Bret's Amortization Calculator FAQ (2024)

Hi. From the e-mail I have received over the years, thecalculator gets a lot of use by all kinds of people, even somefolks in the financial industry. In this document, I will tryto respond to the most frequently asked questions.

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Questions

  1. Can you help me figure out this financial problem...?
  2. What is amortization?
  3. Can you describe the data entry fields?
  4. How do I use the calculator?
  5. Why is one line in the schedule highlighted?
  6. How do I prevent the calculator from changing the Payment Amount when I am trying to compute the Number of Regular Payments?
  7. How do I calculate an amortization if I make extra principal payments?
  8. How do I get the current principal balance?
  9. Can the calculator help me with refinancing?
  10. Can I calculate a negative amortization?
  11. Does the calculator work on a 30/360 basis, or actual/365, or actual/actual?
  12. Can you make the calculator show me payment dates?
  13. Can you have the calculator figure out the interest paid per year for tax purposes?
  14. Can I download this calculator so I can use it on my computer or server?
  15. Do you know of another calculator that has feature X?
  16. Do you have a spreadsheet template, or any other finance software, that I can download?

Can you help me figure out this financial problem...?

Probably not. I am a computer programmer, not a finance person.I can answer questions about my amortization calculator, how it works,and the (possibly naive) assumptions I've made regarding amortization.And though I can balance my own checkbook,I have no experience in the banking or finance industries.

What is amortization?

Amortization is a means of paying out a predetermined sum (theprincipal) plus interest over a fixed period of time, so that theprincipal is completely eliminated by the end of the term. This wouldbe trivial if interest weren't involved, since one could simply dividethe principal amount into a certain number of payments and be donewith it. The trick is to find the right payment amount, whichincludes some principal and some interest. The math isn't celestialmechanics, but it probably doesn't come standard on the basicpocket calculator.

For the curious, there's a mathematical presentation (PDF) of the problem and its solution.I've done some additional work which shows how to calculatethe principal remaining after a given number of payments, and how toamortize with an initial payment moratorium in this document.If you're trying to find some original loan parameters for an amortizationschedule in the process of repayment, there's some additional mathhere which mayhelp. Finally, there's also a document showingequations for calculating the total accumulated interest paid outafter a certain number of payments.

This calculator assumes that each payment should be the same amount,and that a payment consists of some amount for principal reduction andthe interest calculated on the principal balance (including the principal part of the current payment). I have been told that some Canadian mortgages are not calculated using this method.(Thanks to Andrew Bell, who sent along a link describing Canadian mortgage compounding.)

Amortization is used most often in mortgages (at least in theUnited States) and short-term loans, but the technique can also beapplied to figure out how long it would take to pay off a givencredit card debt (for example). In fact, this latter applicationwas why I wrote the calculator in the first place.

Can you describe the data entry fields?

Principal
For loans, this is the amount that's borrowed, the amount which will be paid off by the end of the amortization period.
Annual Interest Rate
Typically, this rate would be the APR (Annual Percentage Rate) without additional fees. This rate is divided by the Payments per Year to obtain a periodic interest rate which is actually used by the calculator. What may be called the "annual rate" can be quite confusing. See the Wikipedia entry for the Annual Percentage Rate and related articles for more detailed information.
Payments per Year
This should be self-explanatory. Monthly payments would by indicated by 12 Payments per Year, twice monthly payments by 24, etc. (This also determines the number of compounding periods in the year.) For payments every 2 weeks, enter 26, but beware that this is an approximation, since every 10 years you'll actually make 27 payments in the course of one calendar year. A similar caveat applies to any schedule based on any multiple of weekly payments because a calendar year contains just slightly more than 52 weeks, not to mention the additional complications of leap years.
Number of Regular Payments
The number of payments, combined with Payments per Year defines the term of the loan. If you're looking at a 30-year mortgage with monthly payments, you'd enter 360 into this field (12 × 30). I call these regular payments to distinguish them from the optional Balloon Payment.
Payment Amount
This is the amount one would pay every regular payment period.
Balloon Payment
This is an optional field. Some loans are set up so that there's a lump sum paid at the end of the term, most of it principal, but typically some interest component as well. If you are running a balloon scenario, just enter the amount of the balloon payment in this field. If the field is blank, the calculator will assume that there is no balloon amount involved (unless it is the only blank field). The calculator will treat the balloon payment as if it occurs one payment period after the last regular payment, so this value includes one additional cycle's interest payment.

How do I use the calculator?

When you click Calculate, the calculator figures outwhich field is blank (or zero), and then determines what that valueshould be, given the other numbers you've filled in. However, the calculator will not figure out thePayments per Year if this is left blank: you will begiven an error message.The Balloon Payment field is treated specially: itnormally remains blank. If it is the only blank field, however,the calculator assumes that you want to calculate what the balloon payment should be, given the other values.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You are welcome to use thiscalculator as a guide in your decision-making or to explorealternatives, but please consult your lending institution or financialadvisor before making your final decision, since I am not a finance person. (See #1 above.)

As you see, the calculator can be used to calculate a numberof different things. For example, if you are car-shopping and youwant to know how much you can reasonably borrow given that youcan safely make a $325 monthly payment over 5years, put 325 in the Payment Amount field, 60 in the Number of Regular Payments box, and fill in an APR that yourlending institution will give you. When you click Calculate,the Principal field will be filled in with the amount you canborrow under these conditions. Each time you try a different set ofnumbers, be sure to delete or clear out the field that you want thecalculator to figure for you.

Since I originally wrote the calculator to figure out how long itwould take me to eliminate some credit card debt, I'll provide an example of that calculation. Assume you've got a $5000 balance on a credit card at 18%. Put 5000 in the Principalfield, and 18.0 in the Annual Interest Rate field.Clear the Number of Regular Payments field, and set thePayment Amount box to the amount you think you can afford topay each month. When you click Calculate, the number ofpayments will be filled in for you. The paymentamount may be adjusted so that the entire $5000 (plus interest) willbe paid off in the given term.

As a final example of how to use the calculator, assume that you'vegot a $45,000 principal balance remaining on a house at 7.5%, andyou'd like to pay that amount off in 5years so that you canretire without a having a house payment. To figure out how muchyou should be paying now to pay off the loan, put 45000 inthe Principal field, 7.5 in the Annual Interest Rate field, and 60 in the Number of Regular Payments field (12months × 5years). Clear thePayment Amount field and click calculate. By paying thecalculated Payment Amount, you should be able to retiremortgage-free.

If the Show Amortization Schedule option has been activated,when you click Calculate, you will be shown a table of all thepayments, their principal and interest components, and running totals ofthe principal and interest components.

In addition to finding the value that belongs in the emptyfield, the calculator shows you an estimate of the total amountof interest you'll be paying. A more accurate estimate of interestwill be found on the last line of the amortization schedule. Theactual interest you will pay depends on how your financialinstitution rounds its numbers, but the estimate should be close.

Why is one line in the amortization schedule highlighted?

This line indicates the cross-over point for the payment schedule,the point in the amortization when the principal part of the paymentexceeds the interest part of a payment for the first time. Not allschedules will have a cross-over point, though most typical mortgageamortizations probably will.

How do I prevent the calculator fromchanging the Payment Amount when I am trying to computethe Number of Regular Payments?

The calculator only wants to work with an integer number ofpayments. Sometimes, the Payment Amount you enter may resultin a non-integer number of payments. In such a case, the calculatorrounds the Number of Regular Payments to the nearest integer,and then re-calculates what the Payment Amount should be underthese altered conditions. If this is not the behavior you want, thenthe calculator can be coerced into doing it your way.

Let's assume that you borrow $5000 from your great-grandmother at8% (you want to be fair, afterall). You want to make payments of $250monthly. How long will it take to pay off? You enter the parametersinto the calculator, and it tells you that the loan can be paid off in22months, but that you will only pay $245.10 per month. Forsome reason, this is unacceptable (perhaps because it does not quitecover great-grandma's $250 monthly bingo habit), so you invoke theBalloon Payment field to handle the left-overs: subtract onefrom the Number of Regular Payments (resulting in 21 in thiscase), and reset the Payment Amount to 250.00. Whenyou click "Calculate" this time, the Balloon Payment field isfilled in with your final payment. In this scenario, you'll make 21regular payments of $250.00, and one "balloon" payment of$134.36.

How do I calculate an amortization if I make extra principalpayments?

The calculator can only handle extra payments under the followingconditions:

  1. Extra payments are the same amount each time
  2. Extra payments are made at the same time as regular payments
  3. Extra payments are made every regular payment period

If any of these conditions don't apply to your situation, thenyou probably need some sort of a spreadsheet to help you generatean amortization table. I've written an Excel loan amortization spreadsheetto assist folks in analyzing these cases.

If the above conditions are met, then you may add the extra amountto the Payment Amount field and re-calculate. For example, ifyou have $100,000 loan at 8% over 30 years, the calculator determinesthat the Payment Amount is $733.76. If you want to make anadditional payment of $100 per month, set Payment Amount to833.76, clear the Number of Regular Payments field,and click Calculate. Under these conditions, the loan term hasbeen reduced to 242 payments, or just over 20 years.

How do I get the current principal balance?

Plug in the loan parameters, and set the Show Amortization Scheduleoption before clicking Calculate. Determine how many payments you have made so far, and look up the Principal Balance in the finalcolumn of the amortization table.

Can the calculator help me with refinancing?

A little. First, find out what your principal balance is (seethe previous question).Now enter the principal balance in the Principalfield. If you're planning a zero cash out-of-pocket re-fi,you should add closing costs/points to the Principal amount.Then you can play with the numbers in the other fields.

Can I calculate a negative amortization?

Yes, the calculator can perform negative amortizations. A negativeamortization loan is a scenario where the periodic payment is lessthan the interest that is due for that period. In this case,the unpaid interest is added into the principal amount, and sothe debt grows over time rather than being reduced. Since theseloans are never paid off, they are usually temporary or short-termarrangements, after which the loan is "recast" into an actual payoffscenario.

As an example,assume that we would like to know how much we will owe after anegative amortization period of 5years, given that we have borrowed$100K at 8%, and we'll be making monthly payments of $600.00.We enter Principal at 100000.00, Annual Interest Rateat 8.0, Payments per Year at 12, set Number of Regular Payments to 60 (12×5), and set thePayment Amount to 600.00. Click on "Show AmortizationSchedule", and then click "Calculate". The Balloon Paymentfield will be filled in with the amount of money owed at the end of thenegative amortization period ($105,597.78, in this example).If you look at the amortization schedule,you will see that the "Principal" column contains negative values, whichmakes sense because this column is intended to show the principalreduction. You will also note that the principal balanceis increasing over time.

NOTE: I've recently noticed that some of the loan summaryinformation that the calculator produces in negative amortizationscenarios is inaccurate and misleading. The final line of the paymentschedule is also inconsistent. I will fix these things when I havethe opportunity, but for now, please be aware of these "gotchas".

Does the calculator work on a 30/360 basis,or actual/365, or actual/actual?

Strictly speaking, none of the above.For all payment schedules, the calculator treats the "Payments per Year"as equally-distributed. E.g., a "bi-weekly" payment schedule,26payments per year, is treated as having 365/26=14.038...daysper payment period by the calculator. A true bi-weekly schedule wouldinstead use 14days exactly, and every 10years, there wouldbe an extra (27th) payment during the year.

A 30/360 basis treatsthe year as having 360days, each month having 30days, resulting in12equally-spaced payments per year. For monthly payments,the calculator appears to be on a 30/360 basis since the math endsup the same: (APR×30)/360 is the same as APR/12.

My understanding of the "actual" bases is that the APR is dividedby the number of days in the year to provide a daily interest rate,and the interest is calculated on the true number days between scheduled payments. If one were to plot the interest paid over time,the actual basis methods will produce slightly jittery curves relativeto the curves this calculator will produce.

Can you make the calculator show me payment dates?

As convenient as this feature may be, it's not gonna happen anytimesoon for several reasons. The calculator is rather simple right now,and it would need to have a whole lot more intelligence to handle dates properly. I like to program, so it's notthat I'm averse to writing more code, but in addition, the input formwould require more fields to be filled in by the user. I made aconscious effort to keep the input required to a minimum while maintaining the computational flexibility I wanted.

More profound issues are raisedif dates are added: for one, I would need to know how to calculate anamortization based on a bi-weekly payment schedule. I really don'tknow how financial institutions handle this case in real life. [If youwork for a lending institution and have specific info on how theperiodic interest rate is calculated for a true bi-weekly paymentschedule, please fill me in!] In short, the calculator program is just a quickie (it took longer to figure out the math than to write the actual program), and I prefer its current simplicity.

Can you have the calculator figure out the interestpaid per year for tax purposes?

To handle this properly requires that the calculator know when afiscal year begins and ends, and therefore requires some knowledge ofdates (see previous question). However, you can sidestep the issueand do the calculation manually. Suppose that payment 31 is the finalpayment of the previous fiscal year, and payment 57 is the finalpayment of the current fiscal year. To get the interest paid duringthe current fiscal year, subtract Cum Int for payment 31 fromCum Int for payment 57.

Can I download this calculator so I can use it on my computer or server?

Sorry, but this calculator and its source code are not available.It is old and idiosyncratic. Since I cannot offer support for it, Ido not license it or make it available in any other form, even formoney. (Well, OK, if you wanna put me through grad school at MIT, Imight consider it. ;-)

Do you know of another calculator that has feature X?

Sorry, I'm not trying to keep up with the Jones's calculators, and Idon't keep track of what other people may offer. Frankly, I'msurprised that this calculator still seems to be so popular after allthese years. I would have thought that someone else would haveoutclassed this puppy long ago.

Do you have a spreadsheet template, or anyother finance software, that I can download?

Funny that you should ask. In June 2010 I wrote an amortization spreadsheet in Excelwhich may be useful with irregular extra-payment or late feesituations which the online calculator isn't well-equipped to handle.And since it's something you download onto your own computer, it mayalso be handy as a means of tracking your loan or mortgage payments.Use at your own risk!

Bret's Amortization Calculator FAQ (2024)

FAQs

How does amortization calculator work? ›

To calculate amortization, first multiply your principal balance by your interest rate. Next, divide that by 12 months to know your interest fee for your current month. Finally, subtract that interest fee from your total monthly payment. What remains is how much will go toward principal for that month.

What is the rule of 78 amortization schedule? ›

The Rule of 78 formula

The lender allocates a fraction of the interest for each month in reverse order. For example, you would pay 12/78 of the interest in the first month of the loan, 11/78 of the interest in the second month and so on. The result is that you pay more interest than you should.

What is the rule for loan amortization? ›

Starting in month one, take the total amount of the loan and multiply it by the interest rate on the loan. Then for a loan with monthly repayments, divide the result by 12 to get your monthly interest. Subtract the interest from the total monthly payment, and the remaining amount is what goes toward principal.

What is an advantage of a 20 year amortization period compared to a 25 year amortization period? ›

A shorter amortization period saves you money on interest. While there are many good reasons to opt for a shorter amortization period, there are a couple of other factors to consider. Because you are reducing the actual number of mortgage payments you make to pay off your mortgage, your regular payments will be higher.

How do loan payments work with amortization? ›

An amortized loan payment first pays off the interest expense for the period; any remaining amount is put towards reducing the principal amount. As the interest portion of the payments for an amortization loan decreases, the principal portion increases.

Why do lenders use the amortization calculation formula? ›

Amortization is important because it helps businesses and investors understand and forecast their costs over time. In the context of loan repayment, amortization schedules provide clarity concerning the portion of a loan payment that consists of interest versus the portion that is principal.

Is the Rule of 78 illegal? ›

In 1992, the legislation made this type of financing illegal for loans in the United States with a duration of greater than 61 months. Certain states have adopted more stringent restrictions for loans less than 61 months in duration, while some states have outlawed the practice completely for any loan duration.

How do you beat an amortization schedule? ›

3 Loan-Amortization Tips
  1. Add Extra Dollars to Your Monthly Payment. If your total mortgage loan is $100,000 and your fixed monthly payment is $500, add $100 or more to each monthly mortgage payment to pay down the loan more quickly. ...
  2. Make a Lump-Sum Payment. ...
  3. Make Bi-weekly Payments.
Mar 8, 2023

What happens when you make each payment on the amortization schedule? ›

Typically, the majority of each payment at the beginning of the loan term pays for interest and a smaller amount pays down the principal balance. Assuming regular payments, more of each following payment pays down your principal. This reduction of debt over time is amortization.

What Cannot be amortized? ›

Amortizing lets you write off the cost of an item over the duration of the asset's estimated useful life. If an intangible asset has an indefinite lifespan, it cannot be amortized (e.g., goodwill).

How to calculate amortised cost of a loan? ›

Amortised cost model
  1. (1)the amount at which the instrument was initially recognised;
  2. (2)MINUS any repayments of principal;
  3. (3)PLUS or MINUS cumulative amortisation, using the effective interest method, of the difference between the initial recognition amount and the maturity amount, and any fees or transaction costs;

What is the IRS amortization rule? ›

You must generally amortize over 15 years the capitalized costs of "section 197 intangibles" you acquired after August 10, 1993. You must amortize these costs if you hold the section 197 intangibles in connection with your trade or business or in an activity engaged in for the production of income.

Does paying extra principal change amortization schedule? ›

Even a single extra payment made each year can reduce the amount of interest and shorten the amortization, as long as the payment goes toward the principal and not the interest. Just make sure your lender processes the payment this way.

What is the disadvantage of having a longer amortization period? ›

However, you will pay more in interest over time. This doesn't mean you can't pay off your mortgage quicker and save on interest payments. Most lenders allow generous prepayment privileges, which means you can usually make extra lump-sum payments once or multiple times a year.

What happens if the amortization period is longer than the loan term? ›

When the amortization period of the loan is longer than the payment term, there is a loan balance left at maturity — sometimes referred to as a balloon payment. If you have a 10 year term, but the amortization is 25 years, you'll essentially have 15 years of loan principal due at the end.

How do you calculate amortization value? ›

The formula for amortization subtracts the residual value from the initial value and then divides it by the useful life. The residual value is usually credited to the accumulated amortization account in the journal entries, as it reduces the total amount that needs to be amortized over the asset's lifespan.

What is the formula for calculating amortization expense? ›

Assuming the straight-line method is used, the company divides the capitalized cost by the estimated useful life, and that gives you the amortization expense per year to recognize in the financial statements. Similar to depreciation, amortization is a non-cash expense, so there is no cash flow impact.

How does amortization work on a 30-year mortgage? ›

Maybe you have a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Amortization with this loan type means you'll make a set payment each month. If you make these payments for 30 years, you'll have paid off your loan. The payments with a fixed-rate loan – a loan in which your interest rate doesn't change – will remain relatively constant.

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