How to Generate Finance Schedule Details | Latner Software Documentation

Generating the schedule details builds the whole repayment plan for a finance schedule in one go, splitting each repayment into the principal and interest that make it up.

Overview

This is the step that turns a set of loan terms into something you can invoice against. You don't have to type a single repayment.

Latner creates one detail line per repayment, dated a month apart from the schedule start date.
Interest is worked out on the balance still outstanding, using the annual rate and the number of days in each month, and the rest of the repayment reduces the principal.
A residual adds one extra line at the end of the term for the residual amount.
Every line starts as Uninvoiced, ready to be invoiced as it falls due.
Details can only be generated once per schedule, and the schedule has to reconcile before anything is saved.

Before You Begin

Make sure the following are in place before you start.

Requirement	Where to Find It
A finance schedule in Open or Active status with no detail lines yet	Financials › Finance Schedules
Loan terms on the schedule that match the finance contract - amount financed, interest rate, term, standard repayment and residual	The schedule's General Details and Schedule Details (Excl. GST) panels
Create Finance Schedule permission	Security › Configuration › Permission Groups › Financial › Options

The terms are read-only in the generate dialog. If something needs changing, close the dialog, edit the schedule, then come back - the loan terms can be edited while the schedule is Open or Active and nothing has been invoiced.

Generating the Schedule Details

Step 1 - Open the generate dialog

Open the finance schedule and choose Options › Generate Schedule Details. The loan terms are shown for you to check before anything is created.

The Generate Finance Schedule Details dialog - the loan terms are read-only here, so check them before you generate

Step 2 - Set the two options

Everything else is fixed, so there are only two decisions to make:

Simple Schedule - generates each line as a single repayment with no principal and interest split. Leave it unticked for a normal amortising schedule.
Invoiced Until - the date the financier has already invoiced you up to. Every repayment on or before that date is created as Manually Marked as Invoiced, which is what you want when the loan started before you moved onto Latner.

A simple schedule is the fallback for loans Latner can't model. Instead of calculating interest on the balance each month, it records each repayment as one amount and leaves the principal and interest contributions at zero, so the supplier invoice carries a single Finance Schedule Repayment line rather than separate principal and interest lines. The principal and interest columns are hidden on a simple schedule, and so are the interest and principal totals on the schedule itself. Use it when the financier's interest calculation method is unknown or doesn't match the way Latner works it out.

Ticking Simple Schedule warns you that repayments won't be split into interest and principal on the supplier invoice

Step 3 - Generate

Choose Generate. The lines appear on the schedule's Details tab, one per repayment, with the principal outstanding running down to zero across the term.

The generated schedule - the first repayment is all principal because this loan isn't paid in arrears, and interest builds from the second

Latner checks the schedule before saving it. The repayments have to add up to the term multiplied by the standard repayment plus the residual, the principal contributions have to add up to the amount financed, and no line can carry negative interest. If the numbers don't reconcile, nothing is saved and you'll see an error - correct the terms and generate again, or use a simple schedule.

After Generating

Every line shows as Uninvoiced, unless you used Invoiced Until, in which case the earlier lines show as Manually Marked as Invoiced.
Generate Schedule Details is now greyed out with the tooltip Schedule Details already exist.
While the schedule is Open or Active you can still double-click a line to edit it, delete lines that haven't been invoiced, or add a line by hand - see How to Add Finance Schedule Details Manually.
Next, activate the schedule and then invoice the repayments as they fall due.

A line that already has a supplier invoice against it can't be deleted - cancel the invoice first. That means a schedule you've started invoicing can't simply be regenerated, so it's worth checking the lines against the financier's own schedule before the first invoice run.

FAQs

Generate Schedule Details is greyed out. Why?

The schedule already has detail lines, and they can only be generated once. To start again, delete the existing lines from the Details tab - which you can do while the schedule is Open or Active, as long as no line has an invoice against it - then generate again.

It says the total principal contributions do not equal the amount financed.

The repayment, interest rate, term and residual don't amortise the amount financed. Check the standard repayment and residual against the finance contract first - a repayment that is too small leaves principal outstanding at the end, which the residual can't absorb. If the financier calculates interest differently to Latner, tick Simple Schedule and generate the lines without the principal and interest split.

Can I switch a schedule between simple and normal later?

Not directly. The choice is made when the detail lines are generated, so to switch you need to delete the existing lines and generate them again with the Simple Schedule tick box set the other way. Lines that already have invoices against them can't be deleted.

How does Latner work out the interest on each line?

It charges the annual interest rate against the principal still outstanding, pro-rated for the number of days in that month, and treats the rest of the repayment as principal. The final line is adjusted so the principal lands exactly on the amount financed, and where there's a residual the last line carries the residual amount with whatever principal is left.

Our loan is part way through. How do I bring it onto Latner?

Create the schedule from the original contract terms so the maths still works, then set Invoiced Until to the date the financier has invoiced you up to. Latner generates the whole schedule but marks everything on or before that date as already invoiced, so only the repayments still to come are waiting to be invoiced.