title: Excel PMT on 6 months financing
body: <p>I am able to use the PMT function in Excel for periods of 12, 24 and 36 months. But I am falling short of understanding how to use the function for 6 months periods.</p>
  
  <p>Let's suppose I have a debt of <strong>10 000$</strong> and the annual interest from the bank is <strong>10%</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>If I pay monthly and I want to pay within the first year, I will do the following formula : </p>
  
  <p><code>=PMT(10%/12;12;10000)</code></p>
  
  <p>But what if I need to pay in 6 months?</p>
  
  <p>At first I thought of doing </p>
  
  <pre><code>=PMT(10%/6;6;10000)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But this gives me <strong>more interest</strong> than paying over a year!</p>
  
  <p>I searched various websites without luck.</p>
  
  <p>My last resort was the <a href="https://support.office.com/en-us/article/pmt-function-0214da64-9a63-4996-bc20-214433fa6441" rel="nofollow noreferrer">official Excel website</a> : they actually have an example of a payment over 10 months. Following their code, I would write :</p>
  
  <pre><code>=NPM(10%/12;6;10000)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The result is smaller than 12 months' interest (yay!), but why!?</p>
  
  <p>Why do we calculate the interest over 12 months, and not 6? I can't seem to understand that part.</p>