TERM Function

The TERM function calculates the number of payment periods required to reach the future value.

This function works in much the same way as the NPER(rate, pmt, pv, fv, type) function does in Mircosoft Excel. For more information on that function you can see the Microsoft Office help for NPER.

Providing the interest rate, payment amount, and the future value, this function returns the number of periods required to pay the loan off completely.

TERM is one of Author's financial expressions and can be used in calculating savings, loans or investment values.

Function name TERM
Usage model TERM ( rate:NUM, payment:NUM, present value:NUM, future value:NUM, type:NUM )
Parameters This function requires you to replace three of five parameters (two are optional):

rate: NUM

The function uses this value as the interest rate per payment period.

payment: NUM

The function uses this value as the paid amount in each payment period.

present value: NUM

This value represents the current value of the future amount; the default is zero.

future value: NUM

(Optional) This represents the value after the last payment period, the default is zero.

type: NUM

(Optional) This value can be entered as a 0 or a 1, 0 meaning payments are due at the end of a payment period and 1 meaning payments are due at the beginning of a payment period. The default is zero.
Result A number value.

Example

If you have an annual rate of 7.5% paying $100 a month and you know that the future value is $4,023.1381682 then you can work out how many months you need to reach that amount by using the following figures:

  • rate: 0.00625 (0.075/12 to find the monthly rate)
  • payment: -100
  • present value: 0
  • future value: 4,023.1381682
  • type: 0

The following script would return 36:

TERM ( 0.00625, -100, 0, 4023.1381682, 0)

See Also:
RATE
PRESENT VALUE
PAYMENT
FUTURE VALUE