Mortgage payment with escrow accounting clarification

[eagle7investments]

Hello,

New first time user here.

I am looking for clarification/confirmation on properly accounting for a mortgage payment with escrow.

My lender is not supported by Stessa, so I am entering the transactions manually. My lender only has a general escrow bucket and does not specify escrow for specific categories like insurance and taxes. The lender pays the insurance premium and taxes directly from the escrow account.

I have reviewed the following:

Split & Categorize Mortgage Payments | Stessa Help Center

Split and track escrow transactions separately from mortgage payments

So to properly account for the escrow transfers on tax I should put the payment I make into the category of general escrow transfers, then the actual payments from that escrow account should be categorized as “Property Taxes” or “Rental Dwelling” insurance payments, not transfers?

Mortgage escrow disbursements positive / negative

I read the “Split & Categorize Mortgage Payments” article and thought I had a good handle on it, but when I linked my Mortgage account to my Stessa property, I’m seeing strange results. My mortgage payment is 3 parts: principal, interest, escrow. Then, twice per year my bank disburses payments from escrow for Hazard Insurance and for Property Tax. What has me confused is: the Hazard Insurance transaction came into Stessa as a negative number, but the Property Tax transaction came in as a positi…

Based the above, I believe I am doing this correctly. Below is an example using easy numbers:

Let’s say the monthly mortgage payment is $1,500.

Upon paying the mortgage payment from my checking account, I record the following transactions using the split feature:

• $700: Mortgage & Loans > Mortgage Interest (money out)
• $500: Mortgage & Loans > Mortgage Principal (money out)
• $300: Transfers > General Escrow Payments (money out)

When the mortgage company pays the yearly insurance premium of $900 from the escrow account automatically, I would record the following transactions:

• $900: Insurance > Rental Dwelling (money out)
• $900: Transfers > General Escrow Payments (money in)

Is the above correct or am I missing something?

Also, when recording the actual “Insurance > Rental Dwelling” (money out) expense, I see a checkbox that says “Paid from Escrow.” How is this used? Does it affect any of the above?

Thank you.

[devin]

@eagle7investments You’ve got it exactly right!

The “paid from escrow” checkbox is for your tracking purposes only so go ahead and check it if you like. There is currently no impact on reporting when you check that box.

[alap_investments]

@eagle7investments

My lender is not supported by Stessa, so I am entering the transactions manually. My lender only has a general escrow bucket and does not specify escrow for specific categories like insurance and taxes. The lender pays the insurance premium and taxes directly from the escrow account.

@devin I would have hoped that by checking the box, the software would also balance the scrow account by creating the same transaction but with a different sign? (Transfer → Escrow → Property Taxes → +PropertyTaxes)? Do we know why the software doesn’t do this? I would have thought this is pretty simple to automate?