What is Time Value of Money?
Time Value of Money (TVM) is the concept that the value of money itself changes over time. Having a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow. Solving for present value, future value, amount, interest rate and term are some standard time value of money (Wikipedia) calculations. The UFC is capable of performing any of these calculations with regular or irregular amounts as of any date for investment, savings or loan cash flow.
Time value of money example
As a time value of money calculator, UFC can calculate unknown amounts for complex and irregular cash flows. The below example answers the question, "How much do I need to invest for 48 quarterly periods to have a total future value that will then let me withdrawal $1,000 monthly for 180 months?"
To answer this question, set the calculator up as shown:
Time value of money unknown cash flow setup
TVM calculator showing unknown investment cash flow amount result
If you are someone who regularly needs to do TVM calculations, then it is worth your time to study the features this calculator offers. It can replace easily three-quarters of the calculators found on this site — and on other websites too!
Calculator's Features
Solve for any unknown
- Payment or loan amount
- Deposit or withdrawal
- Yields: APR, APY or IRR
- Balance as of a specific date
- Date a specific balance is reached *
- Present value (PV)
- Future value (FV)
- Balloon payment amount
- Payment required to reach a specific balloon
- Number of payments
- Interest rates - nominal or effective *
- Discounted values
- Remaining balance
- Deposit required
Any type of calculation method
- Normal amortization or investment
- Rule-of-78s
- Canadian methods
- US Rule — simple interest
- Supports 360, 364 and 365 day years
- Exact day or periodic interest calculations
Scheduled (but adjustable) Payment Frequencies
- Daily
- Weekly
- Bi-weekly
- Twice monthly (Half-month)
- Every 4 weeks
- Monthly
- Bi-monthly (every two months)
- Quarterly
- Every 4 months
- Semi-annual
- Annual
* Feature only available in C-Value! ™,
our cash flow calculator for Windows™
Flexible Reports & Schedules
- Amortization & investment schedules
- Schedules with details or totals only *
- Custom headers and labels *
- Change fonts, colors *
- Select a fiscal year end *
- Reg. Z APR disclosure report *
Handles any type of cash flow
- Normal
- Interest only
- Enter your own payment amount
- Negative amortization
- Skipped payments or deposits
- Fixed principal + interest
- Percent step amounts
- Dollar step amounts
- Balloon payments
- Extra payments — principal only
- Payments to interest
- Cash flow amounts set to any random date
Compounding Frequencies
- Exact day simple
- Daily compounding
- Weekly
- Bi-weekly
- Twice monthly (Half-month)
- Every 4 weeks
- Monthly
- Bi-monthly (every two months)
- Quarterly
- Every 4 months
- Semi-annual
- Annual
- Continuous
- Change the frequency of compounding during a cash flow
- No compounding option when rate changes
Using UFC as a Mortgage or Loan Payoff Calculator
A well-designed loan payoff calculator will answer any of these questions:
- How many payments do I have left?
- When will my loan be paid off if I make extra payments?
- What payment is required to pay a loan off by a given date?
- The borrower missed payments, paid late and paid additional amounts and there were interest rate changes, what is the exact loan balance due as of today?
Answering the first three questions is straightforward and takes but a second, but, as you may have guessed, calculating the payoff amount for the fourth scenario is more involved. For instructions on how to use the UFC as a tool for tracking a mortgage or loan balance with payment and interest rate changes, read my tutorial Calculate Loan Balance — Loan Payoff Calculation.
Mortgage or loan payoff examples
If you want to know how many payments are left or when the last payment is due, enter the current interest rate (4% for our example) and set compounding. Then in row one, enter the last known loan balance and the balance as of date ($250,000 and Sept. 1). In the 2nd row enter the due date of the next payment after the loan balance date in row one (this may also be the balance date), enter the scheduled payment amount, set "#Periods" to "Unknown" and set the payment frequency (monthly). Your screen will look like this:
Loan payoff calculator setup
After clicking "Calculate," your screen should look like below. There are 143 remaining payments, and the last payment will be due on August 1.
Loan payoff result showing payments remaining and due date of the last payment.
Now, let's delve in a bit deeper. You plan to pay an extra $150 a month on your mortgage, and you want to know the payoff date. The UFC excels as an early payoff calculator. If we use the above example, all you need to do is change the payment amount to $2,350.00 and set "#Periods" to "Unknown" again.
Example showing early loan or mortgage payoff calculator setup
Click "Calculate" once again. Your screen should look like below. Now only 132 payments are remaining, and the last payment will be due on September 1 a year earlier.
Early payoff result showing payments remaining and due date of the last payment.
Now, if you're lucky, the mortgage is paid off just as the first child is going off to college. :-)
NOTE: You can also specify the number of remaining payments and set the amount to "Unknown" in row two and the calculator will calculate the total payment amount required to have the loan paid off in the number of payments you specify.
Financial Calculations Step-by-Step Tutorials
The below tutorials walk you through the steps for setting up the indicated financial calculation. I recommend that you right click on a link and select "Open in New Window" so you can have the calculator handy in this window as you read.
- Calculate Payment
- loan or mortgage periodic payment calculation
- also an introduction to this calculator
- Investment Cash Flow
- Calculate Income From An Investment
- How to calculate income you can expect from an investment
- Adjustable Rate Mortgage or Loan
- ARM with interest rate changes on any date you desire
- Calculate a Loan's Term
- How to solve for an unknown number of payments
- Calculate Loan Amount
- Balloon Payment Calculation
- Calculate the balloon amount
- Balloon Loan Calculation
- Calculate the periodic payment required to result in a specified balloon
- Random Extra Principal Payment
- How to prepay principal on any date
- Loan with Series of Extra Principal Payments
- How to calculate loan or mortgage with extra payments
- Construction Loan
- Generally a short term loan with multiple borrows
- Monthly Skipped Payments
- Loan or mortgage with scheduled skipped payments
- Odd Length First Period
- Interest payment options for initial period
- Interest Only Loan
- Initial series of interest only payments
- Biweekly Mortgage Payments
- Pay 1/2 the monthly payment every other week to reduce the total interest paid
- US Rule
- No interest charged on interest — separate tracking of interest balance
- How much do I have to save or invest?
- State your goal - calculate periodic investment amount needed to reach goal
- Paying for College
- You may have longer than you think
- Multiple investments with multiple, overlapping withdrawals
- Demonstrates solving for unknown in complex cash flow
- Future Value Calculation
- How to set up simple or complex cash flows to calculate FV
- Present Value Calculation
- How to discount a simple or complex cash flow to find its PV
- Calculate PV of Fixed Principal + Interest Loan
- Calculate PV of the declining payment amount
- Demonstrates the cash flow analytics of this calculator
- Calculate Rate of Return (ROR) on Annuity
- How to set up an annualized ROR calculation
- Calculate Time It Takes to Reach Investment Goal
- Set a goal and see how long it takes to reach it
- Calculate ROI for X Days
- Exact day return on investment calculation
- Calculate Loan Balance — Loan Payoff Calculation
- Enter payments for any amount on date made — audit balance due
Calculators the Ultimate Financial Calculator Replaces
With this calculator's flexibility, it will meet the needs of anyone searching for:
- loan repayment calculator
- loan payoff calculator
- mortgage payoff calculator
- repayment calculator
- student loan repayment calculator
- home loan repayment calculator
- car loan repayment calculator
- debt payoff calculator
- early mortgage payoff calculator
- debt repayment calculator
- individual or specialty TVM calculators
Tell us how you use the Ultimate Financial Calculator. And naturally, if you have any questions, feel free to ask them below.
Invest or pay any amount, on any date, at any rate.
Connect with Karl
Hey Karl,
Just wanted to say Thanks! The attorney for the person doing an owner finance mortgage for me used your site to give me an amortization schedule, and now I have used it to print a schedule for the extra payments I plan to make. The tutorial for setting up the schedule was very easy to follow. I appreciate the use of your site!
Thanks, Kim! I appreciate hearing how it’s used.
Thank you! Is this at all available as an excel template?
You’re welcome.
It’s not. One of the features I’m thinking about adding is the ability to export the schedule to Excel. Would that help?
In the meantime, it is possible to select the schedule in the print preview and copy/paste to Excel. If you try it, you’ll probably need to do a Paste Special in Excel and paste without the formatting. (Generally works best with IE.)
Hi Karl,
This is a great resource for my financing business. Thank you!
I had a hard time finding something that accounts for the delay in 1st payment over the loan date.
If you do a template/export option, it would be even more appreciated.
Thanks again!
Daniel
Thank you. Setting loan date and first payment date separately is a popular feature.
I’m thinking about adding an export to Excel feature. But I have a lot of other items on the list to do first. In the meantime, it is possible to copy/paste to Excel (if that’s helpful) from the print preview window. You will most like have to use Excel’s "Paste Special"e feature without formatting. But each value will be in it’s own cell. From there, you can add back in any formatting you like.
Karl,
Your amortization schedule is wonderful.
I am a business law and real estate attorney . I have been practicing for 50 years.
I just came across your financial calculator web site. Where has it been for the last 50 years?
Oh yea, computers and software were in their infancy.
It is now in my “favorites” category.
Peter Abbo
Well, thank you! I appreciate the nice words. As you noted, I wouldn’t have been able to help you out 50 years ago, but I did write my first calculator in March 1983 (for an Apple IIe), and I’ve just not been able to stop. 🙂
Please tell your colleagues about this site. I could use the traffic for bragging rights.
I tried to use the shortcode for calculator plus so I use it to solve for the interest rate but it had another calculator? Could you tell me what is the correct shortcode?
Hi Chris, I see I have an error in the documentation that I need to fix.
For this plugin FC Loan Calculator Plus, this is the shortcode example:
[fcloanplusplugin sc_size="medium" sc_custom_style="no" sc_add_link="Yes" sc_brand_name="Your Brand Name Here If Desired" sc_hide_resize="No" sc_loan_amt="31500" sc_n_months="60" sc_rate="5.75" sc_pmt="0.0"]
This is the minimum:
[fcloanplusplugin]
Make sure you have downloaded the plugin from the above link (not from what’s in the WordPress Plugin directory).
THANK YOU!!
Providing this calculator helped me figure out the payments on a current loan I have, had been applied incorrectly (as I suspected).
I can, now, take my findings and prove to the loan company they owe me a couple thousand dollars – not to mention, my chart shows that my extra payment (when applied properly) shortened my loan payments by one year.
I can’t thank you enough for providing such a tool for those of us who “know better” but aren’t quite sure how to apply the proper math to get the results we are seeking – God Bless You!!
You’re welcome. I sure hope the lender sees it your way. Good luck!
Karl, I love this calculator and am using it to track my periodic extra principal payments on my mortgage. I noticed that the schedule after applying an extra principal payment doesn’t adjust the “last payment due” date to when you’ve paid the last payment (it should be earlier than the original date) and the “total all payments” shouldn’t include those payments when the balance goes below zero – are you thinking of making these adjustments?
Well thank you. I’m rather partial to it too. 😉
About adjusting the last date, there are several details to understand. First, if you have not expanded the rows, that is, the last row has a value in the "# Periods" greater than one, just set this to "Unknown" after you enter the extra payment and recalculate. The term will be readjusted to reflect your extra payments.
If you have expanded the rows so that each row represents a single payment, then there is no way for the calculator to reliably drop off the end payment(s). The calculator is designed so users can record individual payments on the dates they are made. If a payment results in an overpayment, then we want the calculator to reflect that with a negative balance. This is why the calculator doesn’t remove single payments, even when fewer payments are needed.
So probably what you want to do is to add your extra payments and after the last extra payment, add one more row with the regular payment amount and with an unknown number of periods. Calculate and that will give you a nice clean schedule.
Will that work for you?
Yes, great explanation and solution! Thanks!
Karl,
Is there a tutorial I can look at to calculate IRR with uneven cashflows? Ideally something that shows how to incorporate additions and withdraws. Thanks
Hi Andrew, No, there isn’t one single tutorial for that. However, to calculate the IRR, click on "Settings" and then "Analytics" and check the "IRR" option. This causes the IRR to be calculated and visible on all schedules.
Read tutorial #1 for an overview of the calculator. Then tutorial #25 discusses irregular cash flow with a mortgage as an example. You can apply the technique to an investment cash flow as well. Let me know if you have questions.
HI Karl, just found the site. Thumbs up for your efforts and passion. Older MBA student in Finance. Thanks again!
Your welcome. Good luck with that MBA! Perhaps your classmates would fine this site useful. 🙂
Hi Karl,
Confused as to what I did incorrectly to cause a negative $58.22 to occur the month after a semi annual principal payment. I input 5 interest only payments beginning 10/1/17 and an extra payment for principal only beginning 3/1/18 and continuing every 5 months thereafter. You are correct in saying there should be 60 interest only payments in total. Instead of the $17,000.00 extra payment satisfying principal only, the funds are split for the P&I payment on the schedule . Hoping that made sense.
I appreciate your assistance!
Lauren
First, just to make sure, under "Settings", "Rounding Options" is it set to "Open Balance"? If not, please select that option.
Secondly, do you know what payment amounts you want to use, or do you want the calculator to calculate them for you (it can be either)?
I’ll assume you want the calculator to calculate the payment amounts. I’ll assume you want the P&I semiannual payment to be the same, that is, it won’t drop as the payment drops. However, after each principal payment the 5 interest only payments will decrease since the principal has decreased.
The pattern is this, and it has to be repeated for each series.
Row 1, Enter date and loan amount.
Row 2, Enter for amount "Unknown" and the number of payments (any number you want, but for your stated pattern 5). I’ll assume you are starting with interest only. Click on the right column and select the "Interest Only" option in the pop-up window.
Click "Calculate". Now you’ll know the amount for the first series of interest payments.
Row 3, Select payment and enter "Unknown" for the amount and 10 for the number. Nothing to select in the right column.
Again, click "Calculate" This will be the amount for the principal and interest payments. I think you said you want the loan paid off in 5 years with semiannual principal payments. So this calculates the amount.
Go back to Row 3 and reset the number now to 1, because you are only making 1 payment.
Now, Row 4, repeat what you did in Row 2.
Row 5, select payment again, but INSTEAD OF entering "Unknown" for the payment, enter the amount calculated in row 3 and this time, just enter 1 for the number of payments.
Repeat row 2 step for the interest only.
So the calculator will keep calculating the interest and you’ll have a level payment for the principal and interest.
Does this get you closer? If this still doesn’t get you to where you need to be, tell me what assumptions I’ve made that are wrong.
Thank you very much for your assistance. I was able to get the results I was looking for based on your direction.
Good to hear. Thanks for letting me know.
Hey Karl,
Thank you for referring me to this one. I’m having an issue where I am unable to successfully set up 1,030 under # of Periods (weekly payment frequency over 19 years). It appears that this one can only go up to 999 (or field limited to 3 characters?) as well?
Thanks for these great tools!
You’re welcome, Moe!
You are correct that the number of periods is limited to 999. (There is also a limit that the end date cannot go beyond Dec. 31, 2099.)
You can get around the 999 limit in your case. Use two rows for payment! You can even set the payment amount for both rows to "Unknown". Make the first row for 999 payments and the second row for 31 payments, and you should get the results you need.
Please let me know if you don’t.
This worked great, thank you!
You’re welcome. Glad it did.
I love this product. It does exactly what I need. I need to be able to store the info & update each month rather than inputting all values again. Is that a possibility?
Thank you Sharon! And thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a plug for one of my programs. 🙂 The UFC calculator is the online version of the Windows program C-Value!. C-Value! runs on Windows 7 or better computers and it will let you save your inputs to disk so that you can later reload them. Price, $49.95.
That sounds great! I will look into that. Thank you.
Hi Karl,
I use your ultimate financial calculator(s) at least once each week and I am curious why you don’t port your creations to Excel so those of us in the Mac world could purchase them? I know I would be interested in the auto-recalculating features, ability to save various scenarios and ability to label the output with lender, loan ‘name’ etc.
Best,
ron
I don’t know how to program in Excel very well (if at all at this point) and because my efforts are spent expanding the site.
I am looking into adding the ability to export to Excel from the calculator on a web page, would that help?
Hello Karl, I’ve sent an email to the webmaster address listed on another page within this site. Posting here in case that goes to a less monitored destination, I see you monitor and respond in these threads quickly.
I’d be interested in discussing a simple front end interface that would feed about half a dozen data entries into the ultimate calculator and produce a result with amortization schedule.
Emphasis is on the ease of use for the front end user to minimize chance of error.
Bill
Thanks for your interest Bill. I’ve replied via email.
Hi Karl,
We have a major issue. We have been trying out a moratorium/broken period interest and not being able to verify our calculations.
Loan Disbursal – 25th September
Loan Amount – 150,000
1st EMI due – 5th December
(hence a moratorium of 41 days excluding the 1st regular month period from 5th november to 5th december)
Interest rate (reducing) – 16%
Processing Fees – 2%
The daily interest calculation for those 41 days is not accurate with ours. Would love to hear the background for those calculations. Additionally, if we collect the interest at time of origination, how does that calculation work.
Also on a sidenote -can we enter processing fees in this and show them in the amort chart (Even if paid upfront)
Best,
Rob
Hi Rob, I limit my support to discussing how to use the calculators on this site. Discussing the equations is not something I take up. For one thing, it’s a bottomless pit. For another, it’s my IP.
Yes, you can enter one time fees and charges in this calculator. Under "Series Options", for an loan series, click on "Loan Options". There you’ll find "Other charges & fees."