Instructions
for using the Loan Calculator:
Using the Loan Calculator is
pretty simple. Enter the data asked for on the screen (Principal
Amount, Interest Rate, Payment Period, Term/Length Of Loan,
Payment Amount, optional First Payment Date). Press CALCULATE to
calculate the loan (or RESET to clear all the entry fields on the
screen and re-enter data). When CALCULATE is pressed, the
loan calculator will build a new screen (web page) with your loan
data included. You can print this information to a printer using
the print command on your browser (assuming you know how to print
from your browser). Below is a summary of the fields (data) to be
entered. This summary will hopefully answer any questions you may
have.
- PURCHASE PRICE - Enter the sale amount of the
item you are financing.
- DOWN PAYMENT - Enter the amount (if any) you
are putting down on the purchase.
- SALES TAX - Enter the percentage (if any)
of sales tax applicable to this purchase. Enter 5% as 5
- YEARLY
INTEREST RATE - Enter the yearly interest rate (APR) for the
loan. Enter 10.5% as 10.5. To have the interest
rate of a loan figured by the calculator, leave this
field blank, enter a PAYMENT AMOUNT and any TERM (LENGTH
OF LOAN) except for Calculate Term
(see PAYMENT AMOUNT and TERM below).
- PAYMENT PERIOD
- Choose
one of eight (8) options. Monthly will calculate
the loan for a payment period (number of days between
each payment) of 30 days. Annually - 360 days. Quarterly
- 90 days. Semi-Monthly - 15 days. Bi-Weekly
- 14 days. Weekly - 7 days. If you choose
the option Other,
you will be prompted after pressing CALCULATE to enter
the payment period in days. The Other option is
included to allow you to enter a payment period (example:
6 days) other than monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly, ect. If
the Other option
for PAYMENT PERIOD is choosen,
TERM (LENGTH OF LOAN) must be set to Other
or it must be set to Calculate
Term. The Mortgage
Bi-Weekly option will calculate a monthly
payment, divide it by 2, and then it will apply this
payment amount bi-weekly (payment every 14 days/average
of 26 payments a year). This should result in an average
of two (2) extra payments a year, which should pay off
the loan faster and with less interest than a
conventional mortgage or loan. Please Note: To
correctly estimate how mortgage bi-weekly payments can
pay off a conventional mortgage loan faster and with less
interest, the TERM (LENGTH OF LOAN) must be set to the
length of a conventional mortgage loan (usually 15 or 30
years). If you enter a
PAYMENT AMOUNT coupled with the Mortgage
Bi-Weekly PAYMENT PERIOD, the calculator will
assume this payment amount is a monthly payment amount
and it will calculate the mortgage bi-weekly payments
accordingly. The Mortgage
Bi-Weekly option may be disabled by the web site
owner. If so, you will probably see the option N/A - for
not available.
- TERM
(LENGTH OF LOAN) - Choose one of several options
for the length (term or number of payments) of the loan.
If you don't find an option that fits your loan, chose Other. The Other option will prompt you to input
the length of the loan (number of payments) when you
press CALCULATE. The Calculate Term option
allows you to enter a payment amount in the
PAYMENT AMOUNT field and the calculator will
figure the term. See below for more details.
- PAYMENT AMOUNT - This field should be set to 0
if you would like the loan calculator to figure the
payment amount for each pay period. However, the
PAYMENT AMOUNT field is provided so that if you
know the payment amount of each loan payment, you can
enter it here and the loan calculator will use this
payment as the basis of its other loan calculations (such
as calculating the term). This feature is useful if you
have a loan and you would like to see the amortization
and/or payment dates for that loan. If you do
enter a payment amount, you must set
TERM (LENGTH OF LOAN) to Calculate
Term or you must leave INTEREST RATE
blank.
- FIRST PAYMENT DATE
- Enter a
date here if you wish the loan calculator to date each
payment. Entering this field is optional. This field is
only used if CALCULATE
DETAILED PAYMENT AMORTIZATION is set to YES.
- IS THIS A MORTGAGE LOAN? - CHECK THIS if you wish to calculate the loan estimate as a
mortgage loan. Calculating the loan estimate as a
mortgage loan will figure estimates for taxes and
insurance and add these estimates to your payment. Checking
this option will also display estimated closing costs
according to points. This option has no effect if the
PAYMENT AMOUNT field is other than 0. UNCHECKED
is the default.
- CALCULATE DETAILED PAYMENT AMORTIZATION - CHECKING this option will cause the
calculator to display each payment (with a payment date
if you entered FIRST PAYMENT DATE), along with
displaying the interest accrued during the period, amount
applied, and the new balance. UNCHECKED is the
default. Be aware that the calculation and
display of each payment can considerably slow or disrupt
display of the results in some browsers.
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Calculator
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to Loan Page