What is a Loan Payment?

A loan payment is the amount of money that must be paid to a lender at regular intervals in order to satisfy the repayment terms of a loan. It usually contains two parts, which are an interest payment and a principal payment. During the early years of a loan, the interest portion of this payment will be quite large. Later, as the principal balance is gradually paid down, the interest portion of the payment will decline, while the principal portion increases. This means that the principal portion of the payment will gradually increase over the term of the loan.

Example of a Loan Payment

Absolution Corporation, which produces paraphernalia for churches, makes a monthly loan payment to its lender of $4,000, of which $1,000 is an interest payment and $3,000 is a principal payment. The company’s accountant records the following journal entry to record the transaction:

Debit of $3,000 to Loans Payable (a liability account)
Debit of $1,000 to Interest Expense (an expense account)
Credit of $4,000 to Cash (an asset account)

Controls Over Loan Payment Accounting

You can verify that a loan payment entry is correct by periodically comparing the balance in the Loans Payable account to the remaining principal balance reported by the lender. At a minimum, this comparison should be conducted at the end of a firm’s fiscal year, since the outside auditors will be confirming this information with the lender as part of their audit procedures. It may make sense to conduct the comparison more frequently, if you find that there are ongoing differences between these two figures.