The total amount of expected repayments, per month (in dollars)

[Guest]

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[PetraH]

I would love a feature where I would see how much money is expected to be paid back to me, each month.
Thereby I could 'plan' new donations in advance. For example, if I see that 55 dollars are expected back into my account by May 1, I know to check back into kiva right after that to make some new loans...

Right now I do this by having my own database in access and typing in new loans and repayment conditions by hand when I lend the money. A lot of work!

[cjp1973]

Petra
Here is the link to the thread for the summary spreadsheet YowieFreak (Ian) has done.  You will love it.  And there is a cashflow tab to see what will be coming in every month.

http://www.kivafriends.org/index.php/topic,4176.0.html

Charmaine

And because of the way kiva does the "netting off" each month for payments you will see payments on the 15th of the month before the due date.  For example:  Due May 1, may be in your account on April 15.

[Sengbe Pieh]

Hi Petra,
You can also use Paul's wonderful program http://www.kivabank.org/

If you don't already have it you will need to download Microsoft's free Silverlight app. to use all of the features.
Kivabank.org Requires the Microsoft Silverlight 3 plug-in.
It's like Flash and will run in many browsers and on both Mac and Windows.
http://www.kivabank.org/NoSilverlight.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/Get-Started/Install/Default.aspx
http://www.filehippo.com/download_silverlight/6901/

Once you have Silverlight installed, go to http://www.kivabank.org/, click on the Lender Analysis button on the upper right & then enter your Kiva lender ID. Paul has some great, very colorful pie graphs which will give you a breakdown of your loans with a bar graph on the left showing your expected repayments by month.

Have fun & happy lending 

[PetraH]

Thank you guys!

However, I was hoping for a feature inside kiva, not for some add-on or download...

Also, because I work with linux and firefox. And although there's a program that should be comparable to silverlight (it's called moonlight), my browser just literally crashes when I try to go to kivabank.org...

But anyway, of course: thank you for your suggestions!

Petra

[alan]

Hi Petra,

I agree with you that this would be useful inside Kiva. The outside apps are truly great, but they are plugging holes in the Kiva environment and, as you point out, not everyone can use them. I like kivabank, but it has the limitation of assuming $25 per loan, which isn't true for me since I became the solo lender on a $75 loan. (But I really, really like the graphs, and the choice of only looking at Active loans!) And I believe all the positive comments about Ian's spreadsheet, but since I don't have Excel I'm out of luck. So, like you, I'm stuck maintaining my own database of my own loans.

I realize that Kiva needs to spend time to make the site easier for new lenders, especially for those who might not be as technically adept as many here on KivaFriends, but as the average number of loans keeps creeping up, we can hope that Kiva will also develop a more robust set of tools for management of the expanding loan portfolio.

[Skimmis]

Thank you guys!

However, I was hoping for a feature inside kiva, not for some add-on or download...

Also, because I work with linux and firefox. And although there's a program that should be comparable to silverlight (it's called moonlight), my browser just literally crashes when I try to go to kivabank.org...

But anyway, of course: thank you for your suggestions!

Petra

i use firefox with kivabank without problems

[Skimmis]

Hi Petra,

I agree with you that this would be useful inside Kiva. The outside apps are truly great, but they are plugging holes in the Kiva environment and, as you point out, not everyone can use them. I like kivabank, but it has the limitation of assuming $25 per loan, which isn't true for me since I became the solo lender on a $75 loan. (But I really, really like the graphs, and the choice of only looking at Active loans!) And I believe all the positive comments about Ian's spreadsheet, but since I don't have Excel I'm out of luck. So, like you, I'm stuck maintaining my own database of my own loans.

I realize that Kiva needs to spend time to make the site easier for new lenders, especially for those who might not be as technically adept as many here on KivaFriends, but as the average number of loans keeps creeping up, we can hope that Kiva will also develop a more robust set of tools for management of the expanding loan portfolio.

i guess you could give 3 loans a 25$ instead?

[nuclearspike]

I guess you could give 3 loans a 25$ instead?

No,  Kiva APIs do not list the same loan 3 times, they combine them as one entry.

i use firefox with kivabank without problems

The problem isn't Firefox, but Microsoft doesn't have a Linux version of Silverlight, and the Moonlight project only supports up to version 2. I was not aware that it would crash Firefox on Linux though! Yikes. (I'm the author of kivabank).

I have a much, much older version of the site that may work in Moonlight 2.0 (it only needs Silverlight 2.0)

http://nuclearspike.com/kiva/old/

The only caveat, is that you will first need to run a loan search before doing the Lender Analysis. This is a bug and you only have to do it the first time (you'll get prompted by Silverlight to allow my site to store kiva data on your computer). Once the app has permission, you don't need to do it again. Unfortunately, the lender analysis here has the same limitation of assuming a $25 loan since actual lent amounts are not available publicly. [I no longer maintain the old site, so I haven't removed the "non-payment protection" option now that kiva no longer supports that so using default settings won't return anything anymore.]

I agree that kiva should definitely just tell their users what the expected repayments will be. It's really kind of shocking that they don't provide this information. It's not like it's difficult math. I just take the Sum(LoanRepayment/TotalLoan * $25) per month for all loans a user has. For Kiva to do it would be trivial and best-of-all -- accurate. I too have some loans that were more than $25, some intentionally and some because I came back a week later and lent to them again because I didn't realize there were part of the last batch I'd done. There's also no place to easily find out how much money you have in kiva.

To see a brief demo of kivabank.org, check out this video:

[PetraH]

Hi, Nuclearspike.

I'm not sure whether all linux users have this problem. I actually have kubuntu, plus a certain version of firefox, plus a 2.9.something version of moonlight. I'll try the old program, though... For now, I found out that I can visit Kivabank at my work, so I have access 5 of 7 days...

[nuclearspike]

Hi, Nuclearspike.

I'm not sure whether all linux users have this problem. I actually have kubuntu, plus a certain version of firefox, plus a 2.9.something version of moonlight. I'll try the old program, though... For now, I found out that I can visit Kivabank at my work, so I have access 5 of 7 days...

My team leader is also a linux user and I know he can't use kivabank.org except inside a Windows virtual machine, I don't know if it crashes for him or not, but probably. Glad you can use it at work.

Paul

[PetraH]

With the newest version of moonlight (2.99.0.3) and your old website http://nuclearspike.com/kiva/old/   it works, now.
Of course I know I'm missing out on some functionality, but it's definitely good enough to help trying to find my kind of loans...
Thanks,
Petra

[nuclearspike]

That's great news. The old site does offer a lot over kiva's searches. Glad to hear there's a combination that works for Linux users.

[nuclearspike]

With the newest version of moonlight (2.99.0.3) and your old website http://nuclearspike.com/kiva/old/   it works, now.
Of course I know I'm missing out on some functionality, but it's definitely good enough to help trying to find my kind of loans...
Thanks,
Petra

PetraH,

Starting with v0.3.0.0 you can now create RSS feeds and email notifications. Which means that while you are at work using a Windows machine, you could use kivabank to create and save your filters with email notifications turned on and subscribe to the RSS feed in iGoogle, Google Reader, My Yahoo, BlogLines, etc. Then you would get emails of new matching loans and/or have access to the lists through RSS of the loans that interest you while you are at home without the need for Silverlight/Moonlight.

Paul