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A term loan is a fixed amount borrowed up front and repaid over a set term in scheduled installments of principal and interest. Term loans have no transaction feed, so you provide the loan and every repayment through the API.

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Step 1: Create the loan

Create a loan with loan_type set to TERM_LOAN and disburse the full amount up front with a single DISBURSEMENT proceed. Set loan_term_months and an external_id so you can reference the loan later without storing Layer’s IDs.
Request
curl --request POST \
  --url https://sandbox.layerfi.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/loans \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "loan_type": "TERM_LOAN",
  "external_id": "term-001",
  "display_name": "Equipment term loan",
  "origination_date": "2024-01-15",
  "original_principal": 5000000,
  "loan_term_months": 36,
  "proceeds": [
    {
      "loan_proceed_type": "DISBURSEMENT",
      "amount": 5000000,
      "date": "2024-01-15",
      "method": "ACH"
    }
  ]
}'

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Step 2: Record repayments

Each repayment is a loan payment split into PRINCIPAL and INTEREST. Unlike MCAs and flex loans, term loans have no fee_percentage to derive from, so every loan payment must include explicit splits. The interest portion posts to INTEREST_EXPENSE by default; override it with the split’s account_identifier. If you have an amortization schedule, we recommend creating the future payments up front with defer_posting set to true. A deferred payment is recorded immediately but is not posted to the ledger until its date arrives (or it is paid out), so the books stay accurate as each installment comes due without you having to call back every month. Create one loan payment per scheduled installment:
Request
curl --request POST \
  --url https://sandbox.layerfi.com/v1/businesses/{businessId}/loans/payments \
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <token>' \
  --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  --data '{
  "loan_external_id": "term-001",
  "external_id": "term-001-2024-02-15",
  "amount": 150000,
  "date": "2024-02-15",
  "defer_posting": true,
  "splits": [
    { "split_type": "PRINCIPAL", "amount": 135000 },
    { "split_type": "INTEREST", "amount": 15000 }
  ]
}'

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Record payments as they happen

If you don’t have a schedule, create each loan payment when the repayment occurs using the same call with defer_posting omitted (it defaults to false), so the payment posts to the ledger immediately.