How to Use PMT in Google Sheets & Excel: Guide

The Real Reason PMT Matters

If you run an agency, a lending team, or a fast moving sales org, you probably ask the same question every week: What does this deal look like in real money. The PMT function in Excel and Google Sheets answers that in one line, turning interest rates, terms, and principal into a clean recurring payment.

The problem is not the formula itself. The problem is doing it a hundred times, for messy real world data, while everything around you keeps changing. That is where combining manual skill with an AI agent pays off.

Manual Way 1: A Simple Loan PMT in Excel

1. Open Excel and create headers in row 1: Rate, Term in Years, Principal, Monthly Payment.
2. In B2, enter the annual interest rate, such as 6 percent.
3. In C2, enter the term in years, such as 30.
4. In D2, enter the loan amount, such as 300000.
5. In E2, add the PMT formula, adjusting for monthly payments:
   • Type =PMT(B2/12, C2*12, D2) and press Enter.
6. Format E2 as Currency and, if you like, apply a minus sign in red to make the cash outflow obvious.

Now when you tweak the rate or term, the payment instantly updates. This is the foundation for every more advanced model.

Pros

• Full control and transparency.
• Great for learning how rate, nper, and pv interact.

Cons

• Easy to forget to divide the rate or multiply nper.
• Repetitive when you have many loans.

Manual Way 2: Google Sheets Scenarios for Clients

1. In Google Sheets, mirror the same table: Rate, Term in Years, Principal, Monthly Payment.
2. Use the same PMT formula in E2: =PMT(B2/12, C2*12, D2).
3. Create multiple rows for different scenarios: base case, optimistic, conservative.
4. Share the sheet with your client or team so they can adjust assumptions live during a call.

Because Google Sheets is collaborative, PMT becomes a conversation tool rather than a static report.

Pros

• Real time collaboration with clients and teammates.
• Access from anywhere, including mobile.

Cons

• Still requires manual data entry.
• Version control can get messy across many tabs and files.

Manual Way 3: Building a PMT Template Library

For agencies and finance teams, it is worth building reusable PMT templates:

• A mortgage calculator tab.
• A subscription pricing tab for payment plans.
• A savings goal tab using PMT with a future value.

You can protect formulas, add data validation for rates and terms, and use conditional formatting to flag broken inputs. This gives your team a standard playbook.

Pros

• Reduces errors by standardizing structure.
• New hires get productive quickly.

Cons

• Someone must maintain templates as products change.
• Still heavy on copy paste and data prep.

Automated Way 1: Let a Simular AI Agent Drive PMT

Now imagine you could delegate the entire workflow to a computer agent that uses your desktop like a skilled analyst.

A Simular AI agent can:

• Open Google Sheets and Excel workbooks on your machine.
• Pull rates, terms, and principals from CRM exports, email attachments, or downloaded PDFs.
• Insert the correct PMT formulas, adjusting rate and nper for monthly, quarterly, or annual schedules.
• Audit for missing or impossible values and surface a report instead of silent errors.

Because Simular Pro agents operate across browser, desktop, and cloud tools, they do not need special APIs. They see what you see and can run the same clicks you would, only faster.

Pros

• Handles thousands of rows or many files without fatigue.
• Production grade reliability, suited for recurring workflows.
• Fully transparent: every step is logged and reviewable.

Cons

• Requires a short setup and onboarding period.
• You still own the model logic and must define guardrails.

Automated Way 2: Scaling PMT Across Pipelines

Once you trust the agent on a single workbook, you can wire it into your existing systems:

• Schedule the agent to run when a new CSV of deals lands in a folder.
• Use a webhook to trigger the agent from your CRM when a deal hits a certain stage.
• Have the agent calculate PMT values, refresh dashboards, and email a summary to account managers.

Your job shifts from typing formulas to designing the decision flow. The agent becomes the connective tissue between your raw data and the PMT driven insights your team needs.

Pros

• Removes entire classes of repetitive work from your calendar.
• Keeps models aligned with reality as rates and terms update.

Cons

• You must monitor the first few runs to validate behavior.
• Poorly structured source data can still cause edge cases.

Hybrid Workflow: Humans on Edge Cases, Agents on Repetition

The sweet spot is not to replace your spreadsheet skills, but to reserve them for the weird cases.

Let your team:

• Design the core PMT logic and templates.
• Review outliers and complex deals.

Let the Simular AI agent:

• Ingest raw data.
• Apply PMT formulas at scale.
• Keep Sheets and Excel refreshed for daily decision making.

This way, your business benefits from the precision of PMT, the flexibility of Google Sheets and Excel, and the endurance of an AI agent that never gets tired of clicking.