Docs: Debt Progress Template

:wave:, @cherylkeck15!

I think this is likely due to a known bug with the version of the sheet you’re using and the way the manual save works there. Can you open the Balance History sheet and let me know if you’re seeing any blank rows in that sheet?

You can find the Balance History sheet by clicking the four horizontal lines in the lower left corner of the sheet next to the plus sign. Unhide it from that menu and then check for blank empty rows at the top.

Try deleting those rows and then run the save again. If that doesn’t work reach out to us at support@tillerhq.com.

Thanks!
Heather

Hi, how would you use this template and workflow for a mortgage that includes escrow?

My initial thought was that the minimum payment in the Debt Progress sheet would be my current minimum minus the portion that goes to escrow. I have to track my mortgage manually since my bank doesn’t have online access. My payments come out of a linked checking account. Would I then need to split this outgoing checking transaction to show the escrow portion separate from the interest/principle portion? And then manually add a transaction for the Debt Payoff Received for the mortgage company of only the interest/principle?

I feel like I’m complicating something that is probably pretty simple. :slightly_smiling_face:

Great questions, @diz. I remember talking about this a bit as we were building this template, but we never provided any official guidance on how best to handle it.

@Blake I’m curious on your thoughts on how to break out mortgage payments. I personally do not have a mortgage so I don’t know how things usually break out or get split up in this scenario with regard to paying off debt.

If you have some insights on what portion of the payment is actually considered debt or should the whole payment be considered debt payoff vs requiring the splits I can offer a recommendation on a workflow with categorizing/setting up in the sheet itself. Thanks!

@heather

I have never used the debt progress template, I paid off my home mortgage prior to subscribing to Tiller, and thus have no direct Tiller experience with the user’s situation.

However, I can provide some general information regarding your question that may be helpful.

Here are a couple of links that explain the mortgage payment structure, what an escrow account is, and how an escrow account works.

https://www.quickenloans.com/learn/escrow-explained

https://www.magnifymoney.com/blog/mortgage/what-is-an-escrow-account/

Let’s say a lender loans the borrower $100,000 over 30 years. Let’s say the initial monthly payment is $600. Of that $600, let’s assume $500 is interest and $100 is principal. Let’s assume the lender requires an escrow but PMI is not required since you made a large down payment. Let’s assume the escrow includes only property taxes and homeowners insurance. Let’s assume the monthly amount for property taxes is $300 and the monthly amount for homeowners insurance is $50. Thus, your monthly payment is $950 and your debt is $100,000. The only portion of the $950 monthly payment that relates to debt is the $100.

The borrower writes a $950 check out of their checking account in the first month. The lender takes $500 out of the check and reduces the loan by $500, takes $100 of interest income as his reward for taking a risk and loaning you the money, and places the $300 plus $50 in an escrow account. After making 12 monthly payments, the following has happened: (1) the loan has been reduced by $1,200 dollars and is now $98,800, (2) the lender has earned $6,000 of interest income, (3) $3,600 is sitting in the escrow account for property taxes, and (4) $600 is sitting in the escrow account for homeowners insurance. The lender takes the $3,600 and pays the property tax bill and takes the $600 and pays the homeowners insurance bill and then the escrow account is back to zero and the process starts all over again.

Over the course of the year the borrower has written 12 checks for $950 each. Let’s assume the borrower assigned each of these payments to an expense category called mortgage payment in Tiller. If no adjustment is made in Tiller, the borrower has overstated their expenses for the year by $1,200 which happens to be the amount by which the loan has been reduced.

Each month, the borrower might consider splitting the $950 payment into four pieces/categories; principal, interest, property taxes, homeowners insurance. All of these categories would be expense items except principal would be a transfer item as far as the type. The principal category is a reduction of the loan and is not an expense. Although the property taxes and homeowners insurance are not really expenses until they are paid by the lender out of the funds held in the escrow account, the borrower might want to consider them as expenses when paid into the escrow account each month for simplicity purposes. To do otherwise might be to complex.

Let’s assume at the beginning of year two the borrower receives an inheritance and fully pays off the remaining loan balance of $98,800. No more principal is due and no more interest is due. However, the borrower themselves would now be responsible for paying the property tax and homeowners insurance bills when they come due. The borrower would record the property tax expense and the homeowners insurance expense in full at the time the bill is paid.

I realize all this may be obvious but sometimes it is best to provide an illustration with numbers.

I hope this helps.

Thanks,

Blake

Thanks, @Blake!

I didn’t think about the escrow being just another bill/expense category. But of course it is. Duh. :woman_facepalming:

Your explanation makes perfect sense and corresponds to how I wanted to use the Debt Progress sheet. The sheet accounts for interest though in calculating payoff dates, since most debts do carry interest, so I shouldn’t need to break that out separately (it tracks current balance from the balance history sheet). Thus, I should be able to simply categorize the principle/interest portion as a transfer and the escrow portion as an expense.

Is there a way to have the Debt Progress sheet to take into consideration that the monthly interest charge will always be added into the starting balance for the month, so that the Remaining Interest column (for the month currently displayed) can reflect the nature of compound interest - if it doesn’t already…? Because each month the account will decrease by the payment amount, but then increase by the interest charge. That way the Remaining Interest column wouldn’t be underestimated by not taking into account the interest that will accumulate over time, on the interest that will be charged monthly to the liability until it’s paid off.

I noticed there’s a formula “TILLER_DEBTSNOWBALL”, in the Remaining Interest column, which I’m assuming does exactly what I’m referring to. Sort of like an amortization schedule.

:wave:, @lucasbassoli26!

Great questions. I am not 100% sure whether that TILLER_DEBTSNOWBALL is doing that or not, but @randy probably has a better idea and hopefully can check in on this soon.

1 Like

Following up on your question, @lucasbassoli26, about the TILLER_DEBTSNOWBALL() custom formula…

That custom formula is a script embedded into the Tiller Labs add-on.
Were you able to determine if the formula is behaving properly?

If you can help me understand specifically how it is (mis)behaving and what should be happening instead, I can improve it.

Thanks,
Randy

How do I add more accounts to this sheet? if I add a row it seems to mess everything up. the standard sheet goes to 32 rows. I need 41 rows.

So… I filled out the sheet, and it works for the Snowball method, but the other 2 don’t fill in the columns on the right :-/
I reset the form, pasted the values back in, and I’m getting the same thing.
Any idea what may be broken?

Also…
What I REALLY need to track are promotional purchases and 0% balance transfers with expiration dates.
I’m kind of faking this - putting 0% interest and a minimum due that will pay off the balance transfer in time, but it’s a huge pain.
Any suggestions for making that easier?

Weird. I put in ranks (didn’t have them before) - and now the avalanche is working. I deleting the rankings, and it still works.
shrug
OK. I dunno…

:wave:, @kwrdkc!

I believe if you just add more rows to the bottom and use the Quick Fill Square you can copy the formulas down to add more rows.

:wave:, @Kalash!

The sheet does require a interest % and minimum due to be entered. If you don’t have a set minimum due you can just use that for the minimum you want to pay down on each one each month. I believe it should accept 0%.

Does that help?

I tried this, however it seems there I had to change how many rows there were in the formulas at the headers. It works now. Just didn’t seem to be an easy was to do it.

I had those filled in. shrug
I don’t know what changed - but it started working.

All of a sudden on my Debt Progress sheet I see Unknown function: ‘TILLER_DEBTSNOWBALL’. under remaining interest and therefore the rest of the sheet doesn’t work. Please help!

That function is stored in the Tiller Labs add on. Make sure you have the Tiller labs add on authorized and installed and consider re-loading the web tab. Also note that add-ons won’t run when your computer is off-line.

Hi Randy,

I’m seeing the same error, the labs add on is authorized and installed and I even removed this sheet and started fresh to see if that would trigger it to work. Thanks!

Hey @whitney.

I’m sorry I lost track of this thread for so long :face_with_hand_over_mouth:.
Were you able to resolve this problem?

Randy