Loans Module
Tracking Loans
How to record money you’ve lent out or borrowed, track repayments, and keep both sides posted to your books — for personal-style lending, not B2B invoicing.
Start here
1Before you start
Loans covers both directions: money you’ve lent to someone (an asset — they owe you) and money you’ve borrowed (a liability — you owe them). Every loan’s principal, and every repayment on it, is a real bank transaction — so you need at least one bank account set up first.
Recording a loan or a repayment both require a bank account for the money to move through. Set one up in Banking before using this module.
This module is deliberately separate from Receivables/Payables — those track unpaid invoices from Sales/Purchases, the wrong shape for “I lent Sarah $200.” Loans has its own principal and repayment tracking instead.
2Record a loan
In Loans, click + Add Loan. Fill in:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Direction | Money I Lent or Money I Borrowed. |
| Counterparty | Pick an existing contact, or just type a name if they’re not in Contacts. One or the other is required. |
| Principal Amount | The amount that changed hands. Required, must be greater than zero. |
| Interest Rate | Optional — stored on the loan for your own reference. |
| Start Date | Defaults to today. |
| Due Date | Optional. |
| Bank Account | Which account the money moved through. Required. |
| Notes | Optional. |
Click Save. This records a real bank transaction for the principal — an outflow if you lent the money, an inflow if you borrowed it — and posts against a dedicated GL account:
| Direction | Cash movement | GL account |
|---|---|---|
| Money I Lent | Outflow | 1300 Loans Receivable (asset) |
| Money I Borrowed | Inflow | 2200 Loans Payable (liability) |
Both accounts are created automatically the first time you use this module if they don’t already exist in your Chart of Accounts.
3Record a repayment
Open a loan and click Record Repayment. Enter the amount, the bank account it moved through, and a date.
A repayment can’t exceed the loan’s current outstanding balance (principal minus everything already repaid).
A repayment on a loan you lent is money coming back in; a repayment on a loan you borrowed is money going back out — the opposite direction from the original principal transaction, same GL account either way. Each repayment is its own real bank transaction with its own GL entry, not a single running adjustment.
Once repayments add up to the full principal, the loan is automatically marked Paid Off.
4Close it out
A fully repaid loan closes itself out automatically the moment its last repayment lands (see above) — there’s nothing else to do. If a loan needs to be closed for another reason (forgiven, uncollectible), open it and set Status to Written Off by hand; see Writing off a loan below.
Common tasks
Tracking partial repayments over time
Loans don’t need to be repaid in one shot — record each real payment as it happens and the balance tracks itself.
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Record each payment as it comes in
Every time money actually moves, open the loan and click Record Repayment with that payment’s real amount, date, and bank account.
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Check the outstanding balance
Each loan shows Repaid Amount and Outstanding Balance, recalculated from the full repayment history every time.
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Let it close itself
Once repayments reach the full principal, status flips to Paid Off on its own — no manual step needed.
Writing off a loan that won’t be repaid
If a loan is never going to be fully repaid — forgiven, or the money’s simply not coming back — open it, set Status to Written Off, and save. This stops it from counting toward your active outstanding totals. It’s a status change only: writing off a loan doesn’t post any reversing GL entry or adjust the Loans Receivable/Payable balance for you — record any actual reversing bookkeeping separately if your accounting requires it.
Reference
Loan statuses
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Still outstanding, counted in the module’s summary totals. |
| Paid Off | Repayments reached the full principal. Set automatically. |
| Written Off | Manually closed out as uncollectible or forgiven. Excluded from active totals. |
What this module doesn’t do
Interest Rate is stored for your own reference only — nothing here calculates accrued interest, generates an amortization schedule, or adds interest to the outstanding balance automatically. If interest is actually paid, include it by hand as part of a repayment amount or track it separately.
Once a loan’s principal transaction has posted, you can only edit its due date, interest rate, notes, and status — not the principal amount, direction, or counterparty. That matches how every other posted financial record in the app behaves.
Setting a loan to Written Off changes its status only — it doesn’t post a reversing or write-off journal entry for you.