The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: gbbi_977 on September 07, 2015, 04:31:41 PM
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(Posting on behalf of DH)
Used to love Quicken (pre-2010), recently rebooted the account to track our finances now that we've bought a house. I can't figure it out - seems to be no way to set it up so that my monthly payments to private lender, which show up on the payments page, are also recognized on the loan account page. Seems like you have to manually enter your loan payments every month, and the expenses page doesn't recognize that some of the 'payment' is actually investment (i.e. going toward principal).
Anyway, I'm pretty much over it. What are people using as a Quicken alternative? I'm wary of Mint because I don't love the idea of having all our private info out on a cloud.
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I use 2013. I have my mtg set up as a loan account with amortization schedule.
I can either accept the payment when it clears the bank, or enter it in advance. To do the latter, I merely put the date, the payee, and the amount. After hitting enter, I receive a prompt: "Is this the next scheduled payment on XX Loan?" Respond yes and it allocates the payment between principal reduction and mortgage interest as a split category (and reduces the amount outstanding in the loan account).
Does yours not do this?
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I use 2013. I have my mtg set up as a loan account with amortization schedule.
I can either accept the payment when it clears the bank, or enter it in advance. To do the latter, I merely put the date, the payee, and the amount. After hitting enter, I receive a prompt: "Is this the next scheduled payment on XX Loan?" Respond yes and it allocates the payment between principal reduction and mortgage interest as a split category (and reduces the amount outstanding in the loan account).
Does yours not do this?
Steve, thanks so much for your reply! No, ours doesn't do that. I think the issue is that we are paying our parents (private loan), min. payment/month is $803, and we are also giving $500 extra towards principal, so our payment shows up in our Chase account as an expense every month ($1303) but doesn't appear in the loan account. And when we entered it manually in the loan account, it couldn't figure out that there was $500 extra (which I feel like it should be able to work out for itself??)
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Yes, Quicken 2013 did a good job of obfuscating what used to be simple about extra loan payments. But it is possible to have it work. Assuming you have entered the loan in Quicken, when you view the associated property, click the gear icon in the top right (shown here underneath "Tips & Tutorials" and above "NEXT DUE"):
(http://s16.postimg.org/dx2tad8y9/screenshot_30.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/dx2tad8y9/)
From the drop down menu, select "Enter Loan Payment" and edit the transaction split to remove any interest amount and enter the appropriate principal amount.
There may be easier ways, but at this this way works for us. We always enter the scheduled payment (from the amortization schedule) first, then do the actions above for the extra principal amount. Good luck!
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annajane, it sounds like you need to enter the extra $500 as a "Transfer". If you have the loan set up in Quicken, when you enter then transaction for the $500 payment, when selecting the category you need to select the loan account. This treats it as a transfer and will automatically record it in the loan account so you do not have to enter it in both places.
ETA: which version of quicken are you using? 2013 is the only version I have used so I am not sure how that may compare to whatever version you are using.
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Thanks all!
I think we have the 2013 version?
My issue is that you've explained really well how to manually enter a mortgage payment. But the trouble is, the mortgage payments are showing up in our expenses account, because that page downloads all our bank transactions from Chase, including the check we send once a month to the private lender...
...So it seems really annoying to then have to manually enter the mortgage payment on the loan account page. Moreover, even if we do that, it's still listed over on the expenses page as an expense, even though part of it is going toward principal.
So I guess we're wondering if there's any way to arrange Quicken so that it recognizes that that monthly payment of $1330 (including $500 extra payment) to Jane Doe (the mother in law) needs to be categorized as a mortgage payment, apply it to the loan account automatically, split it up into principal/interest automatically, and account for it properly in the expenses account?
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Set up a recurring bill, which you split into the transfer portion and interest portion (as explained by previous posters). Set it up to automatically enter X days from the due date for convenience.
So long as amount and date matches, Quicken should tie the transaction when downloaded to the entry. If not, just delete the downloaded transaction and keep the automatically entered (and correct) one.
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Does your loan setup look at all like this?
(http://s16.postimg.org/qpqxaakk1/screenshot_31.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/qpqxaakk1/)
And have you made it a recurring payment?
If so, what happens when you process the recurring payment?
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Anyway, I'm pretty much over it. What are people using as a Quicken alternative? I'm wary of Mint because I don't love the idea of having all our private info out on a cloud.
We use gnucash (since around 1999ish).
I think it both will and will not solve your problem.
It will: I think gnucash is more accurate in terms of adhering to generally accepted accounting principles. It is more about double-entry bookkeeping than it is about categorizing things. (You get things categorized as a side effect... but that's not what it is about.)
It won't: because it sounds like you're using Quicken to do automagic type payments. Gnucash is designed in Europe... and if you're not in Europe, it is likely to not interface with your banks correctly. Personally I see that as a plus. I like being a little more hands on. I would rather there be a bit of an "air gap" between the accounting and the payment. But that's a personal thing. I can be a bit of a security paranoid (from working in network security and watching how attacks occur.)