obviously a reduced house value based on slump. (In fact I am re-financing
so it will all change again soon!)

I am so new to GnuCash that I can't yet make it do simple things I know it
does easily - I'll work out how to do them, but I don't find it intuitive
e.g. I can't even enter a split transaction and feel an idiot, but that's my
problem and I'll find something in the various help sources that tells me
how in a way I understand lol

The difficult problem is that the PMT formula keeps coming up with a
different payment from my amortisation table in Excel. Again, I'll work it
out. Thanks for all the advice which has got me started again working on
GnuCash rather than saying "too difficult" :)

I have enough answers to consider this "Asked and Answered" thanks. I need
to put the effort in to make it work for me because I know that GnuCash is
flexible enough to work for just about anyone's personal accounts the way
they want them :)

On Fri, May 6, 2011 at 8:10 AM, Dennis Powless <claven123 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree.  I have a scheduled transaction for my mortgage liability account,
> escrow account and one for my checking account.  (well, all wrapped in one
> split transaction etc...)  Anyway, I just update the values when I get my
> statement each month, it only differs by a few dollars.  I adjust the
> scheduled trans when the escrow analysis changes etc....
>
> I never messed with the druid thing, seems like a lot of work when it can
> be done quite easily.
>
> Just my 0.02....
>
> D
>
> On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 7:55 PM, Lincoln A Baxter <lab at lincolnbaxter.com>wrote:
>
>> Or... you do do something really simple:
>>
>> Just enter the actually mortage payment as a payment to the mortgage
>> liablility account, and annually, when you do your taxes, increase the
>> liability balance by transfering the expenses from the liability account
>> to the appropriate expense accounts, from the 1099 statement.  Only 1
>> time per year you have to make adjustments, and you know they will agree
>> with the bank.
>>
>> Start with opening balances as of the beginning of the year... forget
>> about the previous 5 years of history, and the settlement sheet.  Your
>> house's value probably is not today what it what  you paid for it
>> anyway.  I periodically just change the opening balance transaction
>> amount to my assets:home account to reflect the current value of my
>> home, when want to see a relatively accurate view of my current net
>> assets.
>>
>> KISS, don't over finesse... the more you obsession, the less time you
>> have spending on things that really matter in live.
>>
>> Lincoln
>>
>> On Wed, 2011-05-04 at 13:26 -0400, Peter Underwood wrote:
>> > Thanks James.
>> >
>> > Tommy's explanation of the limits of the Druid (and defining that word
>> too -
>> > never heard it before in this context and was about to look it up when I
>> saw
>> > his reply) is a lot of what I want so I can proceed which is nice :)
>> >
>> > To answer your question, I thought I could simply use the Druid to set
>> up
>> > the mortgage payments starting at that Settlement Statement and let it
>> bring
>> > things up to date - with manual changes in schedule payments stemming
>> from
>> > an escrow change. From Tommy's suggestions, it appears that it's easier
>> to
>> > use the Druid at a lower level than I was thinking. So there really
>> isn't
>> > anything that I want from the Druid right now that it won't do. Once I
>> have
>> > completed the setup, if I think there is something the Druid could do
>> which
>> > would be worth the dev cost, I'll work on setting that out more clearly
>> as a
>> > wish list item and then see if I can do anything to help with designing
>> it.
>> >
>> > Anyway, for now, the question is answered in that I can move on and stop
>> > fretting at the Documentation etc to find out what I am doing wrong!
>> >
>> > Thanks again.
>> >
>> > (I am still working out how the transactions end up sorted and balanced
>> in
>> > the right order if an earlier date transaction is entered later, but
>> again
>> > Tommy answered that so I'll continue putting in the earlier transactions
>> and
>> > see whether they sort and balance as I continue.)
>> >
>> > Peter
>> >
>> > On Tue, May 3, 2011 at 9:54 AM, FireFly <fireflys_98 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Peter,
>> > >
>> > > I think my overall question is, what are you trying to achieve from
>> the
>> > > Mortgage Druid?
>> > >
>> > > I've never used it myself, I've always setup my Mortgage by hand, but
>> have
>> > > setup both a new mortgage (when I refinanced) and a pre-existing
>> mortgage
>> > > and not had any real issues, the only "pain" that I have to do is
>> every
>> > > month I have to change my scheduled transaction to have the correct
>> split
>> > > between interest and principal, but your situation may be different
>> than
>> > > mine.
>> > >
>> > > Which brings me full circle back to my original question, what are you
>> > > looking for GNUCash to do for you, what are you hoping from using the
>> > > Mortgage Druid will happen vs setting up these accounts manually?
>> > >
>> > > - James Duerr
>> > >
>> > > E-mail: FireFlys_98 at yahoo.com
>> > > ---------------------
>> > > Discover a lost art - play Marbles. May 2004
>> > > www.marillion.com
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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>
>


-- 
Peter Underwood
============
178 Memory Lane
Franklin
GA 30217
USA
Tel: +1 706 675-1412
Email: peterunderwood1 at gmail.com


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