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Loans

A loan is not an expense.

₹50,000 lent to your brother at 12%. A two-wheeler loan at 11% flat. Neither is an expense, but both are money you owe or are owed. A budget that treats them as expenses gets many of its numbers wrong.
Money lent to your brother, or a scooter on EMI. Both are kept here.
How loans are recorded

The loan amount and the interest are kept separate.

Money you lent
It comes back
When your brother repays, the amount goes back to the category it came from. The ₹50,000 came out of Savings, so it goes back to Savings. The interest is income, because it is new money for you.
Money you borrowed
You can spend it
Borrowed money can go into your budget, and what you owe goes up by the same amount, so you do not look richer than you are. When you repay, the loan amount reduces your debt, and the interest is an ordinary expense.

If every repayment were counted as income, each one would look like a salary, and your reports would show your own money coming back as new income.

The Ahead loans screen, showing one loan lent out and one borrowed, with totals for each and a net position.
What others owe you and what you owe are both shown as positive numbers, each under its own heading. Net position is what you would have left if every loan were settled today.
Flat rate or reducing rate

11% flat is not 11%.

A flat rate charges interest on the full loan amount for the whole loan, even on the part you have already paid back. A reducing rate charges interest only on what you still owe. So the same percentage costs almost twice as much when it is flat.

Ahead works out the real rate from your EMI and shows it on the loan.

₹1,20,000 over 2 years
Flat
Reducing
Quoted rate
11% flat
11% reducing
Monthly instalment
₹6,100
₹5,592.94
Total interest, 2 years
₹26,400
₹14,230.57
What it really costs
19.87% reducing
11% reducing
Same loan amount, same time, same quoted rate. The flat-rate loan costs ₹12,169.43 more, about two months of EMIs.
Loan details

You can check every number.

Each loan has a page like a bank statement: what is still owed, how much has been repaid, and a list of everything that happened. Open an entry to see its transactions, and open a transaction to see its account. If a number looks wrong, you can find where it came from.

If you typed something wrong, open the entry and change it or delete it. On a shared loan, the other person is asked to agree first.

A single loan's statement page, with the outstanding figure, a repaid meter, the monthly instalment and a timeline of three events.
₹50,000 lent at 12% reducing, with two repayments recorded.
Running balances

Money that goes both ways with a friend.

You lend your friend Rohan ₹25,000. He pays it back. Next month he lends you ₹20,000. A loan closes when he pays you back, so add a running balance instead. Each time money moves, you record You gave or You got, and Ahead keeps one balance that says who owes whom.

It stays open when you are all square. One payment can do both jobs: if Rohan owes you ₹25,000 and sends you ₹45,000, you enter it once, and now you owe him ₹20,000.

There is no interest and no end date. You can share it the same way as a loan.

You owe Rohan

₹20,000

Since 02 Aug 2026 · No interest

You gave

₹25,000

You got

₹45,000

A minus balance means you owe Rohan.

  1. You got

    12 Sep 2026 · Lent me for a laptop

    ₹20,000

    Balance −₹20,000

  2. You got

    20 Aug 2026 · Paid back

    ₹25,000

    Balance ₹0

  3. You gave

    02 Aug 2026 · For his rent deposit

    ₹25,000

    Balance ₹25,000

Sharing a loan

If your brother uses Ahead too, you both see the same loan.

Share the loan, and it shows in his budget as well as yours. When he records a repayment, it waits for you to agree. What he owes does not change on your side until you do. If your numbers ever differ, Ahead shows both and explains why, and the two of you sort it out.

Sharing is off until you turn it on, one loan at a time. Either of you can stop, and nothing already recorded is lost on either side.

If he does not use Ahead, you can send him a link to the loan instead. He can only view it, and he does not need an account. You can add a password and an end date if you want.

Questions about shared loans
₹50,000 lent to Rahul

You have

₹42,075.70

Still owed. Two repayments recorded.

Rahul has

₹38,054.02

Still owed. Three repayments recorded.

₹4,021.68 apart, because Rahul recorded a third repayment and you have not agreed to it. Ahead shows both figures and why they differ. It does not decide which of you is right.

Find out what your EMI is really costing you.

Enter the loan details once. Ahead works out the schedule, what is still owed and the real interest rate.

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All your data as spreadsheet files, paid or not.