Sharesight Review
Updated 25 October 2020
Summary of Sharesight
Overall, we take the view that Sharesight is best for any investor who makes their own investment decisions and wants real-time information about their portfolio to support their decision-making. The ongoing fees for anyone tracking more than 10 holdings jump to $171 - $432 per year, meaning for some people, the expense won't justify the benefits. The free version, however, is perfect for small investors who want to avoid the spreadsheet and accurately track the performance of their investments.
Our Sharesight review covers:
- Sharesight is not a trading platform; it is just a way to track investments you already own. It's a DIY platform designed to 'lose the spreadsheet' as it publicises on its website.
- The free version of Sharesight allows you to track 10 holdings (shares and funds etc), with subscription fees ranging from $19/month (20 holdings) to NZ$48/month (unlimited holdings).
- Sharesight is intuitive, easy to use and works on desktop, and on a phone or tablet using the Sharesight app.
- Brokers who sync client accounts with Sharesight are not common in New Zealand, meaning investors will need to update Sharesight manually. The only New Zealand broker that automatically syncs is Direct Brokers.
- You can compare the performance of your investments with over 200 different ETF funds to see if your investments are beating the market or not.
- If any numbers are out, which can happen with historical data, you can manually edit and correct them to match the actual transaction.
- Share prices are updated daily and users can run a number of reports, examples of which we outline below.
- You can generate IRD compliant tax reports through Sharesight that can make filing your tax return easier. This is available to every user, regardless of subscription level.
Overall, we take the view that Sharesight is best for any investor who makes their own investment decisions and wants real-time information about their portfolio to support their decision-making. The ongoing fees for anyone tracking more than 10 holdings jump to $171 - $432 per year, meaning for some people, the expense won't justify the benefits. The free version, however, is perfect for small investors who want to avoid the spreadsheet and accurately track the performance of their investments.
Our Sharesight review covers:
Sharesight - an Introduction
New Zealand-founded Sharesight has been around for over ten years, with the purpose of giving investors an insight into the performance of their entire investment portfolio in real-time. As the name suggests, Sharesight can keep track of your shareholdings, but it also has the ability to track cash assets and then send that data to third-parties such as Xero or your own accountant. In essence, Sharesight is a one-stop solution for managing an investment portfolio, helpfully based in the cloud with 24/7 access and support.
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Sharesight Review Performance Report (click to enlarge), covering % gains, FX movements and other metrics
Who is Sharesight Suited to?
Best For:
Not Suited for:
- “DIY” investors - those who buy and sell stocks themselves. With Sharesight you can track how your investment has done over time, and view reports based on real-time data.
- Investors with a small portfolio – as Sharesight subscription fees get more expensive the more holdings you have.
Not Suited for:
- Investors who have a broker manage their portfolio. You will generally need to input data yourself, so if you are not sure when certain stocks are bought/sold, your reports won't be accurate. In such instances, the broker should be able to provide performance reports which may substitute some Sharesight features.
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Standout Features
Sharesight is serious about its features, with a number of helpful tools and in-depth functionality to aid investment decisions and tracking performance. Standout features include:
- Integration with Xero to reconcile transactions - the software integrates directly with Xero to help you reconcile dividend payments and buy/sell transactions. You can also see your bank balances within Sharesight to give you an overall view of your financial position.
- Price alerts - You can set Sharesight to alert you to changes in stock prices so you can make informed decisions on whether to buy or sell individual holdings.
- Automatic dividend reporting – Sharesight automatically records dividend payments so you can easily factor these into the performance of your portfolio.
- Easy tax reports – Sharesight generates IRD compliant tax reports that can make filing your tax return easier. This report is available on all plans, including the free tier.
- Broker Email import – If you receive trade confirmation emails from a supported broker, you can forward this email to a user-specific email where Sharesight will import the transaction into your portfolio. Sharesight can automatically record your buy and sell trades into your portfolio via the PDF contract note (trade confirmation) attachments that are emailed to you by your broker after a trade has been completed.
- Benchmark your investment – Sharesight allows you to compare the performance of your investments with over 200 different ETF funds to see if your investments are beating the market or not.
Sharesight Limitations
- Syncing - Currently the only New Zealand broker that automatically syncs data with Sharesight is Direct Broking (Formally ANZ Securities). This means you need to manually record when you buy or sell shares or use the email import feature if you use another broker.
- Setup – If you don’t have your trades formatted in a CSV file that Sharesight can read, setting up your Sharesight portfolio could take some time. This means entering in buy prices, dates, quantities and other metrics to ensure your Sharesight reporting is accurate.
- Large portfolios - Sharesight does not support users with over 3,000 investments, and those with more than around 2,000 will not be able to run all reports. In reality, the occurrence of an individual investor holding more than 2,000 securities is relatively rare.
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Sharesight Performance Report Graph (click to enlarge), illustrating investment returns by a number of metrics
Sharesight Fees
Sharesight works as a 'freemium' model. It's free to sign up to and the free version lets you track up to 10 different shares (holdings). For those who require more, the fees are as follows:
Sharesight also offers Sharesight Pro, which offers all Sharesight’s features for those who are tracking many portfolios and is aimed at professionals such as accountants or financial advisors. We have not reviewed Sharesight Pro, but pricing details and feature information can be found here.
Pricing - what to watch out for:
- $19 per month / $171 per year – Up to 20 holdings within one portfolio
- $31 per month / $279 per year – unlimited holdings within three portfolios, plus more reports and Xero integration
- $48 per month / $432 per year – unlimited holdings within four portfolios, plus all available reports, ability to create 5 custom groups and priority support
Sharesight also offers Sharesight Pro, which offers all Sharesight’s features for those who are tracking many portfolios and is aimed at professionals such as accountants or financial advisors. We have not reviewed Sharesight Pro, but pricing details and feature information can be found here.
Pricing - what to watch out for:
- Be aware that the free version only allows you to track 10 holdings.
- For many investors with diversified portfolios, a limit of 10 will not be enough.
- For this reason, a lot of investors will fall into the $19 or $31 per month plans, an ongoing expense for some smaller investors might not make sense financially.
- The free plan only offer 'community forum support', and no Sharesight customer service. To get chat support, you need to upgrade to Sharesight's $19/month 'Starter' plan.
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Sharesight Tax Reporting (click to enlarge) details imputation credits, foreign income and RWT obligations
Sharesight FAQs
Is Sharesight secure?
As you would expect with any website dealing with financial information, Sharesight encrypts your information which means that it is virtually impossible for people without the encryption keys to read your data. A popular method of securing your account further is to enable two-factor authentication. This is a standard feature offered by Sharesight, and makes it much harder for unauthorised people to access your account.
Doesn’t my broker already provide this information for me?
If you are looking into Sharesight, then you are probably after more features than your broker provides. Generally, your broker will give you a report on the holdings you own, and general market trends. Sharesight allows you to dig into your investments and track how they are doing. What Sharesight will not do though, is give you individual investment advice, whereas a broker will.
What are the alternatives to Sharesight, and what do they cost?
- The most obvious alternative is a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. If you can find or make a template that works well, that could give you everything you need.
- Google Finance can track different shares over time (you will need a Google account to do this). Despite the power and depth of Google's investment data, the reality is the features offered are very limited, and Sharesight is now seen as the successor to Google Finance.
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Sharesight App (click to enlarge) outlining portfolio performance
Sharesight Apps
Sharesight offers apps for both the Apple App Store and Google Play. Overall, user ratings are positive, although user experience issues flagged for improvement include:
- The inability to save the way you view your funds - there are no features to allow personalised settings (such as dollar or percentage, filters and investment groupings etc), so on each app visit, your portfolio is presented to you in the default setting mode.
- As a stand-alone app, $19/month seems expensive relative to the standard price of an app. However, our view here is that the app can't be a stripped down version of the website, and we see it more as a free add-on than an individual tool.
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Sharesight: Our Conclusion
- Sharesight have a solid offering, and have a track record of continuously adding new features and improving the product.
- With the free membership tier, you can import a few holdings and load trades as you make them, and see if Sharesight adds value to your investment decision-making and performance tracking.
- If your share broker is not currently supported by Sharesight, there are two alternatives of data sources - direct import or email import. If these are not options to you, Sharesight can be time-consuming to set up. The best approach is to go for automation, and once done, Sharesight makes it easy to keep on top of things.
- If your investments declare dividends, Sharesight helpfully has an automatic process that suggests dividend payments.
- We like the fact that despite being a New Zealand company, Sharesight is widely used in Australia, the UK, Singapore, Canada and the USA, meaning its expansion benefits users by continuously offering new product features.
Want to know more, or sign up to Sharesight? Visit their website for more information.
Do you have experience using Sharesight and have something to share?
Email our research team today.
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