What does a hardship deferral on a loan schedule look like in practice?

At Aster Financial, a customer on personal loan `LOAN-3318` calls the collections team after a reduction in work hours. The loan has 18 fortnightly instalments remaining of $412.00 each. The customer asks to skip the next two.

**Roles:** a collections officer takes the call, and a team leader approves any deferral beyond one instalment.

**Records involved:**

- Schedule `SCH-3318-B`, with instalment lines `INS-01` to `INS-18`. - Hardship note `HSP-0207`, recording the reason and the customer's stated income. - Policy `POL-DEFER-2`, which allows one deferral at officer level and up to three with leader approval.

**State change:** the officer opens `HSP-0207`, requests approval for two deferrals, and the team leader grants it. Lines `INS-01` and `INS-02` become `deferred`, two new lines are appended at the end of the term, and accrued interest for the deferred period is capitalised into the remaining balance. The schedule version moves from 1 to 2, and the approval is linked to the change.

**Consequence:** the final instalment moves out by four weeks and the total interest rises. If the officer skips the approval step, the change breaches `POL-DEFER-2` and the audit trail has a gap.

**What it teaches:** a correct outcome needs the date shift, the appended lines, the interest treatment and the approval link to agree. An evaluation that checks only the new due dates would pass an agent that quietly broke the rest.