Evidence-first money workflow · Personal Money
Debt Avalanche Payment Reconciler
Audit an APR-priority debt avalanche schedule against actual payments and balances with missed, extra, shifted, and unmatched row evidence.
- 1Prepare
- 2Analyze
- 3Review and export
Prepare the evidence
Paste the documented CSV schema or choose a local CSV file. Nothing is sent to Nirmion.
Review the analysis
Summary metrics lead back to the rows that support them.
Method and interpretation
How to use Debt Avalanche Payment Reconciler
Use this workflow when the active payoff policy directs extra money to the highest annual percentage rate and you need to verify what actually occurred. It is useful after importing statement balances, before updating a payoff forecast, or when a household wants to understand why modeled interest savings are no longer tracking the original avalanche schedule.
Prepare the input
Provide the planned month, debt, opening balance, APR, minimum, planned payment, and ending balance. Provide actual month, debt, payment, and ending balance in a second CSV. APR accepts zero and up to two decimal places. Use the APR that governed the plan for that period; do not replace a historical promotional rate with today’s rate. Choose a monetary tolerance for minor rounding differences.
Check the worked example
The example gives Card B a 24% APR and Card A a 12% APR, so Card B is the expected focus despite its larger balance. Both sample months match the planned payments and ending balances. Changing Card A to receive the extra payment would create a visible priority shift rather than silently calling the run an avalanche.
Read the evidence
The monthly focus table shows the positive-balance debt with the highest entered APR. Payment and ending-balance differences appear beside the plan so a user can separate cash-flow deviations from unexplained balance movement. Focus shifts, missing actual rows, and payments below plan are action items. Above-plan payments remain review items because they can be beneficial while still changing the forecast.
Calculation method
Rows match on normalized month and debt. Avalanche focus sorts positive opening balances by APR descending, then smaller balance and debt name for stable ties. Difference formulas and tolerance behavior match the snowball reconciler. The tool counts a shift only when a non-focus debt receives payment above its minimum while the expected focus does not.
Questions this workflow helps answer
Use these questions to confirm that this tool matches the task you need to complete.
- How can I audit whether actual payments followed a debt avalanche spreadsheet?
- Which payment changes moved money away from the highest-APR debt?
- Why did my actual avalanche payoff balances stop matching the planned schedule?
Limits and decision boundary
APR priority is only the documented policy for this audit. Deferred-interest deadlines, tax treatment, collateral risk, variable rates, lender concessions, and delinquent accounts can change a reasonable payment order. The tool does not estimate credit-score effects or guarantee the least real-world cost.
Common mistake
Do not compare debts with rates from different dates. If an introductory APR ended during the schedule, split the evidence by month using the rate assumed in each planned row.
Your pasted values and selected CSV files are processed in this browser tab. This workflow does not connect to a bank, save a budget, or provide financial, tax, legal, or investment advice.
Questions about this workflow
Why is a zero-percent balance never the focus?
It can become the focus after higher-rate debts are cleared. A promotional deadline may justify a custom decision that this audit will show as a shift.
How are equal APRs ordered?
The smaller positive opening balance comes first, followed by debt name. The tie break keeps output deterministic and is disclosed in the method.
Can actual balances be lower than zero?
No. Credits should be represented as a zero ending debt balance and investigated in the issuer statement rather than entered as negative debt.