How to track your investment portfolio in Australia

Why tracking matters more than most investors realise

Most Australian investors check their portfolio balance periodically and assume that tells them how they're performing. It doesn't. Your balance going up doesn't mean you're getting good returns — it might just mean you've been contributing more money. And your balance going down doesn't mean your returns are bad — it might be a temporary market dip on an otherwise excellent portfolio.

True portfolio tracking answers different questions: What is my actual annual return? How do my dividends and franking credits affect my total return? Am I ahead of or behind a benchmark like the ASX 200? What are my capital gains for tax purposes? Without proper tracking, you're flying blind on all of these.

What a good portfolio tracker should show you

• True total return — price growth plus dividends, not just one or the other
• Franking credits — Australian ETFs and shares often carry franking credits that boost after-tax returns; most trackers ignore these
• Return vs benchmark — are you beating the ASX 200 or underperforming it?
• Capital gains summary — what you'd owe if you sold, and which holdings qualify for the 50% CGT discount
• Dividend history — when you were paid, how much, and the franking credit attached
• Performance across time periods — 1 month, 1 year, 3 years, since inception
• Multiple accounts in one view — personal broker account, partner's account

Option 1: Your broker's built-in tools

Every Australian brokerage (CommSec, Stake, Pearler, Nabtrade etc) shows you your current holdings and their value. This is fine for seeing what you own and your unrealised gains, but it has significant limitations:

• Only shows holdings at that broker — if you have multiple brokers, you can't see a combined view
• Doesn't calculate your true annualised return correctly when you've made multiple purchases at different prices and times
• Typically doesn't handle franking credits, DRIP units, or corporate actions automatically
• Tax reporting is minimal — you'll need to export and calculate CGT yourself

Best for: investors with a single broker account who just want to see current holdings.

Option 2: A spreadsheet

Many Australian investors start with a spreadsheet — typically tracking purchase price, current price, units held, and a rough gain/loss calculation. This works early on but becomes painful quickly:

• Manual data entry for every transaction, dividend, and corporate action
• Calculating true time-weighted return (TWR) correctly requires complex formulas
• Franking credits require additional manual tracking
• CGT calculations for multiple parcels with different cost bases are error-prone
• No benchmark comparison without additional data sources

Best for: investors with very simple portfolios (1-3 holdings, no reinvestment) who want full control.

Option 3: A dedicated portfolio tracker

Dedicated portfolio tracking tools are built specifically for investors who want accurate returns, tax reporting, and benchmark comparisons without manual data entry. For Australian investors, Sharesight is the most widely used and purpose-built option.

Sharesight: what it does and why Australian investors use it

Sharesight is a portfolio tracking platform built with Australian investors in mind. Unlike generic tools, it handles the things that make Australian investing uniquely complex: franking credits, CGT discount calculations, DRIP units, and ASX corporate actions.

Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. If you sign up through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

What Sharesight tracks that other tools miss

How to set up Sharesight in 15 minutes

1. Sign up for a free account — the free plan covers up to 10 holdings which suits most beginners
2. Create a portfolio and name it (e.g. "My ETF Portfolio")
3. Add your holdings — either by connecting your broker for automatic import, or manually entering your trades (date, units, price paid)
4. Sharesight automatically pulls historical prices, dividend data, and franking credit information
5. Your dashboard shows your true return, benchmark comparison, and dividend history immediately
6. At EOFY, generate the tax report — it produces an ATO-ready summary of dividends, franking credits, and capital gains

Set up your Sharesight account →

How often should you check your portfolio?

One of the most common mistakes Australian investors make is checking their portfolio too often. Daily checking leads to emotional decisions — selling during temporary dips, over-reacting to short-term noise. Here's a simple tracking schedule:

The franking credit tracking problem

This is the tracking issue most unique to Australian investors. When an Australian company or ETF like VAS pays a dividend with franking credits attached, those credits represent tax already paid by the company on your behalf. At tax time, you receive a credit against your tax liability — which can be worth thousands of dollars annually for a large portfolio.

Most portfolio trackers, spreadsheets, and broker apps don't track franking credits properly. Sharesight automatically records the franking credit attached to each dividend and includes it in both your return calculation and your EOFY tax report.

Managing your budget alongside your portfolio

Portfolio tracking tells you how your investments are performing. Budget tracking tells you how much you can invest. The two work best together.

Related guides

• How to start investing in Australia: step by step
• Dollar-cost averaging vs lump sum
• Compound interest mistakes to avoid
• ETF vs savings account: pros and cons
• Starting investing at 40
• Money Growth calculator
• Retirement calculator