Where a mortgage belongs

A mortgage is two things at once, and Longhand keeps them apart on purpose. The recurring payment is money leaving your account each month, so it belongs with your other bills. The amount still owed is a debt you are carrying, so it belongs with the rest of what you own and owe.

Record both. For a mortgage — or a car loan, a student loan, or a credit-card balance — that is the correct way to enter it, and it does not count the same money twice. The two figures are read by different calculations, and neither one is worked out from the other.

If the loan bought something you still have, there is a third figure: what the thing itself is worth. Record that too, and your net worth reflects the property as well as the loan against it.

Where each part goes

The recurring payment goes on the Expenses page, at whatever frequency you actually pay it.
The amount still owed goes on the Balance Tracking page, as an entry of type Debt, in the Current Balance/Value field. Enter it as a positive number — Longhand subtracts what you owe for you.
The property itself goes on the same page, as a separate entry of type Asset, with what it is worth today in the Current Balance/Value field.

The Type list offers three choices: Investment, Debt and Asset. There is no separate "mortgage" type to choose. Every kind of borrowing is entered the same way, as a Debt.

A worked example

A condo worth $400,000, with $300,000 still owing on it and a payment of $1,800 a month, is three entries:

Page               Entry            Type    Field                     Value
Balance Tracking   Condo            Asset   Current Balance/Value   $400,000
Balance Tracking   Condo mortgage   Debt    Current Balance/Value   $300,000
Expenses           Condo mortgage   —       Amount (Monthly)          $1,800

Net worth weighs the first two against each other: $400,000 owned less $300,000 owed leaves $100,000. Your cash flow counts only the third.

Your down payment is not entered anywhere. It is already reflected in the gap between what the property is worth and what is still owed — the money you put down is part of that $100,000. Adding it as a fourth entry would count the same money twice.

What the payment changes

Your payment is part of your cash flow. It affects:

the total on the Expenses page
the Total Expenses figure on the home page, and the income-versus-expenses breakdown
how much is left over to share out on the Savings page

It does not change your net worth, on any page. Net worth is what you own minus what you owe; money that passes through your account during the month is not part of that sum.

What the amount still owed changes

The outstanding balance is part of what you owe. It affects:

Total Debts and Net Worth on the Balance Tracking page
the Net Worth figure on the home page, and the debts bar in the balances chart

It does not change your cash flow, your Expenses total, or how much you have left to save. It is also deliberately left out of the retirement planner's pot: that pot is what you have built up, and netting a mortgage off it would answer a different question.

Longhand does not ask for your interest rate and does not work out how a loan amortises, so nothing recalculates this figure for you — the amount owed stays exactly where you put it until you change it. Update it yourself every few months to keep your net worth current.

What the property is worth changes

The value you enter is part of what you own. It affects:

Other Assets and Net Worth on the Balance Tracking page
the Net Worth figure on the home page, and the assets bar in the balances chart

It does not change your cash flow, and Longhand does not ask you to set a contribution against it — money you put aside toward something you own belongs on the Savings page. An asset stays out of the retirement planner's pot as well, for the same reason cash in a savings account does: that pot is only what you have invested, and nothing else on the Balance Tracking page counts toward it.

Longhand does not track the value for you either. It stays exactly where you put it until you change it, so revisit it when the thing is worth meaningfully more or less than the figure you entered.

If your net worth looks wrong

If you have recorded a mortgage and your net worth looks far too low, the likely reason is that the property itself has not been entered yet. The loan counts against you from the moment you record it; the house only counts for you once you add it as an Asset.

Enter both and the two sit on opposite sides of the same sum. A house worth $400,000 with $300,000 still owing on it leaves $100,000 in your net worth rather than a $300,000 hole.