New Loan Setup?
New Loan Defined
A new loan is a loan on which no payments have matured. It may or may not
have been funded but the first payment has not come due.
Required vs Optional Fields
The fields with white backgrounds are required fields. If you attempt to
setup a loan with a required field missing (blank or zero) the program will
refuse to save the loan. It will turn the background of the offending fields red
and display an error message. The content of the error message will depend on
the exact nature of the error(s) detected. If the program detects more than one
error, it will display multiple error messages.
When you get a message that a required field has been left blank, the field may
or may not be on the current tab. If you do not see any fields with a red
background, click on the other tabs and check for red backgrounds.
If you cannot supply the required data, the data you did supply cannot be saved
and will be lost. Be sure you have all required data before starting an existing
loan setup.
List Boxes
Several of the required fields are acquired by the program through a windows
list box. A list box is a control with a button on the right The button contains
a downward pointing triangle or arrow head. When you click on this button, the
list box opens and displays a list of valid options for this field. You must
select an option from the list. No other entries are accepted. All fields on in
this dialog which contain list boxes are required fields. They are all assigned
default values through the system options dialog.
For further information about the data contained by each field, see the section
on data field descriptions.
To enter the data for an existing loan, start on the first tab and enter the
customer and loan numbers first. Then progress through the additional fields on
each successive tab. Access the tabs from left to right to follow the order of
the setup sheets.
Some of the fields are optional by group. For example the origination fee group
is optional as a group but if you enter an origination fee, you must also enter
all the other fields grouped with it.
Error Messages
When you click on the save button, the program will check your entries for
errors. It will create a message list based on the errors it finds. These error
messages will be listed in a dialog box like the following. Be sure to notice
the scroll bar on the right of the window. If there are more than two long or
three short messages, you will have to scroll the box down to read them all.
After reading the messages, click on the OK command and then start correcting
errors. The easiest errors to find and correct are the empty fields. The
backgrounds of these fields will be turned red. Check each of the tabs in turn
and check for red backgrounds.
When you have corrected all the errors you can find, click on the Save command
to repeat the process. If you corrected all the errors, the loan record will be
saved. If you missed an error, the “Important Information” message will appear
again with new information about errors detected.
Not all errors will cause a red background so read the message carefully.
Loan ID Tab
On this tab only Customer Number, Loan Number and Loan Name are required. For
information about loan and customer numbers, see:
Loan and Customer Number Rules
Enter the required information and the optional information if you like. APR
is optional. Do not guess at it. If you haven't calculated it, do not enter it.
Leaving it out will have no effect on any system functions.
Loan Terms Tab
This information is all required. If you enter an incorrect payment amount
you will be warned. If you don’t know the payment amount, enter a bogus payment
amount (1.00) and the system will offer to correct it for you.
System Options Tab.
Every thing on this screen is entered by the system. You can change it for
all loans by editing the system options. Or you can change it for this
individual loan by changing it on this screen. For information about setting
these defaults, see System Options and Defaults
Save or Cancel
The save button will attempt to save the loan but will only do so if the
information passes the initial validation checks . The cancel button does just
that. It does not save any data.
If you attempt to save a loan with required fields left blank, you will be
warned and the missing fields will be turned red. Be sure to check all tabs for
red fields. Enter the missing data and save the loan. If the missing data is not
available, you can cancel the loan. Canceling will result in losing the data
already entered.
If you attempt to save a loan with an incorrect payment amount, you will be
warned. If you ask the system to enter the correct payment amount, it will
replace the amount entered with the correct amount as calculated by the internal
loan calculator.