Our chapter 13 journey has started

[justbroke]

For what it's worth, we only use the NDC to see, generally, what is paid. Chapter 13 Trustees don't use the NDC to manage their books. The Trustee can only take a commission if they make a payment, so if they show a payment being made then they can take the commission on the payment. I'm guessing that the NDF doesn't reflect exactly, in real-time, what happens in the Trustee's real case management system (CMS).

Many Trustee's use CMS's such as TrustWin (a/k/a Trustee13) to actually manage payments. The data is consolidated into the NDC for visibility. The NDC lags from the Trustee's actual CMS. Especially since the transfer of the data from the Trustee's actual CMS to the NDC is not predictable unless the Chapter 13 Trustee is using one of the major CMS systems (such as TrustWin). Personally, I look in TrustWin because my Trustee uses that system and it is the definitely real-time source of the disbursements. Again, the NDC is just a consolidation point and it is not real-time and could be weeks different than what is actually the status of the Chapter 13 debtor's account with the Trustee.

I hope that explains the NDC better.

You may want to find out the system your Trustee uses. My Trustee uses TrustWin and I can go in there and see real-time updates whereas the NDC doesn't yet have the update.

[notreallyme]

First I want to thank you Justbroke so being so helpful during this process. Your quick responses to questions has really made this process less stressful. Probably not worth trying to find our trustee's actual ledger system or try to view it - on his site he just refers debtors to create an account at NDC. I use NDC primarily to track outstanding balances using the claims summary section and track recording of our payments and disbursements to creditors using the ledger section. It will be nice next week to log in and see zero balances in the claims summary after the trustee makes all of the 3/31 disbursements. My guess that the trustee takes his fee when payments are made was based on ledger entries like those shown below. Helpful to know that this isn't his actual ledger - it is just a delayed summary of what is in his true ledger as reported by NDC. (the TFS entries were when I remitted our income tax returns).

2/11/2026			N/A	(AM21) Employer Payment
2/11/2026			W.H. GRIFFIN	TRUSTEE FEE - PLAN RECEIPT
2/12/2026			N/A	TFS - Automatic Payment
2/12/2026			W.H. GRIFFIN	TRUSTEE FEE - PLAN RECEIPT
2/13/2026			N/A	TFS - Automatic Payment
2/13/2026			W.H. GRIFFIN	TRUSTEE FEE - PLAN RECEIPT

I appreciate everything that you and the other contributors have done to explain the process and reduce stress by responding to questions.

[justbroke]

Yeah, it's confusing. That's why I always tell debtors not to worry about what's in the NDC. Use it only to see that some creditor was paid (and when), but not to track the real-time status of the case and payments. It's really good for looking at the claims and the amount paid to the creditor claim to date (with a lag). I don't even want to talk about using the NDC to check the amount due under the plan and the remaining balance. It is not always accurate.

I know you are excited to be at the end of your Chapter 13 journey and are refreshing that NDC page like crazy! You are in good company because we have all done that.

The NDC does serve a good purpose for "summary" information. I'm not disparaging it but always take what's in the NDC as a summary of the Trustee's actual accounting system.

[notreallyme]

Just received this "Order to release employer from making further payments to the trustee." So things are moving, now just need to find out when I need to start making mortgage payments directly so that I don't mess up the final cure audit. Tomorrow's paycheck has already been processed, but my HR department is pretty quick - we are a small company, but they are very professional and efficient - so will probably be processed by HR before the 4/10/2026 pay date.

Kind of funny - stopped checking the RSS feed daily as it was becoming stressful not seeing anything, so didn't know about this until the email from the trustee showed up.

Going to follow up with our lawyer again to find out when I should start making mortgage payments.

[notreallyme]

So I checked the NDC site -everything seems to be moving along. Claims summary shows zero balance on all accounts, case status shows "completed", dashboard shows $0 on hand and ledger shows a refund on its way to us. Will probably receive another refund at the end of April. Paycheck for 3/27 was processed before the order of 3/26 to end direct pay from salary but hasn't been recorded by the trustee yet. Now just keeping an eye on our HR site to see when they receive the order and stop the payments. Hopefully this is before the cut-off date for the 4/10 payment. If I don't see anything in the system this week, I will forward my email from the trustee to our HR department.

Now need to just wait for the final audit, cure process then formal discharge.

Probably overcomplicated but have set up our budget with several bank accounts so that we never fall behind.

Account 1 - "fixed" payments. Since our mortgage, interest portion of HELOC, insurance and student loan are pretty much fixed, I took these amounts and divided by 2 - this is the amount that will be direct deposited into this account. Since we actually receive 13 checks every six months (paid bi-weekly) this will slowly build up a savings amount. Will only look at and adjust if interest rates go up for the HELOC or if our escrow amount increases next January.
Account 2 - estimated amount for utilities and minimum credit card payments - these are all on auto pay. Will have to keep on eye on this - gas bill will be decreasing now that winter is over, but electric for AC and water for the lawn will show major increases when temperatures get to 90+.
Account 3 - rest of my paycheck. Used for expenses like gas, food, date night and other miscellaneous expenses. End of the month will make an additional payment on the HELEC as it needs to be paid off by September 2028. Plus put a little bit into two savings accounts - an emergency fund and a "fun" fund to save for vacations. Not sure what those will be like since we haven't taken one since we filed.

This forum was a good find - especially the suggestion to, if at all possible, maintain an emergency fund as things happen.

[justbroke]

What I did was download the Order Vacating Wage Deduction Order and faxed it directly to my HR department and then called them. It was immediately processed. I didn't want to wait for the snail-mail to get there.

I like your budget ideas. I maintain a budget out about 6-months to anticipate any issues. I also save money by using multiple accounts to segregate the funds!