Tracking Debt

In Capitally, any asset can turn into a liability - its quantity has to go negative. Open the position with a negative quantity, or sell first with a positive one. Those two transaction types are named after the asset: Open and Close on a Loan or Mortgage, Credit and Debit on a Deposit, Buy and Sell on everything else.

How to track loans and mortgages

1. Create a Custom Asset, choose Loan or Mortgage for an asset type.
2. Enter interest rate and other loan properties in the Prices -> Interest tab.
3. Create a regular Open transaction when you've taken the loan.
   1. Quantity is negative - equal to the amount you borrowed
   2. Price is pre-filled with the face value — 1
4. Create a Close transaction when you repay the debt
   1. Paid principal is your Quantity - again it has to be negative
5. If you pay interest, create an Interest transaction with a negative value (because you're paying the bank not the other way round).
   1. If you repay your loan along with the interest, enter the repaid amount in the Principal amortized field (negative again) instead of creating a separate Close transaction.

Money you lent out

Money you lent sits on a positive balance, and one switch makes the terms price it: Same parameters for positive and negative balances, under Advanced options in the asset's interest settings. A Loan or Mortgage stores its rate against the negative side, so without that switch a positive balance accrues nothing. Record the amount you handed over as an Open, principal coming back as a Close, and interest you collect as a positive Interest transaction.

New Loan and Mortgage assets have the switch on. On one already in your project, check it before anything else: with it off the loan sits flat — no accrued interest, no final payment date. It is unavailable while both balance sides carry their own terms, so turn one of them off first. See Interest-based pricing.

Importing Transactions

You can easily create an import template to add principal & interest payments in bulk from your broker or spreadsheet.

Exploring Your Portfolio

Use Accounts or Tags to group loans together with what they finance (eg. Real-estate + Mortgage, Stocks + Margin account).

The Market Value tab has an Owed chart and displays three relevant metrics:

• Owned - how much value you actually own (your assets)
• Owed - how much value you've borrowed (your liabilities)
• Debt Ratio - how deep you're in debt (as owed/owned)

Watch the name clash: the Owned filter in the selector at the top of the view is not the Owned metric. The filter removes your liabilities from the analysis altogether, which leaves Owed and Debt Ratio with nothing to report — keep All assets selected when you want the debt figures. See Filters.