Adding a loan to your plan
Choose an existing group in your plan or create a new group (perhaps call the group 'Funding'). Click the 'Components' button at the bottom of the group and then click on 'Loan' to add it to your plan.
Once added, click the row to begin editing the numbers. You'll have a screen similar to the screenshot below.
Loan setup
The loan setup allows you to choose how much money you will be borrowing, the date that you receive the money and how long you will be repaying the loan for.
Interest Rate
Enter an annual interest rate. Interest repayments will automatically be paid monthly in your reports based on this figure. If you want to model the interest rate changing in a later year press 'Show as table'. This will allow you to enter custom interest rates on a year by year basis. You can also switch to entering the interest rate on a monthly or quarterly level. Keep in mind, payments will always occur monthly.
Interest and capital repayment calculations.
The options at the bottom of the loan provide common payment plans for repaying both the loan capital and the interest. The three options are 'Decreasing payments', 'Fixed payments (compound)' and 'Interest only'. Here is what they do:
Decreasing payments
You will pay equal capital repayments each month. The interest repayment is calculated on the outstanding loan balance and will decrease over time as capital payments are made. This means the overall repayments will decrease over time.
Monthly repayment calculation
(Initial loan amount/total duration of loan in months) + (outstanding loan balance*annual rate/12/100)
Example
Loan amount: £12000 | Loan duration: 12 months | Interest rate: 5%
Capital repayments each month: £1000 (12000/12=1000). | Interest repayments: £50 in the first month (12000*5/12/100=50). Decreasing after that.
Fixed payments (compound)
You will pay equal total payments each month. As the outstanding balance decreases through payments, interest also decreases since it's based on the outstanding balance. Capital repayments increase as the interest payments decrease in order to keep the total payment each month fixed.
Interest only (bullet)
You will pay equal interest payments each month based on the loan amount. No capital is repaid until the final month when it is all repaid.
Example
Loan amount: £12000 | Loan duration: 12 months | Interest rate: 5%
Capital repayment: £12000 in the final month. | Interest repayments: £50 each month.
Manual repayments
This allows you to set up custom amounts for both capital and interest repayments. You have complete control over both. You can set interest to be either a percentage of the outstanding balance or a manual amount. Set them to table in order to enter varying or ad-hoc amounts.
Setting up an existing loan
To set up a loan that existed before the start of the plan you will need to first ensure that the loan you have added begins at the very start of the plan. If it does, you will be able to click the tick box saying 'This loan was acquired before the start of the plan.'
This will change the loan setup controls and allow you to enter a remaining loan balance amount and a remaining time left on the loan.
Note: currently, bullet loans will not calculate correctly based on existing loans since interest and repayments are based on the initial loan amount.