This is so that one can keep track of the *direction* that money is
flowing. For instance, a standard convention is that for money flowing
*out*, the number is negative, whereas for money flowing *in*, the
number is positive. So if you get a loan (money coming in) then your
payment should be negative (money going out).

However, this is just a convention, so you can feel free to put the loan
amount as a negative, or to negate the answer.

This is explained in Help (the "PV" topic, which is referred to by the
"PMT" topic).

In article ,
"Chuck" wrote:

When using the PMT formula, why does the payment come back in a negative?