Simulate a loan
Work out the instalment and the full schedule before you commit to anything.
The calculator exists so you never have to promise an instalment off the top of your head. You enter the numbers, you see the exact instalment, the total interest and the full schedule instalment by instalment, and only then do you decide.
It is the tool you use with the client sitting in front of you: "what if I make it 12 weeks instead of 8?". Change one field and the table recalculates instantly.
How to get there
Loans → Calculator. Available on every plan.
The fields
Field | What it is |
|---|---|
Principal (RD$) | The money you are handing over. |
Interest (%) | The rate per period (not annual: per collection period). |
Instalments | How many payments (1 to 1,000). |
Loan type | Fixed instalment, SAN, Fixed principal, Fixed interest or Open. |
Payment frequency | Daily, Weekly, Biweekly or Monthly. |
Start date | When the collection calendar starts running. |
Collect on Saturdays | Whether the calendar may land on a Saturday. Mostly relevant for daily loans. |
Collect on Sundays | Same, for Sunday. |
And there is one optional field that only appears for certain types:
- With SAN: Target instalment (RD$): you set the instalment you want to charge and the calculator derives the rate that produces it.
- With Fixed interest and Open: Fixed interest per period (RD$): you set the interest as a fixed amount instead of as a percentage.
Leave it empty and the default calculation is used.
No need to pick a client. The calculator is a simulation: it creates nothing and stores nothing.
What it gives you back
As soon as the input is valid everything appears, without pressing any button:
Loan summary: Principal, Instalment, Total payable, Total interest, number of instalments, type and frequency.
Amortisation schedule, one row per instalment:
Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
No. | Instalment number. |
Due date | The exact day it must be collected (already respecting whether you collect on Saturdays and Sundays). |
Instalment | What the client pays that day. |
Principal paid | How much of that instalment reduces the debt. |
Interest | How much of that instalment is your profit. |
Balance | What is still owed after paying. |
Cumulative interest | Profit accrued up to that instalment. |
Cumulative principal | Principal recovered up to that instalment. |
Cumulative total | Everything collected up to that instalment. |
Below it, a Totals row. On mobile there is no wide table and no sideways scrolling: each instalment is shown as a card with labelled values.
The maths runs on your phone, not on the server
The calculator does not call Prestafolio: the whole schedule is computed in your browser with the same financial engine the system uses when it actually creates the loan, and that the mobile app uses too. Two good consequences:
- It is instant: you can try ten scenarios in front of the client without waiting for anything.
- What you see is what gets created. The preview schedule and the real loan's schedule match, because they are the same calculation. See Turning the simulation into a loan.
The last instalment's cent residue
If you add up the Principal paid column by hand, you may land a few cents short of the principal you lent. This is not a calculator bug: it is the engine's real behaviour, the same one you will see on the created loan and in the mobile app.
It happens because each instalment is rounded to the cent, and those roundings leave a tiny residue (never more than one cent per instalment). The system does not paper over it, because it would rather have the calculator, the loan and the collector's phone say exactly the same thing than balance prettily and then diverge out on the street. What always closes perfectly is the final balance: zero.
If you see nothing
The table only appears once every required field is valid. If you get Fill in the details, check that the principal is greater than zero, the interest is not negative, the instalments are between 1 and 1,000, and that you picked a type, a frequency and a date.