Help me be the 1% :)

March 13, 2012 4:52 PM

Looking for software to manage a loan.

I would like some software, free or inexpensive, to help manage a loan. It should be able to calculate interest, apply a payment to the interest and principle, accommodate extra payments that apply to principle only and be able to generate a report at any time showing progress towards paying off the loan, how much has been applied to principle vs interest and the pay off amount.

posted by Northwest to Work & Money (5 answers total)

Excel can do everything you listed. Though I'd probably have to study a bit to figure out how to make it due what you want.

(i'm leaving the Freudian typo)
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 4:55 PM on March 13, 2012

Best answer: There's a free Excel template that does that.
posted by vacapinta at 4:57 PM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

You need a loan amortization table, for which Excel is perfect.
posted by dfriedman at 5:01 PM on March 13, 2012

Spreadsheets are the common tool for one-off loans. I use GNUCash, but its interest calculations never match my lender's formulas. Excel, LibreOffice and Google Docs all have PMT() functions you can use to generate amortization tables and build reports off of.
posted by pwnguin at 8:26 PM on March 13, 2012

Response by poster: Thanks to all of you for your rep[lies. The excel template is just what I need, thank you vacapinta. OnTheLastCastle, your freudian slip made me chuckle. dfriedman and pwnguin I appreciate your answers. I hope I can be as helpful to others as you have been to me.
posted by Northwest at 11:12 AM on March 17, 2012