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Simple bank interest

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Russell Bowen

24 Jul, 2016 08:49 AM

I have a straightforward bank account that attracts a rate of interest, which is paid on a monthly basis. Can I set up a monthly reminder which automatically calculates the interest paid in?

I don't want to create an investment account for this, because it is not a type of "security" that grows with both capital value and dividend income. It is just a bank account with a cash balance. The interest paid simply increases the balance.

Can I use a loan account with a negative interest rate for example?

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Ethan on 24 Jul, 2016 01:54 PM

   

   I don't think there's a way to have Moneydance automatically calculate the interest for you in this way. The loan account is an interesting idea, but I'm not sure how we would get the transaction that it calculates into your bank account rather than your loan account, as presumably we wouldn't want this transaction to be between your bank and loan accounts.

   I think the best you can do is set a general reminder for when this transaction happens, and then you can enter in the transaction amount manually. You can use the amount field in Moneydance as a calculator, so as long as you know the rate of interest this should be easy. All you should have to enter in this field is the balance of the account * the rate of interest (ex: 1000*.01).

   The more common alternative is to simply import this interest transaction from your bank as you do all of your other transactions, and just make sure it has the proper interest category.

   Please let me know if I can be of further assistance,

   Ethan
   Moneydance Support

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2. 2 Posted by Russell Bowen on 25 Jul, 2016 07:27 AM

   

   Thanks Ethan.

   I like your ideas. Could I put in a request that the development team might consider. I was wondering if the transaction reminder function might be improved in the future to allow automatically adding interest? e.g. the amount field could be BALANCE*0.01? Perhaps support for daily interest rates could be added too, although that would be more complicated as you would need to calculate daily rates from the APR something like this: daily=exp(ln(APR)/365), where the APR was expressed as a decimal (i.e. 3% APR = 1.03). And then for monthly calculations you would need to work out the number of days elapsed since the last payment which is obviously different for each month. e.g. monthly=daily^days_elapsed.

   What do you think?

   Russell

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3. 3 Posted by Ian L on 31 Aug, 2016 02:54 PM

   

   Hi Russel,

   Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay getting back to you. I’m afraid that your request for assistance was missed by the support team, and it’s only now we’ve been able to work through the backlog of older discussions. Please be assured we are putting systems in place to ensure a higher level of service and speedier responses.

   Thanks for the suggestion for improving Moneydance! There's an existing ticket in our ticketing system with your suggestion, so I've attached it to this discussion and the developers will be looking into it.

   Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.

   Ian L
   Infinite Kind Support

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4. System closed this discussion on 30 Nov, 2016 03:00 PM.