What belongs on a loan register
Home loan, vehicle loan, education loan, personal loan, gold loan, and any EMI-based consumer debt. Add credit-card revolving balances. Add money you have promised to repay relatives if it is real.
For each line, keep at least: name, type, outstanding principal, and optionally interest rate and a note for the lender. Sanctioned amount is history; outstanding is what net worth needs.
EMI vs principal
EMI is how cash leaves your account. Principal remaining is the liability. If you only track EMIs, prepayments and tenure changes never show up as wealth events.
Use the loan EMI calculator to estimate monthly EMI from loan amount, rate, and tenure. Put upcoming EMIs on an events calendar if you want dates. Put outstanding on the debt register. CapitalMap supports both: liabilities for balances, events for upcoming outflows.
Home loans need the matching asset
A home loan without the house is a horror story. A house without the loan is a fantasy. Log property on the asset side at a conservative value and the loan on the liability side. Equity is then implicit in net worth.
Do not reduce the asset by the loan inside one cell. Keep two rows so you can see each move — a prepayment versus a price estimate change.
Credit cards and “good” vs “bad” debt
Those labels are opinions. The register should be complete regardless. High-interest revolving credit is urgent because it compounds against you; still list the home loan even if the rate is lower.
When the card is paid in full, outstanding should be zero. Leaving a stale ₹80,000 on the tracker after you paid it will understate net worth for months.
Review with assets, not in isolation
Debt-only apps encourage fear. Asset-only apps encourage complacency. A loan and debt register is supporting documentation for net worth, not the whole product.
CapitalMap shows liabilities beside assets, writes both to your Google Sheet, and lets you snapshot the pair over time. That is the habit that matters: debt falling, assets rising, or an honest mix of both.