Sharesight: Portfolio Tracker Review
If keeping track of your investments, paperwork and performance analysis is a pain, portfolio management software system Sharesight could be for you.
When it comes to your investments, it can be tricky to keep track of capital gains and dividends, especially for tax reporting. That’s where Sharesight comes in, with their goal being to make financial reporting easier for investors. Sharesight launched in the Australian market in 2008 and more than 20,000 portfolios utilise their service.
What is Sharesight?
Sharesight is a portfolio management software system, originating from Wellington, that enables individual investors to collate and streamline their investment reporting. Sharesight also allows you to import your trading history, and then it automatically incorporates corporate actions into your portfolio, such as dividends, Dividend Reinvestment Plans (DRPs), and stock splits. This can be incredibly helpful when it comes to reporting at tax time. You will also have the ability to share access to your portfolio and tax reports with your accountant.
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If you prefer to have regular reporting at your fingertips, the platform also allows you to set up daily price and currency updates, custom reports and email alerts. This can help you understand how your investments are tracking which is particularly useful for traders.
Institutions can also partner with Sharesight as a service for their clients. Examples of institutions currently working with Sharesight include CMC Markets, Xero, Six Park and ESuperFund.
How does Sharesight work?
Once you sign up to Sharesight, you can add in your holdings by connecting the platform to your broker, uploading a spreadsheet or manually entering in your trading history or an opening balance. Using integrated software, the platform then automatically incorporates share prices, currency effects and corporate actions such as dividends and share splits to your portfolio history, going as far back as 20 years.
Sharesight then allows you to track shares, ETFs, LICs, AU/NZ listed bonds and managed funds. Plus, the platform also can track alternative investments such as global currencies (including crypto), private equity, real estate and other investments. The features allow you to analyse your portfolio’s total annualised returns including the impact of capital gains or losses, brokerage, currency effects and dividends.
Further, you can benchmark the performance of your portfolio and use visualisation tools to see the split of your asset allocation and portfolio diversity by sector and country or your own custom groupings.
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How much does it cost to use Sharesight?
As a beginner investor with one portfolio and up to 10 holdings, you can get started with Sharesight for free. This allows you to access their community forum, price alerts and a limited range of their reporting tools. For users with up to 20 holdings, you can access the platform for $19/month and users looking for unlimited holdings can choose between the Investor Plan ($31/month) or Expert plan ($48/month), both with more advanced features such as benchmarking and access to more advance reporting and software integrations. Each plan offers a varying discount for annual payment.
Why track your portfolio with Sharesight?
Tracking your portfolio can help you understand your portfolio movements and even help your decision making. Regardless of whether you’re a long term investor or short term trader, Sharesight is a great tool for casual and active investors alike. The platform is easy to use and has a large range of data analysis tools available. When considering its platform amongst others some of the features to consider include:
- Beginner-friendliness and usability – the platform offers intuitive features which make it easy for beginner investors to learn.
- Tax reporting options – The platform allows you to customise tax reporting based on where you live.
- Mobile application – The mobile app is easy to use and mirrors the functionality of the desktop version.
- Customer support – Sharesight offers four different options of customer support, including in-app chat features and a community forum, allowing you to find an answer quickly.
Image source: By Sharesight/Unsplash.com
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This article was reviewed by our Content Producer Marissa Hayden before it was updated, as part of our fact-checking process.
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