So you’ve started investing and want to know what the deal with Sharesight is. Well here is my personal experience, and my plans for use in the future. Please note that none of the links within this article are referral or affiliate links. I receive no benefit from Sharesight at all for sharing my experience.
So what is Sharesight?
Sharesight sells itself as the Best Share Portfolio tracker for Australian Investors. In a nutshell it’s a web application accessed through your web browser (i.e Google Chrome, Safari, Edge etc) that allows you to track your shares, your portfolio performance over time and gives you access to investment reporting.
How much is Sharesight?
Sharesight is FREE for those with 10 or less shareholdings, which makes it a popular choice for new investors looking for a simple to track their portfolio. For those with over 10 holdings or those who are wanting some of the more advanced features of the platform then prices start at $19 a month (and max out at $48 a month). Pricing information is available here.
What does the Sharesight platform look like?
Sharesight is quite easy to use and easy to understand. The user interface is quite simple with clear menu tabs at the top providing the following options;
- Overview Tab (as per screenshot) – This gives you an overall view of your portfolio as per your own personal settings (including timeframe, graph type eg line, stacked, or growth, and lastly you can also view by group). I personally like to keep it simple and like to see my calendar year, stacked graph type and default grouping.
- Holdings Tab – This provides you with a sub menu to view your holdings individually and then drilldown into their individual performance. It provides you with a summary performance graph, a breakdown of trade cost and date, current holding details (eg share price) and any income associated with the holding (share).
- Reports Tab – This tab provides you with a list of 10 reports. 6 of these reports are included in the FREE version of Sharesight and the other 4 are available in the paid options. Sharesight offers a sample of the paid reports so you can try before you invest in a paid membership.
- Settings Tab – This tab allows you to customise your portfolio to your current setup. It has a range of different settings you can customise from basic settings like the name of your portfolio to more complex settings. You can adjust tax settings for use as an individual, , trust, company or SMSF in this section. You can also customise the frequency of Sharesight alerts to your inbox (I enjoy getting my weekly portfolio summary). Lastly you can share your portfolio with others which is great if you have a partner who doesn’t want to set up an account but wants to stay informed (eg like mine).
- Integrations Tab – Full disclosure I haven’t used any integrations during my time with Sharesight, however I feel its important to note the features available including Xero integration (please note this integration is only available to those on investor or expert plans). There are also integrations available within in the free plan that may be appealing including auto recognition of trades via the emails that your broker sends you each time you make a trade (buy or sell). I personally prefer to add mine in manually, but each to their own.
- Help Tab – Lastly the Help tab links you to Sharesight Community, the Sharesight Blog, and contact details to send a specific issue you may have to the Sharesight team.
How do I get started with Sharesight?
It’s fairly straightforward setting up your Sharesight account itself, and you just need to provide your email account and basic personal details.
How do I add my previous trades (buy/sell)
When I started with Sharesight I had already been trading shares for a couple of months and had to add my trades in. Adding your trade history is a lot easier than it sounds and Sharesight gives you three options:
- Import from a Broker (if your broker is listed here )
- Manually add a trade
- Import from CSV (Excel file)
What are my favourite features of Sharesight?
- The overview performance page of Sharesight is great, and I challenge you to try not to log into it everyday once you sign up (it’s pretty addictive tracking your progress and seeing your portfolio grow).
- The FREE End of Year Taxable Income Report is a real game changer for helping you manage your end of financial year tax obligations. I manage my tax myself and this report makes it easy to continue to do so.
- Lastly I’m a bit of a one trick pony when it comes to investing (I choose to invest in only one holding currently), however I love the Share Checker function. Its located next to the Add Holdings button on the Overview Screen (see screenshot below). It allows you to enter a holding and check the performance of $10000 invested in it over a set period of time (eg the calendar year). It then provides you with some really powerful insights into where you would be.
So should you set up a Sharesight account?
It’s 100% free to start a Sharesight account provided you don’t have over 10 holdings. As Sharesight is a financial product I’m not qualified to give you any recommendation on this product so please check out the links and make your own mind up.
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Frank on FIRE 