Once a loan has been fully paid off, you can close the loan account in Ambrook so it no longer appears in future reporting while still keeping your historical data intact.
Before closing a loan account, it’s important to make sure the balance is fully reconciled and brought to $0. Closing an account with a non-zero balance can cause issues on your balance sheet.
Paying off and reconciling the loan balance
You’ll want to double check that all payments have been properly categorized before closing the loan.
When reviewing the loan account, confirm that:
The principal portion of each payment is categorized as a Liability Adjustment to the loan account itself
The interest portion is categorized to an interest expense account
Once all payments are tagged correctly, the remaining balance on the loan account should be $0.
If the loan has been paid off with your lender but the balance in Ambrook is not zero, we recommend reconciling the loan account to identify what’s causing the discrepancy before proceeding. See this article and video for steps and tips & tricks for reconciling accounts in Ambrook.
We do not recommend using a balance adjustment to zero out the loan account or manage a discrepancy between the balance of the loan in Ambrook and the balance of the loan with your bank. If you need to use a balance adjustment, it usually means one or more transactions are missing, duplicated, or incorrectly categorized. Going back and reconciling the loan and making sure all transactions in Ambrook match the transactions in your bank is the best way to make sure your books are correct and you don't accidentally have extra income or expenses showing in your account.
Closing the loan account
After the loan balance has been fully paid off and shows $0 when you go to the Accounts page in Ambrook:
Go to the Accounts tab and click on the loan account
Scroll to the bottom of the account panel and click Remove Account
Select Close Account
Closing the account removes it from future reporting while preserving all historical transactions and historical reports. This is the recommended option in most cases.
You may also see an option to Delete Account, which fully removes the account and all associated history. This option cannot be undone and is generally only appropriate if the account was created in error.
Note: This same Remove Account → Close Account flow can also be used for the following balance sheet accounts once their balances are fully reconciled to $0:
Bank and cash accounts that have been closed with the bank
Credit card accounts
Fixed asset accounts after the asset has been fully depreciated