Formula for counting monthly payment periods

Hi All

Can anyone assist by providing a formula that will count the number of monthly payments remaining in an annuity/loan scenario?

For example if I have an annuity start date of 31 January 2010 with monthly payments due until 31 December 2014, is there a formula that will automatically calculate the number of payments remaining at any specific date?

Any and all assistance will be gratefully received!

Rgs

Mondo

Hi Mondo and welcome to the forum.

Try this one
http://www.excelfunctions.net/Excel-Nper-Function.html

Hi Marvin - thanks for the welcome!

I'd actually already considered that formula but the problem is that it requires the following data:

- interest rate
- loan principal
- monthly payment amount, and

While I have the interest rate and payment data at any point in time (because they are consistent across the life of the loan) I do not know what the outstanding loan principal is at any particular point in time (except, of course, for the initial start date). This means that I can't run the formula at any time other than the start date.

But thanks for the suggestion,