Interest Calculator

28/11/2025
Knowledge

How To

The Interest Calculator helps family law practitioners to quickly and accurately calculate interest accruing if there is a default on obligations arising from property settlement orders or binding financial agreements.

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The Interest Calculator is included in all LEAP subscriptions at no extra cost.

Key Features:

The Interest Calculator is designed to be a useful shortcut for family lawyers when calculating the amount of interest which can be claimed. It captures all the crucial information required:

Principal amount: The total amount remaining payable according to the original court order or binding financial agreement.
Start date: Step-by-step guidance on selecting the correct date from which interest can be claimed according to the details of your specific order/agreement.
Partial payment(s): Add payments that have already been made, and the Interest Calculator will automatically adjust the accrued interest and balance outstanding.
Changing interest rates: The Interest Calculator uses the prescribed rate as per FCFCOA r10.17 and is always up to date with the latest cash rates published by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA).

Getting Started

To access the Interest Calculator:

Open a matter in LEAP.
Click on the Interest Calculator from the LEAP ribbon.
Click I understand on the ‘Before you begin’ pop-up window to get started.

Details

Enter the principal amount that is outstanding from the original court order/binding financial agreement.

This figure will assist in calculating the interest once you have confirmed the Start and End dates.

Start Date

Click the calendar icon in the Start date field to open a calendar pop-up where you can easily select the date which the interest starts accruing. Alternatively, you can type the date directly into the Start date field, using the format DD/MM/YYYY.

If you need guidance on determining the date that the interest starts accruing, click the Need help? button. You will then be taken through simple Yes/No questions to help confirm the correct start date for your case.

Click the Information icon at any time to open the tool tips which provide relevant legal context to help you on each stage.

End Date

The end date will automatically populate as today’s date. You can click into the End date field to change this at any time.

The end date must be after the start date and within the date range which the latest interest rates have been released, as the RBA only publish their rates 6 months at a time.

Click the question mark at any time to open the tool tip explaining this condition and the latest date which you can select for the end date.

RBA Rates

View current and historical cash rates published by the RBA and each corresponding prescribed rate (RBA cash rate + 6%) at any time by simply clicking the RBA rates button in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Partial Payments

To record any partial payment(s) made, click the Add payment button.

Fields will then appear for you to enter the date and amount paid of each payment.

The Interest Calculator will automatically incorporate any partial payments into its workings so that the interest accrued and outstanding balance is instantly updated for you.

You can remove a partial payment at any time by clicking the red bin icon next to the payment you wish to remove.

Interest Calculation & Summary

The Interest calculation table and its Summary will both update automatically as you adjust Start and End dates, partial payments and the principal amount.

The Summary provides an overview of key details including:

Calculation date
Total interest accrued
Total amounts paid
Number of days that interest has accrued
Number of segments (groupings according to changes to the interest rate or the principal amount)

Use the Interest calculation table and Calculation notes to prove how the asserted amount of outstanding interest and balance have been calculated.

You can copy or export the table and calculation notes at any time by clicking the Copy calculation button, or export directly to Word by selecting Export to Word.

Auto-Save

The Interest Calculator automatically saves all information entered for each matter.

If you close the app at any time, the inputs and calculations will still be available when you—or any other authorised user—reopen the app for that matter.

Last Modified Date

28/11/2025 10:45 am

Title

Interest Calculator

URL Name

Interest-Calculator-AU

Resolution