Track the payments on your loan: accounting. (amortization schedule worksheet)

TRACK THE PAYMENTS ON YOUR LOAN

How much do you owe on your lease for the office furniture? How much interest did you pay last month on your delivery-van loan? By how much will the outstanding balance on your mortgage decrease 12 months from now? To anwer these questions, you must carefully track the interest and principal components of your firm's debt. An amortization schedule helps you do this by listing the status of a debt for each period and the related debt-service payments.

You can create a simple spreadsheet (using any release of 1-2-3 or Symphony) that will tell you how loan payments are divided between principal and interest at any time during the life of the loan. Building the worksheet takes about five minutes. Once you've built it and worked through the examples, you'll be able to create your own amortization schedules in a matter of seconds.

BUILDING THE AMORTIZATION WORKSHEET

To build the basic template, start with a new worksheet and set the global display format and calculation mode. In 1-2-3 press slash, select Worksheet Global Format Currency, and press Return to accept the default value of two decimal places. Then select /Worksheet Global Recalculation Manual. In …