The IRS, which makes changes to tax form layouts almost every year, recently added this new informational box to form 1098 to report the balance on a mortgage account as of January 1 of that same tax year. Each year on January 1 we capture the loan balance on all loan accounts in a special file, and then when tax forms are created at the end of the year we can use that figure. Therefore, for loans that were opened in a prior tax year, this balance is usually easy for members to understand.   More...

Yes, but you’ll need to do this via an automatic transfer procedure. Here’s how it works: You transfer money to a specially-designated savings account every week (or any time you want). Then, you set up an Automated Funds Transfer (AFT) that will automatically transfer your full mortgage payment from that savings account to your mortgage loan on (or before) your due date each month.

For a typical mortgage (with the 360-day interest calculation), in order for the system to post your payments correctly, if you have more than one payment to make you must make each one separately. For example, if your mortgage payment is normally $1,000 and you want to make two payments, you must do two separate transfers of $1,000 each. (If you tried to transfer $2,000 at the same time, the first $1,000 would make your payment and the rest would go directly to principal only.)

For a standard mortgage (360-day interest calculation) there are two ways to do this: One way is to transfer an amount that includes both your regular payment plus the extra you want to put on principal. When the confirmation message appears, you will see exactly how that money will be applied to principal and all you need to do is confirm that the amounts look right. The second way is to transfer any amount you wish, then when the confirmation message appears, choose the option to put all of th  More...

When researching payments made on a 360-day interest calculation loan, there are two easy ways to know the status of a payment: 1. If you prefer to do your research through conventional CU*BASE tools, try Member Inquiry (Tool #6 or F1 from the CU*BASE home page). After accessing the membership, double-click on the loan account to bring up the account information, then press Enter to proceed to the history of transactions for that loan. Once there, you can highlight the particular transaction y  More...

There are multiple ways to do this, but here's one of our favorite methods. Launch Tool #1855 Lending Opportunities Dashboard Use the Loans to Analyze button Choose a loan type from the list (Auto Loans, Mortgages, Credit Cards, Unsecured, or Other Secured) and use Enter to return to the dashboard The top two thirds of the screen shows statistics from your portfolio for that type of loan The bottom third of the screen will show opportunities, divided into two groups: members without that  More...

To answer this question, first an understanding is needed of why mortgage products - specifically 360-interest calculation mortgage products - can allow this feature. These types of loan products must follow a set of rules with very strict guidelines, such as payment frequency, partial pay restrictions, payment matrix settings, expectations for delinquency and fines, and so on. Because of these strict guidelines, special member-facing messages could be created to deal with situations such as wh  More...

The AnswerBook content affords several benefits not available from other providers. In addition to being written in language that is easy to understand, our knowledge pack items provide the following unique benefits: 1. Better reinforcement of your brand and better user experience. You want the content to look like it is part of your site and part of your delivery. Personal finance content can help your consumers appreciate the breadth of your financial knowledge and services offered. The  More...