Mortgages and notes against a property, with the amortization schedule they imply. The record is here so the cash flow projection knows the debt exists and so net operating income means what it is supposed to mean.
Entered as the note describes them. The schedule is derived from these numbers, so a rounding guess becomes a wrong projection for the life of the loan.
Loan number, the property that carries the debt, the lender, the original amount, the rate, the term in months, the monthly payment as the lender bills it, and the date the first payment is due.
The screen works out the level payment a set of terms implies, so nobody reaches for a mortgage calculator. What gets stored is whatever you keep, because the servicer’s figure is the one that will actually be paid.
The number of payments at the start that pay interest and nothing else, so the balance does not move during them. Zero is an ordinary amortizing loan.
Set the interest-only months equal to the term and the whole principal falls due at maturity. That is a balloon somebody needs to plan for, and it produces a completely different cash flow picture from the same amount borrowed.
Due date, payment, interest, principal and the balance after, for every payment in the term.
What is owed today is walked from the schedule rather than stored, so it can never disagree with the terms it came from. Total interest over the life is on the record too, which is what makes a refinance conversation concrete.
Every payment splits two ways, and the loan names where each half goes. These are the fields that make the record worth keeping accurately.
The cost of the money, in an account of its own rather than mixed into operating expenses.
The debt this loan pays down, so the balance sheet follows the note.
Net operating income is supposed to be before debt service. Naming the interest account here is what lets the reporting hold that line, so a property with a mortgage is comparable to one without.
Put mortgage interest in an ordinary operating expense account and every NOI figure for that property is understated, in a way that reads as entirely normal on the statement. That is the mistake this field exists to head off.
The Cash Flow Projection carries the year forward, using the budget and the loan schedules for the months that have not happened yet. It is a different report from the Statement of Cash Flows, which explains a period that has.
For a month that is closed, the projection reads what really hit the interest account rather than what the schedule predicted. The schedule is the forecast and the books are the truth, and the two are allowed to differ. A closed month with nothing posted to that account therefore reads as a month with no interest paid.
Nothing about having a loan here causes a payment to be made or a journal entry to appear. The payment is entered the way any other payment is. Expecting the books to start reflecting a loan because it was added is the one misunderstanding worth heading off.
Turn Active off and the loan and its history stay, which is what to use on a note that has been paid off. Deleting it takes the record and stops its schedule feeding the projection.
Make the old one inactive and add the new one. Editing the old one in place leaves a history that reads as though the original terms were never what they were.
NOI is the figure an owner, a lender and a buyer all read, and it is before debt service by definition. A loan record that names its own interest and principal accounts keeps that structural, rather than leaving it to whoever happens to code the mortgage payment that month.