In 2025, I modeled purchasing a $45K new car, taking out a $31K loan. In the Personal Property Annual Expense Metric, it reports "Purchase Cash Required" as $11,472 for 2025
Assuming this is the cash needed for the car's down payment (it is not referenced in 2026), why is it not $14K? What am I missing?
Also, it is not entirely clear to me where to model the ongoing car expenses, such as insurance, repairs, etc. Do those expenses go in Personal Property Operating Costs, or in "Phased Expenses?"
TBS
ADDENDUM: I notice that even though I have the purchase price of the car as $45K on the "Property Info" tab, the purchase price is listed as $50K on the "Cash Flow Summary" tab. On the "Cash Flow by Property" Tab, the purchase price is correctly listed at $45K.
Quick answer (without much thought): it may be the difference between today's dollars & future dollars.
@tbsinma Hi, I took a quick look at this. Since you shared a few #'s, I will as well.
Your plan starts in 2025 and you indicate that you are purchasing 2 vehicles in 2025, one for 42K and one for 8k. For future purchases (occurring in the plan start year and beyond), Pralana uses the amount you enter in the Current Market Value field, inflated as applicable, as the purchase price. Since these are both purchased in 2025, the purchase prices are 42K and 8K, totaling 50K which is what shows on the Cash Flow Summary (all properties). For this vehicle, 42K minus (now) 32K loan proceeds = 10K purchase cash required.
The 45K you entered as "Cost Basis for Assets You Currently Own" is not applicable, and is ignored, since you did not already own this property as of plan start. The popup tooltips on the fields names should add some clarity.
This reminds me of an item that needs to be on the 'start a new plan year' checklist: Properties originally entered as purchased in the 'future' (e.g. 2025) will suddenly become purchased in the 'past' when the plan start year is changed to 2026.
As for operating expenses, the 3rd tab on the Personal Property page is "Operating Costs". On the amounts tab, there are 2 cost categories already defined: property taxes and insurance. On the Categories tab, you can define additional operating cost categories like 'Gas', 'Maintenance and Repairs', etc, then enter the annual amounts on the Amounts tab.
Hope this helps,
Charlie
