Most investors do not hold everything in one place. A TFSA or Roth IRA here, a 401(k) or RRSP there, a taxable brokerage account somewhere else. Each statement looks fine on its own, but none of them tells you how the whole portfolio is doing. This guide covers what a portfolio tracker needs to record and how to set one up.
What a portfolio tracker needs to know
Whatever tool you use, five things decide whether the numbers can be trusted:
- Every buy and sell, from the start. Positions and average cost are built from them. One missing buy makes your cost too low and your gain look too high.
- Money going in and out. Contributions, withdrawals and transfers between accounts. Without them you cannot tell investment growth from money you simply added.
- Dividends and distributions. They are part of your return and your income, whether they were paid as cash or reinvested.
- Cash. Uninvested cash is part of the account's value and dilutes its return.
- Fees and interest. Small individually, but they add up and belong in the record.
Three ways to track a portfolio
| Approach | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheet | Full control, free, any asset you like | Every trade, price and dividend is yours to type and check; formulas break quietly |
| App linked to your brokerage | Automatic updates | Connections can drop and need re-linking, not every institution is supported, and you share a login or give read access |
| App fed by your own statements | No logins to share, works with any broker | You upload a statement or export now and then |
None of these is the right answer for everyone. If you hold a handful of positions and enjoy spreadsheets, a sheet is hard to beat. If you have several accounts at different brokers, the effort of keeping a sheet current is usually what makes people give up on tracking.
Setting it up, step by step
- List your accounts and give each a type. Registered and retirement accounts (TFSA, RRSP, 401(k), IRA) and taxable accounts behave differently, so keep them separate.
- Get your full history. Most brokers offer a transaction export (CSV or Excel). If yours does not, monthly statements work. See how to export from your broker.
- Load it and check it. Skim the totals against your latest statement. If the share counts match, the history is probably complete.
- Add what is missing. Transfers in, old cash deposits and reinvested dividends are the usual gaps.
- Look at the whole, then the parts. Total value, return, income, and how the mix splits by account, market and sector.
Mistakes that make the numbers wrong
- Counting a deposit as a gain. If your portfolio went from $50,000 to $60,000 and you added $8,000, you earned about $2,000, not $10,000.
- Mixing currencies. A portfolio with CAD and USD holdings needs one reporting currency and an exchange rate, or totals will not add up.
- Ignoring transfers between your own accounts. A transfer out of one account and into another is neither a gain nor a loss.
- Leaving out dividends. Price-only returns understate what dividend payers actually delivered.
- Checking too often. Daily swings are mostly noise. A monthly look at the whole picture is plenty for most people.
What to look at each month
Keep it short. Total value and how it changed, your return over a period that matches your horizon, dividend income received, and whether any single holding or sector has grown into a larger share than you meant. Nimblewit does this from your own statements across all your accounts, free for two accounts and ten holdings.