An investment account tracks a share portfolio: the cash sitting in it, the securities you hold, what they cost you and what they are worth now. Unlike a bank account, the balance is only half the picture. Your holdings are tracked separately and valued at the latest market price.
How an Investment Account Works
An investment account holds two things:
- Cash balance: uninvested money sitting with your broker, waiting to be spent or withdrawn
- Holdings: the shares, ETFs or funds you own, each with a share count and a cost basis
The account's Total Value is the two added together. Your Gain/Loss is the difference between what your holdings are worth today and what you paid for them.
Cash and Holdings Are Separate
The Cash Balance tile shows only uninvested cash. A fully invested account correctly shows $0.00 cash while still being worth a great deal.
Setting Up the Account
- Create a new account and choose Investment.
- Enter a name and, optionally, your broker. Pick from the list of common brokers, platforms and crypto exchanges, or type in any other name.
- Choose the currency the account is held in. A US brokerage account should be USD.
- Set the starting balance to the cash in the account on the starting date, not the value of your shares.
Your shares are added separately, in the next step. See Opening Balance for more on choosing a starting date.
Adding Shares You Already Own
If you have held shares for years, you do not need to reconstruct their purchase history. Record the parcel as it stands today.
- Open the investment account.
- Click Add Existing Holding, either in the Holdings header or on the empty Holdings panel.
- Choose the date you acquired the shares.
- Search for the security by ticker or name and select it.
- Enter the number of shares and what you paid per share.
- Open the investment account.
- Tap Add Existing in the Holdings card, or Add Existing Holding if you have no holdings yet.
- Choose the date you acquired the shares.
- Search for the security by ticker or name and select it.
- Enter the number of shares and what you paid per share.
The Date Is the Important Bit
Set the date you actually acquired the shares, not today. Financio has nothing to fill in for you here, so it asks rather than guesses. Your chart starts from this date and your cost basis is measured from it, so recording a long-held parcel as though you bought it this morning gives you a flat chart and no gain.
If you cannot remember the price, leave it blank and pick the security first. Financio looks up what it closed at on the date you chose and suggests that figure. You can always type over it.
The total cost basis is worked out for you, from the share count multiplied by the cost per share. This is what your gains are measured against.
No Cash Moves
Adding an existing holding does not touch your cash balance. It records shares that were already yours, so there is no purchase to pay for and no deposit to record.
Once the holding is saved, Financio fetches the daily price history back to the date you acquired it, so the performance chart has real values to draw rather than a flat line.
Recording Transactions
Use Add Transaction for anything that happens from here on.
| Type | What it does |
|---|---|
| Buy | Purchases shares. Reduces cash, increases the holding |
| Sell | Sells shares. Increases cash, reduces the holding |
| Dividend | Records a dividend payment as income |
| Deposit | Moves cash into the account, optionally as a transfer from another account |
| Withdrawal | Moves cash out of the account |
| Adjustment | Corrects the cash balance |
A Buy needs the share count, the price per share and, optionally, brokerage. The total is worked out for you. Brokerage is treated as a cost of buying, so it reduces your cash but does not form part of the holding's cost basis.
Buy or Existing Holding?
Use Buy when you are recording a purchase you actually paid for from this account. Use Add Existing Holding when the shares were already yours before you started tracking them here.
Selling Shares
Recording a Sell reduces the holding and increases your cash by the proceeds. The cost basis comes down in proportion to the shares sold, so the gain on what you still hold stays accurate. Selling the last of a parcel removes the holding entirely.
Holdings and Cost Basis
The Holdings table shows each security you own:
- Shares: how many you hold, including fractional shares
- Avg Cost: what you paid per share on average, across every parcel
- Current Price: the latest price, with the date it was captured
- Cost Basis: the total you paid
- Current Value: shares multiplied by the current price
- Gain/Loss: the difference, in dollars and as a percentage
Check the Price Date
The current price shows the date it came from. If it looks stale, use Update Prices to fetch the latest.
Performance
The Performance panel charts your portfolio value over time and reports three figures:
- Total Return: how much you have made or lost in dollars, after setting aside money you put in or took out
- Time-Weighted Return: the return as a percentage, measured in a way that ignores the timing of your deposits and withdrawals. This is the number to use when comparing your portfolio against a benchmark, because it reflects how the investments performed rather than when you happened to add money
- Annualised: the time-weighted return expressed as a yearly rate, shown for periods longer than a year
Choose a period from 1M through to All to change the window.
Returns Need Price History
Performance is measured from stored daily prices. A holding added moments ago has its history fetched automatically, but a security with no price history yet will chart as a flat line and report a zero return until prices have been collected.
Foreign Currency Holdings
A security is valued in the currency it trades in, which is taken from its exchange rather than from your account. A NASDAQ-listed stock is valued in US dollars even if your account is in Australian dollars.
When an account holds anything that is not Australian, the summary tiles show both figures: the amount in the account's own currency, with the Australian dollar equivalent underneath. Cash converts at the account's currency and each holding at its own, which are not always the same.
Why Two Numbers
A US brokerage account holds US dollars. Showing that figure alone next to a dollar sign invites it to be read as Australian, so the converted amount sits beside it rather than replacing it.
If no exchange rate is available, the Australian figure is left out rather than shown unconverted. Everything is converted to AUD for net worth and reporting, using the exchange rate for the day. See Multi-Currency Support for how conversion works.
Investments in Net Worth
Investment accounts contribute their full value, cash plus holdings, to your net worth. This shows up in three places:
- The Investments tile on the Net Worth report
- The net worth chart over time, valued using the prices that applied on each date
- The per-account breakdown in the Summary view
If you would rather an account stayed out of your net worth, turn off Include in Net Worth when you create or edit it.
See Net Worth Report for more.
Common Questions
Why is my cash balance zero?
Because every dollar is invested. Cash only shows money sitting uninvested with your broker. Look at Total Value for what the account is worth.
Why is my performance chart flat?
The security has little or no stored price history. Prices are fetched automatically when you add a holding, so give it a moment and reload. Update Prices will also refresh them.
Can I record shares I inherited or was granted?
Yes. Use Add Existing Holding and set the cost per share to their value on the day you received them. That becomes the cost basis your gains are measured from.
What if I hold the same stock in two accounts?
Record a holding in each account. Each one tracks its own share count and cost basis, and both feed your net worth.