Loan account does not apply principal/interest split it calculates
I have two mortgages, each set up as loan accounts in MD. This
behavior is the same in both accounts. When I view the account, the
sidebar at the right-hand side of the window shows the correct
principal/interest split for the next payment. However, every month
when the automatic transaction for the monthly payment is recorded,
the principal/interest split that it records is the same as on the
first payment about 1.5 years ago when I started using MD. It's
ignoring the gradual increase in principal and decrease in interest
that happens naturally as the loan is paid down, even though it is
calculating it for the "next payment" it shows in the account view.
Why does MD not record the principal/interest split that it
computes for each payment?
I'm running MD 2008r4 (641), Mac OS X v10.5.8 (last Leopard release), Java version 1.5.0_20.
Have I set up the loan accounts wrong somehow, or is this just a bug?
Thanks,
David
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Support Staff 32 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 12 Aug, 2010 06:40 PM
Hi everyone,
I know this is still and issue, and I've attached the bug ticket to this case so we'll update the thread when we have developments.
Thank you for your patience, I know this is a frustrating bug and we are working on it.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
33 Posted by John Hoag on 03 Sep, 2010 02:57 PM
This bug is more than annoying. I cannot believe that it exists!
34 Posted by dutchy999 on 04 Sep, 2010 02:44 AM
Have not read the entire thread, so you may know some of the info below already:
How did you set up the reminder?
I found the behavior that you describe (principal / interest split not correctly calculated), when I set up the reminder by going into the BANK ACCT FROM WHICH THE LOAN IS PAID, right-clicking a loan payment, and then selecting "Memorize" from the popup menu.
HOWEVER, this is what fixed it for me:
1) Delete the reminder created by the above procedure (if it exists)
2) Go into the LOAN acct itself.
3) Click the "Actions" button in the top left corner
4) Select "Payment Reminder" .An "Edit Payment Reminder" window will appear.
5) Set up the details of the Payment Reminder.
For me, any (loan) payment reminder set up using steps 2 thru 5 shows up correctly in the bill scheduler. Furthermore, principal and interest portions of each of the loan payment are correctly calculated***, assuming your loan setup (interest rate) is correct.
***Still check with your loan provider. Even though principal and interest portions are calculated, they may differ by a couple of pennies from what your loan provider calculates....
Cheers,
dutchy999
35 Posted by dutchy999 on 04 Sep, 2010 06:17 PM
I've played around with this "feature" some more and found the following for MD 2010, V7.51
In addition to my post above:
If you set up a loan payment reminder from the Reminder Calender, this, too, will NOT create a reminder that properly calculates principal and interest splits.
(This behavior is the same as setting up a reminder from the bank acct from which the loan is paid by right-clicking a payment and clicking "Memorize" as described in my post above)
The only method that I've found that will create a loan payment reminder that DOES properly calculate principal / interest, is by following step 2 - 5 from my post above.
See printscreen below to see what my loan payment reminder looks like.
36 Posted by ds4854 on 04 Sep, 2010 06:29 PM
I originally set my loan payments up from the loan account, using your steps 2-5 above. I agree that when I look at the FUTURE scheduled payments in the calendar, or when I look at the "next payment" prediction in the loan account, it shows the correct principal/interest split.
However, that is not the problem. Please read the original post and the next few after it.
The problem is that when the loan payment date comes, and the payment "auto-commits", the principal interest split that actually gets recorded, in both the loan account and the checking account from which is paid, is the SAME split as on the first payment and NOT the split that was predicted as described above. I noticed this problem because over a year or so my paid-down principal balance in MD was way off what the bank said. I went back and looked at a year or so of payments and the P-I splits were all identical, despite my having set up the automatic payment through the MD loan account.
And yes, BTW, the total amount that MD calculates is always $0.01 > what my bank calculates, but I can live with that.
So in sum, I've already done what you said, and it did not help.
David
Original Poster
37 Posted by dutchy999 on 04 Sep, 2010 06:41 PM
I have never used the "autocommit" feature, so I have not seen this behavior. And it seems the issue lies w/ the "autocommit" more than with the principal / interest calculation part of the loan payment reminder.
Sorry I couldn't help you.
dutchy999
38 Posted by jfjorgensen on 09 Feb, 2011 10:39 PM
MD 2010r3
I have not read comments older than Aug. 2010 since it seems there is continuing problems with loan (mortgage) principle calculation from month to month. Seems like a long time to get a bug fix for an important function that we all paid for.
Adding my observation and problem MD is subtracting the interest paid portion (in other words the full payment amount) from the previous principle balance of the month before compounding principle error every month by the total interest paid. Looking at transaction details is looks like the interest portion is not getting transfered to an interest category either.
39 Posted by eddieb on 11 Feb, 2011 02:20 AM
The problem pointed out in post 38 by jfjorgensen I don't believe is the same issue that this thread is addressing. It sounds like a completely different unrelated issue.
To recap, the problem that is the subject of this thread is that mortgage payments from month to month use the same amounts for principal and interest every month as opposed to amortizing the payments each month where the principal part of the payment goes up every month and the interest part decreases every month. I documented the problem in post 25 of this thread.
Now what somebody pointed out is that the auto commit of the mortgage payments might be causing the problem. So what I did back in April of last year (2010) was correct my past entered mortgage payments manually (that was fun) and then unchecked the auto commit on the mortgage reminder. So instead of the mortgage payment being automatically entered in the register, it shows up in the reminders section of the home page 14 days before it is due. When I see it in the upcoming reminders, I merely click on it and then click the "Record Transaction" button of the reminder. I've been doing this for 10 months now and all the payments for the mortgage I track in MD have exactly matched what the bank calculated every month. I've never had a problem since. Apparently, the auto-commit is the culprit of the bug. As long as you turn off the auto commit on the reminders, it appears everything then works fine.
Yes, this is a workaround and this should get fixed. But it takes me, at most, an extra 3 seconds a month to click the mouse twice to enter the mortgage payment every month.
40 Posted by davet65 on 21 Feb, 2011 03:27 PM
I am trying very hard to like MD after using QuickenMac for 20+ years, most recently Q2006. And much of it is good. But this issue is the latest obstacle I have to using MD after having spent probably 20 hrs understanding it and cleaning up the QIF transfer.
I can handle using the workaround referred to in #34, but I cannot find an Action button, and see elsewhere that it was eliminated to "improve the user interface". It is still referred to in the latest help file. How can I access the screen to set up a loan payment reminder - that properly allocated P + I ?
And am I still unable to set up a loan payment with principal and interest for a loan I make? Won't putting in a "negative loan" amount work? Q asked if I was getting or making the loan in the setup screen.
PS: I am trying to do this for loans imported via the QIF from Q2006 - not for a new loan.
41 Posted by eddieb on 21 Feb, 2011 05:39 PM
I don't think the action button was eliminated. When I go to a loan account, I see the action button right above the dates of the transaction register. I am running MD Version 2010r3 Build 756. I believe the actual current release is Build 754 or 755 (I manually went out and updated to 756 although you shouldn't need to). I know that button was present in the last couple builds I've had as well.
42 Posted by davet65 on 21 Feb, 2011 06:12 PM
Thanks for responding. You are right that the button is there for Loan accounts.
After an hour or so of searching the forum, I found that my problem was that MD imported my QuickenMac QIF Loan accounts as Liability Accounts!! No mention of that anywhere that I saw regarding importing. And the first discussion thread that I found said the import of Loan accounts should have been handled separately, importing into manually created MD Loan accounts, with no way to do it after the fact!!! And I have already invested many hours cleaning up the file so far; not the answer I wanted.
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/questions/72-loan-account
Later in the thread it talked about exporting as xml, editing and reimporting.
But buried in that was a reference to a post by "Mary" which led me to this:
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/questions/153-is-this-meth...
That appears work and to solve my problem. Her method is simple and straightforward, and I even got my reminder in place, though it took a bit of trial and error to get the info right for a loan already in progress.
My editorial comment: Mary's method should be in MD Help/User Guide, along with the info about imported Loan accounts. It is just one example of a User Guide that is sorely lacking, appears to be recognized as such, but the comment for years now is that "we know it and it is being worked on" Sean, I suggest to you that lack of a robust, up-to-date User Guide is a major obstacle that discourages potential new users from adopting MD - they give up. I would have hours ago if I wasn't so persistent - it is now almost a challenge to make it work for me.
I still wish I could have payments for loans I make, but I can handle that one situation as a Liability Acct and I will do the Principal/Interest split myself. It seems like entering a negative loan amount should work, but it didn't when I tried it. It took the negative principal, but didn't create a payment properly in the reminder screen.
43 Posted by Iori Suzuki on 22 Feb, 2011 12:12 AM
________________________________
From: davet65 <[email blocked]>
To: "[email blocked]" <[email blocked]>
Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 10:12:43 AM
Subject: Re: Loan account does not apply principal/interest split it calculates
[Problems]
44 Posted by Craig on 01 May, 2011 11:04 PM
I too am experiencing this bug - "auto-commit" messes up the principal/interest split while manually entering the transaction does not. Fortunately I noticed this before I had too many transactions to manually correct. I see this was originally reported in 2009. Is this ever going to be fixed??
Support Staff 45 Posted by Angie Rauscher on 08 Jun, 2011 06:05 PM
Craig,
We have made some significant progress in diagnosing this issue, but I still don't have a fix date. I have increased the severity of this bug ticket and asked our programmers to take a look at this issue again. I'll ask them to post here when they have more information.
Angie Rauscher
Moneydance Support
46 Posted by jasonb on 30 Aug, 2011 09:32 PM
This problem still exists in 2011r1. Going back and manually changing the splits for a loan running since 2003 does not appear to be much fun. Disappointed.
Seems like I can manually click 'Record Transaction' for each "historical" reminder and the calculation is correct. A more palatable approach.
47 Posted by Wayne Badger on 26 Oct, 2011 02:40 AM
I have recently started using MD (former Quicken/Mac user) and have stumbled across this bug. I am not using auto-commit just because of this bug. In my case, the value displayed in the split always seems to be the interest/principal values from the previous month.
It's been two years for this bug. I appreciate that you've made significant progress on diagnosis, but it seems clear to me that the priority on this bug is pretty low.
Anything I can do to bump the priority on this bug?
48 Posted by cfm on 11 Nov, 2011 02:07 AM
This is a serious flaw for a money manager program that wants to be taken seriously. Hard to believe it has been 2 years without a fix. One thing I like about MD is the responsiveness of the developers, but this makes me wonder if I misjudged that.
Because I very much prefer the auto-commit feature I let the program (erroneously) record unchanging splits from month to month. Then, once a year, I make a single adjusting entry to bring the balance in line with reality. It is a temporary workaround but it works with less effort that others I suggested in this thread.
Make the adjusting entry to the bank account used for payments, or, if you assigned the loan to an asset account when you set it up, use that account. It doesn't reallly matter what account you use. Just create a zero sum transaction with debits/credis to the loan account and the corresponding interest account. The loan balance and annual interest are then up to date.,You only need to do it once a year (use mortgage company statements), unless you really care about the balance to the penny every month (hard to imagine with a mortgage).
This is MUCH easier than re-entering/editing historical monthly payment transactions to fix the princ/interest splits every single payment, which some users report doing.
Hope this helps. I really like MD, I converted lots of Quicken data to MD over a year ago and MD has been working great ever since except this nuisance bug.
49 Posted by TB on 04 Dec, 2011 04:49 AM
I experience this problem when I download the payment from the checking account from which the loan payment is made. The system wants to credit the whole amount to the loan, and in the reconcile state it only wants one category to credit the payment. This makes it necessary to edit the payment or use a workaround presented above. I would like the system to offer a previous payment as a recognized previous transaction, but with the split between interest and principal according to the payment in the amortization table for this loan.
50 Posted by gnuite on 12 May, 2012 03:27 AM
I'm experiencing this problem, too, and it's very inconvenient. I've disabled auto-commit for all my loans, but that's a pretty lame workaround. :-/
Support Staff 51 Posted by Jessica Little on 25 Jun, 2012 10:42 AM
Hi All,
We've fixed this bug in the internal development build of Moneydance, and the fix will be in the next version. I don't have a timeline for the release yet, but we'll let you know as soon as it's out.
Jessica Little
Moneydance Support
Support Staff 52 Posted by Scott Meehan on 14 Dec, 2012 05:44 PM
Hi Everyone,
We’re excited to announce that the second update to Moneydance 2012 is now available! This is a free update to everyone who has a license for Moneydance 2011 or 2012. There are many bug fixes and improvements, along with the return of the ability to store your data set wherever you want. Please see our latest blog entry for the full details of this release.
Thanks and Happy Holidays from all of us at The Infinite Kind!
Scott Meehan
Moneydance Support
Scott Meehan closed this discussion on 14 Dec, 2012 05:44 PM.
gnuite re-opened this discussion on 09 Jan, 2013 05:30 AM
53 Posted by gnuite on 09 Jan, 2013 05:30 AM
Issue #4230 makes it impossible to determine if this issue is actually fixed in MD 2012.
http://help.infinitekind.com/discussions/problems/6319-recurring-mo...
And it sounds like we have to wait until MD 2013 before automatic loan reminders will work correctly....