Feature Requests

It occurs to me that the blog format isn’t entirely conducive to conversations initiated by you folks out there in big wide world. If you’d like to see particular features implemented for the calculator, this page can be a home to those requests. Tack your comment onto this page for easy reference.

93 Replies to “Feature Requests”

    1. Hi, Rob. Sorry for the long delay in responding: somehow I missed the notice that I had pending comments.

      I’m not sure what you mean, because the calculator does not perform interest-only calculations. For information, there is an “interest-only” payment calculated, i.e., the minimum payment required to stay even. However, in the situation that you’re describing, where the payment does not meet the minimum, the residual unpaid interest is effectively added to the principal for the next iteration of the calculation. If you plug in your numbers as you’ve described, you should get a balloon payment which includes the unpaid balance (including additional accumulated interest) over the set time period.

      Bret

  1. Hi Brett, I discovered your calculator in putting together a negative amortization agreement with a buyer, where I will be doing the financing. Your calculator does the calculation for an “Interest Only” loan. My contract with my seller is not for Interest Only. Do you happen to have a spreadsheet or any tool that I can use to create an amortization schedule for this scenario? Specifics: note is for $831,900, 7.9% interest, 36 month term extendable up to 60 months, buyer will pay $5K/month + Taxes and Insurance, so negative amortization for everything due above $5K/month. I noticed your responses above and I am impressed…you are very giving!! Much appreciated!
    Rob

  2. You can calculate a weekly schedule by changing the payments per year to 52, multiplying 52 by the number of years in the loan and entering that in the number of regular payments field, clearing the regular payment amount, and clicking calculate. But note that this is still an estimate, since every so often you’ll have 53 payments in a year.

    And to expand on my response to your previous question, I did not categorically say that the repayment plan you suggested would not work; I said I did not understand how it could. I may have misunderstood the problem as you presented it, or there could be other assumptions involved with which I am unfamiliar. (I am not a banker or financial professional.)

    As far as I know, loan amortization is not accelerated (well, not by much) by chopping a fixed amount of money into smaller pieces, making more payments over the same span of time.

  3. Hello Bret,

    I have one other question, if I may. I have a loan amortization schedule that is based on monthly payments, how can I enter weekly payments that will adjust interest and principal balances. Will your excel spreadsheet make such adjustments, if so how?

    Thank you in advance for your answer.

    LA

  4. Dear Bret,

    Ok, so your current calculator will not process this type of payment circumstance. And I hear you say that this loan payment strategy will not result in cutting the 30 year loan amortization to 15 years.

    I appreciate your time and assistance.

    LA

  5. Hi, LA. I’m not really sure about how this would work. Certainly the current calculator won’t perform this calculation. I’m probably missing something, but I don’t see how this could result in 50% reduction in the loan term.

  6. Hello Bret,

    I have heard from a math teacher that if a 30 year simple interest loan can be paid off in half that time, or 15 years with the same monthly payment outlay if: an additional payment is made one month prior to the first scheduled payment is due, then half the scheduled payment is payed 1/2 a month early with the balance paid by the due date.

    Is this possible to see an amortization of this payment plan? Can you tell me if this is correct information, paying off a loan in half the time under these payments?

    Thank you!

  7. Good Morning,
    I’ve used your amort calculator several times and it is a dream! However, I do have one loan that is an oddity and I cannot find a amort schedule to help me. Here’s my scenario…
    Loan amount is $240,000 at 4% interest beginning 10/05/2011 with the first annual payment due 12/30/2012. After that payment is made, the payments increase to $20,000 annually at the same interest rate due every 12/30 until the loan is paid in full. I work at a title agency and our system is cannot produce an amort schedule where the first pmt is due the following year. Any help is greatly appreciated!
    Thanks, Mindi

    1. Hi, Mindi. This isn’t just a math problem, but a matter of how the extra time is handled by a contract. There are several reasonable possibilities, I think, and as I do not work in the finance industry, I am not qualified to help you answer this question.

      Bret

    1. Hi, Mike. Sorry for the delay in responding: the start of a new school year always kicks my butt, and I don’t have much spare time for a few weeks.

      What you’re looking for is certainly possible, but would require some custom programming if you want a web app. If you’re going that route, you might consider a smart phone app (iPhone and Android are the most popular platforms) over a web app. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time right now for doing this kind of development.

      The advantage of a spreadsheet is that you can do the work yourself and share it, though as you say, people would need the software to run it themselves. One option would be to look at the Google web apps (they have a spreadsheet). If you developed your spreadsheet there, anyone with web access would be able to use your spreadsheet online (theoretically). Another option is to point people to some free software, such as OpenOffice or LibreOffice which supply a whole suite of standard office applications, or Gnumeric, an open source spreadsheet (which has a build for Windows).

      Good luck!
      Bret

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