Comments on: Help me to be a responsible loan shark.

Question: Help me to be a responsible loan shark.

rmd1023 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:41:56 -0800

I'm selling a piece of property to someone with a seller-financed loan -- so I make the money from the power of compound interest instead of a bank. We've got lawyers handling the paperwork for the transaction. However, I've never been a loan shark before. Suggestions for financial software to manage the loan so I can enter payment amounts and dates and such and keep the magic of compound interest accurately compounding?

I'm platform agnostic among OSX, WinXP, and various linuxes.

I prefer something that's actual software instead of a service that I have to keep paying money for (Quicken and your expiring ability to download activity, I'm looking at *you* right now).

I am okay with entering the payment and date data by hand, but I'd like to be able to export the records so I can share them with the buyers periodically. I find the idea of an excel spreadsheet kind of sketchy, mostly because I don't trust my own ability to correctly make the formulae.

By: BigLankyBastard

BigLankyBastard — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:56:02 -0800

I have done similar things with Excel, and aside from your own lack of confidence I think it's the perfect vehicle to do the things you want done. I urge you to bite the bullet and get an Excel for Dummies book to brush up on the formulas, then maybe pop by your bank or credit union and ask a loan representative to check your math. This is precisely the sort of need Excel was created to fill.

In fact, you should probably talk to an accountant anyways before you get too far into this process to ensure you are complying with the applicable regulations and setting aside enough cash to pay off any tax burden you incur when it comes due. You can ask that person to check your math, too.

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 11:27:48 -0800

I like OS X's FinKit for simple financial calculations, but I've just now noticed FinFlow, another product from them, which looks more like what you're looking for.

Seconding talking to an accountant.

By: Emanuel

Emanuel — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:15:10 -0800

GnuCash has a compound interest calculator built in. It's multiplatform.

By: yohko

yohko — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 14:50:07 -0800

I'd talk to an escrow company instead of an accountant.

By: theora55

theora55 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:09:46 -0800

Sent you mefimail. Excel spreadsheet is fine, backing it up is critical, recommend you enter the data, then protect most of the cells. You'll need to send them info every year during January stating the amount of interest they paid to you, and probably some other info. If you do escrow, you generally have to pay them interest on money held. IASNAA(I am so not an accountant.)

By: rmd1023

rmd1023 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:21:03 -0800

i've got the excel spreadsheet, and it looks spiffy. i'll take a look at gnucash and finflow/finkit for report generation, too, so i may be back to mark more answers as WICKED PISSAH.

thanks, folks!