Setting a car loan

[David Carlson]

On 2/21/2015 10:13 AM, Andy Pastuszak wrote:
> Thank you everyone.  I will do just that.  Going to stop by a bank
> branch and pick up an amortization table from them and then adjust
> monthly.  It seems bank math and real math are two different things.
>
> Andy
>
> On 02/21/2015 11:08 AM, Paul Warthe wrote:
>> I agree with Maf.
>>
>> A few years ago my office tried to create a loan tracking program to
>> match one our funder was trying to get us to use (it had numerous
>> deficiencies in other areas that caused working with it to be a
>> nightmare). After trying numerous other pre-packaged loan programs,
>> researching and trying several formulas, we could not match the
>> formula used in the tracking program our funder provided. We came
>> close, but for our needs we were required to be spot on with what the
>> funder's program would produce.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gnucash-user
>> [mailto:gnucash-user-bounces+warthes7=gmail.com at gnucash.org] On
>> Behalf Of Maf. King
>> Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2015 9:50 AM
>> To: gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> Subject: Re: Setting a car loan
>>
>> On Sat 21 February 15 10:36:07 Andy Pastuszak wrote:
>>> I tried to set up my car loan in Gnucash and the calculated monthly
>>> payment doesn't match what the bank says I owe.  Gnucash says the
>>> monthly payment should be $294.78, but the bank makes me pay $299.11.
>>>
>>> Thing is, I put the loan into other financial software and also comes
>>> up with $294.78.  So, it's obviously not the math that Gnucash is
>>> doing to calculate the payments.
>>>
>>> Is there some way to deal with this situation?  Am I just stuck
>>> entering transactions manually?
>>>
>>> The loan has 61 payments, and I am thinking that payment 61 is
>>> probably not a full payment and that's screwing up the math.
>>>
>>> Is there a way to deal with loans that have a final payment that is
>>> different from all the others when trying to schedule payments?
>>
>> IMHO,  it doesn't matter what GC or any other software says - the
>> agreement with the bank is what is going to happen.  A few quid per
>> month either way is close enough to confirm the bank are not
>> overcharging - it all depends on when they apply the interest, and if
>> interest is charged on the applied interest etc....
>>
>> I would just schedule 61 payments in the SX subsystem, according to
>> the lendor's schedule, and reconcile periodically that the loan
>> agreement is being honoured.
>>
>> If the final payment is less, well you have a few £ extra that month
>> - you'll spot it quickly when you reconcile the bank account - and
>> then a one-off manual adjustment is made...
>>
>> 0.02
>> Maf.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> -----
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> gnucash-user mailing list
>> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
>> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
>> -----
>> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
>> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
>
> _______________________________________________
> gnucash-user mailing list
> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
> -----
> Please remember to CC this list on all your replies.
> You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.

I seem to recall that some banks start the interest clock right away but
do not require a payment until 45 or 60 days after the loan is
initiated.  The effect is about the same as if you calculated a new loan
amount larger than what they financed by the interest accumulated during
that delay.

Try changing the loan value upward  by about half of the first month's
interest and the start date to 30 days before the first payment is due. 
You will probably see the exact values in the amortization table that
they give you.

David C