Recording Mortgage Payment

[Maf. King]

On Sun 9 February 14 02:19:16 Dr. Ray wrote:
>     I just would like to get a second opinion that I am correctly recording
> these Mortgage payment
> 
> Home Mortgage account
> 
>  Increase
> 
> Decrease
> 
> 
> 
>  I enter the full payment amount as a decrease from the asset:Checking
> account. Then I click SPLIT and Repeat this step
> 
> 
> 
>  I enter the liability account Loan:Home Mortgage in the decrease column.
> The amount I enter is the principal portion of the payment
> 
>  I then enter the Interest portion of the payment as an increase using the
> Expense:Mortgage interest account
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I then click enter and everything looks great, the balance matches the bank
> balance.
> 
> However when I click enter or click record it creates the Imbalance-USD
> account. I then change the Imbalance-USD to the Equity:Retained Earnings
> account.
> 
> Hope I'm doing this correctly
> 
> 
> 
> I then click split and do the following a) I reenter the Asset:Checking
> decrease b) I enter the

Hi Dr Ray.

The imbalance account is usually a good indication that you've done something 
wrong.

I believe that the transaction you should be entering (from the checking 
account) should look like this:

                          Debit      Credit
Liability:Mortgage    500       -
Expense:interest       50       -
Bank:Checking          -        550

if you have formal accounting labels switched off, then Debit will be labeled 
deposit and credit will be labeled withdrawal

HTH,
Maf.