> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://support.caleido.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Budget a loan with the loan calculator

> Calculate a loan repayment schedule with interest, grace periods, capitalization and drawdowns, export it, and save the drawdowns, principal repayments and interest to your budget.

The loan calculator builds a full repayment schedule for a loan and saves it to your budget as budget items. The drawdowns and repayments flow into the balance sheet and direct cash flow, and the interest into the income statement.

## Before you start

* Open a report with the budget you want to save the loan to. The calculator saves to the budget the table is showing
* Your organization needs budget item types for loan debt and loan interest, each with a default account. If they are missing, saving shows a message telling you what to set up

## Open the calculator

1. On a report, click **Actions**.
2. Choose **Add** > **Loan…**.

The **Loan** window opens on the **Basic** tab.

## Enter the loan details

On the **Basic** tab, fill in:

* **Loan ID**: a name for the loan. It is used in the memo of each budget item
* **Loan amount** and **Currency**
* **Base rate (%)** and **Margin (%)**: the effective rate is base rate + margin
* **Day count convention**: **Actual/360** (the default and most common in European loans), **Actual/365**, **Actual/Actual** or **30/360**
* **Repayment type**:
  * **Annuity**: the same total payment every period
  * **Equal principal**: the same principal repayment every period, so the total payment shrinks over time
  * **Bullet**: interest only, then the full amount at the end
* **Repayment frequency**: how often a repayment is made, in months or years
* **Compounding**: how often accrued interest is added to the balance
* **Start date**: the date the loan is drawn down
* **Term**: the length of the loan. The number of repayments always matches the term, for example 2 years with monthly payments gives 24 repayments
* **Repayment day**: the day of the month repayments fall on. Leave it empty to use the day of the start date

## Add optional terms

Use the other tabs only if the loan needs them:

* **Grace & IO**: set **Principal grace (months)** and **Interest grace (months)**, or tick **Interest-only period** and set when it ends and how often interest and principal are paid during it
* **Capitalization**: tick **Capitalize interest** to add interest to the loan instead of paying it. Choose **Inline (add to principal)** or **As drawdown** and set **Capitalize until**
* **FX**: tick **Multi-currency (FX)** for a loan in a foreign currency. Enter the **Loan currency**, **Reporting currency** and a fixed **FX rate**, preferably the rate you have already booked
* **Drawdowns**: by default the whole loan amount is drawn on the start date. Click **Add drawdown** to draw the loan in parts. The drawdowns must add up to the loan amount

## Calculate and save

1. Click **Calculate schedule**. The summary shows **Loan amount**, **Total interest**, **Total repaid**, **Final balance** and **Periods**, followed by the schedule period by period.
2. Optional: click **Export CSV** or **Print / PDF** to keep a copy of the schedule.
3. Click **Save to budget**.

Caleido creates one budget item for each drawdown, principal repayment and interest payment, and opens them in the list view so you can check them. If you change any input after calculating, click **Calculate schedule** again before saving.

> [!NOTE]
>
> The budget items are ordinary budget items. To change or remove the loan later, edit or delete them like any other budget item. See [Edit budget items](https://support.caleido.io/guides/budgeting/edit-budget-items.md).

## Related

* [Budget asset depreciation](https://support.caleido.io/guides/budgeting/depreciation-schedule.md)
* [Edit budget items](https://support.caleido.io/guides/budgeting/edit-budget-items.md)
* [Manage budgets](https://support.caleido.io/guides/budgeting/manage-budgets.md)


This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.