The Ultimate Financial Calculator (UFC) is the most sophisticated, most flexible calculator on financial-calculators.com and I think on the entire internet. It works extraordinarily well as both a time value of money calculator and as a loan or mortgage payoff calculator.
See the tutorials below for step-by-step instructions.
If you are someone who needs date accurate results with either regular or irregular cash flows (loans, payments, deposits, withdrawals, investments), this is the calculator you should study and use.
Questions?
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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 free 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 free 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:
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
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
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
- calculating final value
- Calculate Income From An Investment
- How to calculate income you can expect from an investment
- Adjustable Rate Mortgage or Loan Calculator
- 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
- How much can I borrow?
- 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 Calculator
- 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 an 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
TValue is a trademmark of TimeValue Software.
Max says:
Hi Karl,
This calculator works great, thank you! One issue I am running into is when I add an extra payment (of type “Xtra Pmt”), save the file, and then open the file again, that extra payment is now shown as regular payment (of type “Payment”).
Karl says:
Well, that’s not good. Thanks for letting me know Max. I should be able to get this fixed within the next couple of weeks. I’m nearly finished with a site update, and I’ll take this issue up right after that.
Karl says:
Hi Max, just want to let you know that I’ve fixed the file save/load issue you reported with the calculator. You’ll need to adjust and resave any files you’ve created to see the fix.
Ravikumar says:
When I change the initial interest rate in “invest”, the IRR is not changing. Is it because it is not calculating the “cost of money” ?
Karl says:
That shouldn’t be the reason, but I don’t have enough data to go on. Something else is probably changing. Please save your two calculations and email me the files and I’ll take a look.
Lynn says:
Would any of your calculators help me with calculating late payments and interest on a personal auto loan to my Granddaughter? It was financed, and I got tired of her non payment so I paid off the loan myself. Now she can pay me, along with interest that would have gone to the bank. I tried to find an amortization schedule that I could manually input dates of payments she has made, with no luck.
Karl says:
Yes. Please use this loan payoff calculator. Scroll down the page to see the instructions. It will allow you to enter any payment amount on any date, and it will calculate the appropriate interest due. If you have any questions, just ask at the bottom of that page.
Lynn says:
Thank you so much! I will give it a go!
Clint Biggs says:
What a great tool. Thanks for sharing. I do need some help modeling the loan and payment schedule I’m following. I’ve worked through the tutorials but my situation is a little more blended and I can’t quite get it right.
Using some hypothetical numbers:
– I am borrowing $180k on July 1, 2019.
– Terms are 6% calculated quarterly (end of quarter) over 4 years (1 interest only payment plus 16 principle/interest payments) to completely retire the loan.
– Payments are due on the first day of the second month following the end of the quarter (meaning Q1 payment due on April 1).
– The first quarter (Q3 2019) will be the interest only payment to float the loan until scheduled payments start. That interest only payment will be due on Nov 1, 2019.
– Q4 2019 payment will be the first of 16 full principle plus interest payments due on Feb 1, 2020.
– Additionally, I would like to make an extra irregular payment for two during the term.
How would I set this up with the UFC?
Karl says:
You’re welcome.
Is the interest rate a quarterly rate? Or is 6% an annual rate? The calculator assumes that all rates are annual. So if 6% is a quarterly rate, you’ll need to convert it.
What part are you having problems with? Did you see how to make the first payment interest only? The second row will be for a single payment. Click on cash flow options and select interest only. After that, the 3rd row will be for the 16 principal/interest payments.
I see the twist though. You want to delay the first interest-only payment. Interest accrues through Sept. 31 and the payment is due on Nov. 1. I doubt if any calculator will do this. Why? Because what lender is going to lend money for free? That sounds as if that’s the arrangement. You want the interest calculated on the $180,000 balance through Sept 30, and not collect the payment until Nov.1. That means the lender is not charging anything for the use of the money from Oct 1 to Nov 1.
To get accurate numbers you’ll have to set the first interest-only payment due on Oct 1, and then the 2 parties will need to agree that means Nov. 1, etc.
Clint says:
The 6% is an annual rate calculated quarterly.
The loan does not have any interest free periods. It has a 31 day payment window. It would be like having your mortgage payment due on the 1st but late after the 10th. Interest does not stop on the principle after the 1st, it assumes payment and continues to accrue on the remaining principle.
Thoughts?
Karl says:
Alright, there’s no issue with the interest rate. You enter that as 6%.
One more question, and since this is only an illustration, I’m going to simply your example.
Rather than 16 P&I payments, change it to 4. This gives us a payment due schedule as follows:
Loan date: July 1, 2019, $180,000 Interest Payment: Nov. 1, 2019 for interest accrued quarter 3, July 1 - through Sept. 30. P&I Payment: Feb. 1, 2020 with interest accrued quarter 4, Oct 1 - through Dec. 31. P&I Payment: May 1, 2020 with interest accrued quarter 1, Jan 1 - through Mar. 31. P&I Payment: Aug. 1, 2020 with interest accrued quarter 2, Apr 1 - through Jun. 30. P&I Payment: Nov. 1, 2020 with interest accrued quarter 3, Jul 1 - through Sep. 31.Is this the payment pattern you need? If so, then in that case, either the final period is for interest through Oct. 31, 2020 (thus a 4 month "quarter") or the last 30 days is interest free for the outstanding principal.
Karl says:
You could enter a rate-change row on Oct. 1 and set the interest rate to 0%. And then add as the 3rd row an interest-only payment row on Nov. 1. That would give you an accurate payment amount. Then your 16 quarterly payments would start in the 4th row with a P&I payment due on Feb. 1st.
Clint says:
I think I got it figured out. What a great tool. Thanks for making this available.
AK says:
Karl! The savior!
Thanks for creating this. This is fantastic. How can I get the plug in for this?
Also, can I change the ‘interest rate’ to say ‘Investment return’?
Karl says:
I don’t think I would go that far, but in any event, thank you for the compliment.
This calculator is not a plugin. All the available WordPress plugins are here.
Kathy says:
Would a “forgiven” monthly payment work on the ultimate-financial-calculator? I’ve gotten myself confused (and that doesn’t take much these days!). It’s a personal loan so the principal can be reduced by the normal monthly payment, but they wouldn’t pay any interest so the yearly total would need to be adjusted for their yearly interest statement. I’m probably overthinking it, so came to the expert. Thanks for any assistance.
Karl says:
Hi Kathy, if my understanding is correct, it sounds as if the principal is paid but there’s no interest. If that’s the case, the calculator will handle that easily. Enter a "Rate Change" row with the date the interest stops. Set the new interest rate to 0.0%. Continue to collect the payments at whatever amount you need, and the payments will be used to reduce principal – no interest. Then when interest resumes, enter a new rate change series and set the interest rate back to whatever you need.
If I’ve misunderstood, let me know where I want wrong.
Kathy says:
Spot on…..I knew I was overthinking it….thank you!
Karl says:
Wonderful! Thank you for letting me know.
Kathy says:
Well, I’m back to the drats…
5/1/20 rate change to 0%
5/1/20 $613 payment
6/1/20 rate change to 1%
6/1/20 $613 payment
Payment Schedule:
5/1/20 rate change 0%
5/1/20 Change Compounding Monthly 613.00 interest 0 (these two lines are what I wanted to see)
6/1/20 rate change 1%
6/1/20 Change Compounding Monthly 613.00 interest 0 (this was not what I wanted to see – there needs to be a figure here – not 0.
Any clue as to what I may have done wrong? Thanks!
Karl says:
If both the May 1 and the June 1 payment needs to be for $0 interest, then the loan is interest-free for 2 months. Make a rate change to 0% on April 1 (the April 1 payment will show the interest for March) and the 2nd rate change back to 1% interest rate on June 1. The July 1 payment will then have the interest for June. May 1 and June 1 payments will have a $0 interest payment because April and May had a 0% interest rate.
A payment series includes interest (or not) for the immediately preceding period (for the exact number of days), not the period coming up.
Does that clear things up?
Kathy says:
Drats – I thought I had it down. I inserted a line for the rate change “0” prior to posting the payment (May 1, 2020). Once the payment was posted, I inserted a line for the rate change back to “1” and posted the payment (June 1, 2020). Everything looks great on the input page When I “schedule” the report shows the rate change and the compounding for the payment. However it shows the full principal payment and no interest. July thru December each have two lines. The top line has a payment and interest amount; the second line show a principal amount only. Obviously I’ve done something wrong. Suggestions?? (Just as an aside, when I worked computers in the old days when it was reel to reel everyone hated it when it was my turn, because I always did something that was unexpected and took a while to unravel!) Hope that’s not the case here. Thanks again!
Kathy says:
Please disregard my earlier question. I cleared the calculator and redid it and now everything is fine. Thank you again for the use of this calculator. It’s awesome!