You can do one of two things for Car loans. One possibility (probably more accurate, but also more work to maintain) is to create a Loan account for it, and transfer money monthly to that account (and calculate the interest monthly, or however often it is accrued).
The other option is to treat it as an expense only, and not keep track of how much is left. To do this, you would create a new budget category 'Car Loan Payments' or something, and use it as an expense - just spend say $100 / month on it.
Both have advantages and disadvantages. The first method will give you a more accurate Net Worth, but will not show your monthly expenses as accurately (since you are transferring from one account to another, the payments will not show up in the default reports). The second will not show your net worth as accurately (since it has no knowledge that you are in debt say $10,000 for something), but it will show your monthly expenses more accurately.
Which one you choose depends on how accurate you want your financial modeling to be. Personally, I am more concerned with my monthly expenditures rather than net worth (being a poor semi-recent grad, I don't have enough net worth to bother with ;-), I would choose the second method. It is completely up to you, though.
Hope this helps!
Cheers
--Wyatt
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
how should car loans be inputed? should one make a loan account for it?
forgot to add
-darden
You can do one of two things for Car loans. One possibility (probably more accurate, but also more work to maintain) is to create a Loan account for it, and transfer money monthly to that account (and calculate the interest monthly, or however often it is accrued).
The other option is to treat it as an expense only, and not keep track of how much is left. To do this, you would create a new budget category 'Car Loan Payments' or something, and use it as an expense - just spend say $100 / month on it.
Both have advantages and disadvantages. The first method will give you a more accurate Net Worth, but will not show your monthly expenses as accurately (since you are transferring from one account to another, the payments will not show up in the default reports). The second will not show your net worth as accurately (since it has no knowledge that you are in debt say $10,000 for something), but it will show your monthly expenses more accurately.
Which one you choose depends on how accurate you want your financial modeling to be. Personally, I am more concerned with my monthly expenditures rather than net worth (being a poor semi-recent grad, I don't have enough net worth to bother with ;-), I would choose the second method. It is completely up to you, though.
Hope this helps!
Cheers
--Wyatt