Rent Logger

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How loans and mortgages work

A loan stays a draft until you activate it. Rent Logger keeps the terms, a forecast of the payments, and each payment you confirm. Xero holds the principal on a liability account. A confirmed payment is a Spend Money transaction from the paying bank.

1. What Rent Logger stores

The loan record holds the lender, the amount still owed, the rate, and the security. The schedule is a forecast of expected payments through to the repayment date. It is built from the current terms when the loan is activated.

  • A draft can be edited. Activation is the point the schedule is created and payments can become due.
  • Each confirmed payment stores the date, interest, principal, any overpayment, and any fee. The scanner can propose those figures. Nothing is saved until you confirm them.

2. What is stored in Xero

The liability account holds the principal. A confirmed payment posts as Spend Money from the paying bank: interest to mortgage interest, principal reducing the liability, and fees to finance charges.

In the app

  1. Finance
  2. Loans & Mortgages
  3. Xero
  • Principal stays untagged. Interest and fees follow the accounting allocation.
  • Opening a historical loan, or funding a new one, is a separate setup step. It is a different posting from a monthly payment. See Xero liability account.
  • Ask my accountant holds Xero posting until a real allocation is chosen.

3. Yearly statements and balances

A yearly statement can be scanned so the closing balance can be reviewed. Confirming that figure is what updates the starting position. After the loan is live, recording a lender balance compares the statement with Rent Logger and leaves the principal as it is.

In the app

  1. Finance
  2. Loans & Mortgages
  3. Payments
  4. Record lender balance
  • While the loan is still being set up, open Payments, then Advanced comparison and history, then Review historical setup. Drop the lender statement. The scan is a draft. Confirm the closing balance before it is applied.
  • Record lender balance is for comparison after the loan is live. The toast confirms that Rent Logger principal is unchanged.
  • Attach the statement under Security & documents.

4. When the figures differ

A mismatch is shown as Review required. It compares the Xero liability with Rent Logger, and the lender balance with Rent Logger.

  • A Xero difference is managed from the Xero liability account.
  • A lender difference is managed on Payments: correct the starting position, record a missing payment, or reverse an incorrect one.