The Round Up option nudges every payment up to a round number and quietly pays the loan down faster.
Turn it on
- Start a loan from Loans → New.
- In the wizard's Advanced section, tick Round up payment to the next dollar.
- Finish the wizard and create the loan.
What it does
It rounds the total scheduled payment (P&I + escrow) up to the next whole dollar. The few cents above the true amortizing payment go to principal every period, a small recurring curtailment, so the loan pays off a little early. (It's unavailable while you're honoring a signed/custom payment amount or billing a manual amount.) To round up to a chosen amount instead of the next dollar, see the manual billed payment.
The live loan summary
A loan's summary stats (Current Balance, Currently Due, Regular Payment, and the rest) read live figures and recompute the amount due on every visit. Because a loan's escrow is part of its regular payment, changing the escrow flows straight into these numbers, so the summary always reflects the real payment.
A signed flat payment, and what it does to a balloon
Some notes are signed at a round number that isn't the computed amortizing payment: the amortization says $1,797.72 and the promissory note says $1,800.00 monthly. Tick Honor signed principal and interest payment in the wizard's Advanced section, or on Edit loan for a note already in NoteHarbor, and enter the amount the note states.
What it changes:
- The amount is principal and interest only. Escrow and the borrower servicing fee are billed on top of it, and neither one ever touches principal. A note signed at $1,800.00 with $150.00 of escrow bills $1,950.00 and amortizes on $1,800.00.
- Every scheduled payment bills the signed amount. The period's interest comes off first and the whole remainder goes to principal, so a signed amount above the computed payment pays the note down faster.
- On a balloon note, the balloon shrinks. The schedule still balloons on the same installment, on the same date, but the balloon is whatever balance the signed payment actually left. On a $245,000 note at 8% with a five year balloon, signing at $1,800.00 instead of the computed $1,797.72 leaves a balloon about $164 smaller. The wizard's live preview shows the balloon amount as you type, so you can see it move.
- The signed amount takes precedence over Round Up: setting it TURNS ROUND UP OFF, and round up stays off if you later remove the signed amount (tick it again if you want it back). It also can't be combined with scheduled rate changes (a rate rider or an ARM), which recompute the very payment the note fixes.
Two amounts are refused, with an explanation instead of a wrong schedule:
- A payment that doesn't cover a period's interest. Every period up to the balloon is checked, not just the first one: on an actual-days day count a short first period accrues less interest than the months that follow, so a payment that clears month one can still fall short from month two onward, and then nothing amortizes and the "balloon" is the entire original loan amount. A payment set at exactly the periodic interest is accepted: that is an interest-only note, and its whole principal balloons.
- A payment large enough to pay the note off before the balloon date, which leaves nothing to balloon. The message names the installment the note would actually pay off on, so you can either lower the payment or move the balloon to that installment or earlier.
Setting or changing the signed amount on an existing loan re-derives the note from origination and re-applies every payment already recorded, so save that change on its own rather than alongside rate, term or escrow edits. Loans whose schedule no longer descends from their original terms (recorded modifications or extensions, a rate rider, a synced investor copy) are refused with a clear message.
See Creating a loan for the rest of the wizard.