Early settlement: your rule, our arithmetic

The three rules

Nigerian law leaves early settlement to the contract, and lenders differ by product. So the platform does not pick a rule for you. It offers three, and does the sums for whichever you choose.

Principal only

The business pays what is still owed on the principal. The interest on installments not yet due is dropped. The usual reading of a reducing-balance loan.

Principal plus interest to date

The principal still owed, plus the interest that has run up to the settlement day inside the current period, counted by days. The rest is dropped.

Every remaining installment in full

Interest included, exactly as the schedule reads. The usual reading of a flat-rate contract.

A settlement fee, if you charge one

Separately from the rule, you can add a settlement fee: a percentage of the principal being settled, or a fixed amount. Acreed may set a ceiling on the percentage; the form tells you when you reach it.

Where you set it

1. Open Settings → Loan playbook and choose your house rule and fee. Loans you fund or import from then on start with it. Only an administrator can change the playbook.
2. On any loan, open the Repayments tab. The Early settlement card shows the rule that applies and the figure that would clear the loan today. Press Change for this loan to override your house rule for that loan; the business is told.
3. The business sees its rule, and the figure that would clear the loan today, on its own Repayments page from the day the loan starts.

Recording a settlement

1. Agree the payment with the business and receive the money directly, as always. Money never moves through Acreed.
2. On the loan’s Early settlement card, press Settle this loan. The quote is worked out again for the day the money arrived.
3. Enter the amount received. If it differs from the quote, say why; the reason stays on the record next to the figures.
4. Press Record settlement and end monitoring. Every remaining installment is marked as settled early, monitoring ends, we stop reading the business’s bank account, and the business is told the figures. Settling early counts as repaid in full on its Acreed record.