Are you missing something? Probably, but you've mixed so many things here
and provided so little information that it's really hard to tell what.

1) Are you downloading the loan account transactions?

2) Are you downloading transactions for the account paying the loan
payments?

3) Are you using Advanced Register or Essential Register?

4) Are you using Advanced Bills or Essential Bills?

5) You say "each month it breaks out interest and principal"--what does "it"
refer to?

6) You say "In order for these monies to be directly debited from our
checking account"--are you talking about getting Money to participate in
making an electronic payment? Just getting the numbers in Money to match
something that's going to happen with or without Money involvement?

7) You say "which is wrong so I need to fix it when the stmt comes in"--how
wrong? If the loan account--assuming Advanced Register, I know NOTHING about
Essential Register--is setup correctly, then the numbers should be within
pennies and most of us ignore trying to get these to match any time but when
the last payment is made.

8) Is "loan - pontiac" a "Category" as you state or is it really Loan
Payment : pontiac? The former is just another expense category and really
functions no different than, say, Food : Groceries or Vacation : Airfare.
The latter is the name of a "special category" called Loan Payment that
makes a payment to a Money Loan Account called pontiac.

I could go on. Really, we'd like to help, but we need better context to
figure out your situation. Unfortunately, Money has all of this "easy" and
"essential" stuff that sucks people in and makes them think that they can
get productive use out of Money without understanding some of its
fundamentals. Then they come here for help and struggle helping us
understand their situation so we can help.

"Kirsty" <Kirsty[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:99790D81-BFE8-4989-8C15-FE6CF77A120B[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I've set up a car loan in money 2006. Each month it breaks out the interest &
principal (which is wrong so I need to fix it when the stmt comes in). In
order for these monies to be directly debited from our checking account, do I
need to set up a reaccuring bill? If so if when I apply it to the "loan -
pontiac" category it now becomes a duplicate entry. I need to make the pmt
and I would also like to utilize the loan tracking feature. Am I missing
something?