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Recording a liability

Recording a liability: mortgages, loans, credit cards, HECS/SLC debt. The Is-Investment flag controls whether this debt counts against your Investment Net Worth.
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Quick start

The Add Liability screen is a simpler cousin of Add Asset. Liabilities are just debts — an amount you owe, a name, a heading, and optionally an owner.

  • Pick a heading — Mortgage, Loan, Credit Card, Investment Loan, and so on. The heading groups debts together on the Net Worth screen.
  • Name it — "Home loan", "CBA Visa", "Margin loan". Required — there's no ticker to fall back to.
  • Enter the balance — the amount you currently owe, not the original loan amount.
  • Flip the Is Investment toggle if this debt is tied to an investment asset (margin loan, investment-property mortgage, equity line used for investing). Leave it off for personal debt.
  • Save — top-right tick icon.

The rest of this guide is for users who want to tune the screen. If you're happy with the defaults, you can stop here — everything below is optional customisation.

Going deeper

Why Is Investment matters

Is Investment Liability toggle on Add Liability
① On for margin loans / investment loans. ② Off for personal debts (credit cards, HECS).

Your Net Worth is assets minus liabilities — simple enough. But Investment Net Worth is more nuanced: it's investment assets minus investment liabilities. The Is Investment toggle on each liability decides which side of that line the debt falls on.

A primary-residence mortgage is typically not an investment liability — it's tied to a personal-use asset (your home), which is also typically excluded from Investment NW. So the mortgage toggles off; the house toggles off; both drop out of Investment NW together, keeping the maths clean.

A margin loan or investment-property mortgage is an investment liability — it funded investment assets that count toward your FIRE target. Toggle it on; it subtracts from Investment NW alongside its associated asset.

Get the pairings right and your Investment NW reflects what can actually fund retirement. Get them wrong (e.g., home on, mortgage off) and your Investment NW is inflated.

Cascading renames (custom headings)

The liability headings that ship with the app can't be renamed — those built-ins are fixed. But any custom heading you've added can be renamed freely, and the rename cascades: every liability sitting under the old name is updated automatically, no orphans, no manual clean-up. Same behaviour on the asset side.

Delete safety

Deleting an existing liability removes the row and any associated history entries. A confirmation dialog with the liability's name prevents fat-finger deletion. Deletion is immediate — no soft-delete — so if you need to keep history, use the Is Investment or hide-heading options instead.

Make it yours — Settings that affect this screen

  • Liability Headings — Settings → App Lists → Liability Headings. Reorder and hide the built-in headings; add your own custom headings (which are then fully renameable and deletable). The chip row on this screen reflects the list in order.
  • Owners — Settings → App Lists → Owners. The Owner chip row only appears when Owners is enabled and at least one owner exists.

Questions or feedback? Email us at woohoosoftware@gmail.com