LoanAnalyst for P800/P900
User Manual

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LoanAnalyst Features

LoanAnalyst is a comprehensive Mobile Loan Calculation and analysis application for individual loan seekers as well as real-estate professionals. Its intutive user interface is simple enough for both types of users to use and get benefited. Following are the features to look for in LoanAnalyst.

Loan Calculation

Enter known loan parameters and calculate the unknown. For example, if you know the Property price, amount or percentage of down payment you can make, loan term in years or months, interest rate ... you can enter those and get monthly or bi-weekly principal+interest payment with a single tap.
By entering tax as absolute value or percentage, and PMI as absolute value or percentage, you can get the total monthly or bi-weekly payment.
Similarly, if you know the Principal+Interest payment, rate, and term, you can calculate the loan value. You can calculate the rate and term the same way.

Loan Amortization

Amortization function provides complete Amortization schedule for both periodic payments as well as cumulative payments.
Amortization schedule is displayed for the number of monthly or bi-weekly payments based on the term of the loan.
Amortization schedule can be exported to a text file and copied to your PC using the PC Suite application.

Refinance calculator

A refinance calculator allows you to calculate the savings over the term of the refinanced loan when the existing loan parameters and the refinanced loan parameters are entered.

Loan Spread Calculator

Loan Spread calculator comes in handy to see the payment spread for various Loan amount, interest rate, and terms around the value you have entered in the loan parameter screen.

Additional Features

Save any number of loan calculations in a device database with different names for future reference. At anytime, any of these saved loans can be reopened and analyzed.
SMS loan parameters to your client or partner directly from within the program.
Export tables to text files on the device documents directory in Comma Separated text files. These files are accessible through the PC Suite application when the device is connected to the PC.
built-in help providing explanation on each individual feature.

Loan Calculator

Overview

The primary purpose of this calculator is to help you calculate loan payment from Loan value, Interest Rate, Term, PMI and interest. Using this calculator, you can do it very easily. However, using this calculator, you can also calculate Interest Rate, or Term or event Loan you can get when the other parameters are known. The loan calculation screen looks like the following:

(Figure 1 : Loan Calculator; Figure 2: Loan calculator with Pop-up calculator for number input)

You get to this screen in one of 3 different ways:

By selecting a Loan to Open in the Main Screen
By Using the New button to create a new Loan
By selecting "Loan Calculator" from the menu of any other calculator

Screen Variables

The screen layout as you can see it very simple but versatile that gives you full control on the type of value you want to enter. Meaning of the variour fields are the following:-

Loan Parameters

File as: name identifier for the loan. When the loan parameters are saved, the loan is listed with this name on the main screen.
Price: The full price of the property for which loan is required.
Down: Download payment either in absolute dollar term or as a % of the property price. To the left of the down payment input box, there is a selection list to select whether the value entered is absolute quality e.g. 10,000 or a percentage e.g. 5 for 5%.
Loan: Loan value is automatically calculated by subtracting the down payment from price.
Rate: Annual percentage rate expressed in terms of percentage.
#Years or #Months: This field represents either the number of months or number of years. Usually loans are expressed in terms of years e.g. 15yr loan, 30yr loan so that default value of this selection in #Years. However, you can chang it to #Months by selecting the appropriate entry from the selection list.
P&I: This is the calculated Principal and Interest payment. The default is Mon meaning monthly. If you are making Bi-weekly payment instead, you can select Bi-weekly from the selection list.
Tax: This can be entered if you want to calculate your fully payment when your taxes are included with the mortgage payment. Taxes are added to the P&I while calculating the payment. Default tax is expressed in $. However, if you want to specify tax as a % of price e.g. 1.2% yearly then you can enter it here.
PMI: If you are required to pay mortgage insurance you can add that to your monthly/bi-weekly payment here as a absolute value or as a percentage of the loan amount.
Total:This is the total monthly or bi-weekly payment you have to make including any taxes and PMIs if applicable.

Pop-up calculator

Loan calculator screen entries are all numbers or selection of an option from a list. When entering the numbers, it may also be necessary for you to do some pre-calculation. To make this input easy, Loan calculator screen provides a pop-up calculator that is displayed on the screen (As in Figure 2) so that you can enter your data.

How to Calculate

The same calculator screen is used to calculate Payment as well as Rate, Term and Price if the other parameters are available. For that reason, you will see small calculator icons next to these parameters. All other fields are either to be input or automatically calculated. If the field is automatically calculated, it is greyed out.

Since you can calculate any of these 4 fields, the application does not know which one you want to calculate after changing any of the input numbers. Therefore, it will only highlight the field that must be calculated but not actually calculate it. For example, if you change the Down payment, it will automatically highlight P&I field because that is definitely not right where as the Rate and Term can still be valid. However, at this stage, you are free to calculate any of the other 3 fields. So, to calculate the payment, you must tap the calculator icon next to the P&I field.

Buttons

There are 3 buttons on this screen for specific purposes:

SMS: This can be used to send the current loan parameters directly to someone on your contact list (or new contact) from within this application with one easy step.
Save: This button will save the current loan parameters with the name entered in "File as".
Clear: This will clear the entered screen parameters.
Back button: Go back to the main page without any changes.

Menu

This screen contains the following menu functions in addition to the sandard menu options.

Loan Calculator: This menu option brings up the loan calculation screen.
Amortization schedule: Amortization table screen.
Refinance calculator: Help analyze new and existing loan before refinancing.
Loan Spread calculator: Displays loan spread.

Amortization

Amortization function shows you term by term status of your loan. When you make payment of a loan monthly or Bi-weekly, everytime you make a payment, a part of it goes towards the interest and a part to the principal. Principal reduces your loan amount and the difference in initial loan and current loan value is called equity.

Amortization table shows you how your equity builds up with every payment and how much you have paid towards interest.

Note: Amortization schedule only includes the Principal and Interest payment, not the payment with tax and PMI.

Following screen shows the Amortization function

Amortization table types

Periodic payment analysis: Shows for each term how much of the payment goes towards interest and hoemuch towards principal. you will notice that with time passing, the amount going towards interest decreases and the principal portion increases which the total payment remains the same.
Cumulative analysis: For each payment, and in each year, it shows the total amount of interest paid till that term, the total amount of principal paid, and remaining loan balance till that period.

Exporting the table

The most fundamental use of Amortization tables is to keep it handy for future reference. If displaying it on the device whenever necessary is not convenient to you, you many export the table to a comma separated text file and copy it to the PC where you can view and analyze it using MS Excel or similar application.

The second screen above shows the screen that you get by tapping the save button on this screen.

Loan Spread Calculator

Loan Spread give you a birds eye view in and around your loan parameters. For example, if you have information on a loan with interest 5% for 30 years but you have possibility of availing loans for 20, 15, 5 yr terms in and around the same 5% rate, you will have to enter each loan term and interest rate to get all the values.

With loan spread calculator, you get a table of payment values at different interest rates e.g. 3.5%, 4.5%, 5%, 5.5%... and for different terms e.g. 15, 20, 25, 30. This saves you the agony of entering the parameters each time to calculate the payment.

the Loan spread calculator screen looks like the following:

You will notice that there is a selection list for loan spread. By selecting each entry, you get the loan spread in 3 different ways:

Loan/Rate spread: For same term e.g. 15 yrs, this displays payment for different loan values and different rates.
Rate/Term spread: For same loan value, it shows payment for different combination on term and rate
Loan/Term sprad: For same Rate, it shows payment for different loan and term

Refinance Calculator

Refinance Calculator is actually a loan comparator that compares two loans. For example, you can take your existing loan on which you have made some payments and compare it to a new loan that you may be looking at to refinance the current loan to save money. It is called a refinance calculator because that we believe will be the primary use of the tool. When taking a new loan, you normally have to spend some administrative fees. So, while refinancing a loan, if you know the amount of money you will save over a desired time frame, you can decide whether spending the additional funds is worthwhile.

This tool will calculate how much the new loan will save you over the existing loan if you intend to refinance and keep the property for certain period of time before selling it.

Note: Please enter all field values properly. Remember, the 2 loans you are comparing will have different time frames. For example, if you are refinancing a 15yr loan after 2 Yrs with a 15Yr loan to refinance, the current loan will actually have 13yr left where as the new loan will have 15. Similarly, the initial loan value for refinanced loan will be current loan - the principal which you have already paid down. You must also enter a time when you will sell the property so that the loans can be compared over that time period and this time period should be less than the lesser of new loan and the time remaining on existing loan.

The refinance calculator screen looks like the following:-

Common Loan Parameters

Loan: Loan amount. This value for new loan depends on the Monthly Payments made. So, if you have already made some payments on the current loan, the remaining balance of principal in current loan will be the new loan value.
Rate: Rate for current loan or new loan
Years/Months: Number of years or months. The unit (years/months) here depends on whether the loan calculator screen you have selected terms as months or years before coming to this screen.

Parameters for Current Loan

Monthly Payments made: Enter the number of payments you have already made on current loan. This will be monthly or bi-weekly based on what you have selected in the loan calculator screen before coming to this screen.
Monthly Payments to make till selling: In order to compare two loans, we need to know how long to compare. Most people will have a target number of years before selling the property so it makes sense to compare till that time. However, you can also compare till the end of the loan. If the current loan and new loan end at different time period, then the period entered here must be the minimum of the two so that both can be compared without one becoming non-existent.

Saving and Exporting Data

Saving Data

All the loan parameters you enter can be saved on the device for future reference. Each loan parameter set can be given a name in the "File As" line and by selecting "Save" the parameters will be saved in that name. When you run the program later, all those loans will be available to you so that you can open anyone of them and do recalculation if necessary.

The screen in which they appear looks like the following:

Select the loan and tap Open to open the loan in the main screen where the loans are listed.

Exporting Data

There are 2 ways you can export data from LoanAnalyst

SMS

Either from the main screen, or from the Loan calculator screen, you can send the loan details to someone over the air using SMS. Each of the screen has a SMS button at the bottom which you use to send the SMS. Select the SMS phone number either from the contact list, or enter a new one. The program provides all user interface necessary to do this.

Save to Comma separated file

You can save the Amortization table to a comma separated file in the devices documents directory which is visible from the PC using the PC Suite application of P800/P900. Once the files are saved, they can be copied to the PC using the copy paste program.

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LoanAnalyst for P800/P900 User Manual