Over the years I built my own portfolio tracker (the multi-asset tracker) and I’ve shared it on this website¹. I’ll be the first to admit it’s not terribly user-friendly, which is somewhat understandable since I built it for myself.

If you want to take a look at another Google Sheet tracker that is fully documented and more user friendly, then you might want to take a look at Portfolio Tracker.

I’m not sure where I first encountered this tool; possibly on Reddit or perhaps the Financial Wisdom Forum.

Anyway, the brains behind this tool are substantial, and I bow to the organization and wizardry of the author. For people who adhere to the idea of asset allocation as a way to make investment decisions, you won’t find a better fit.

So, in a nutshell, what does it do?

• It allows you to track the value of your portfolio across multiple brokerage accounts using multiple data sources for near-real time quotes²
• It allows you to set up your own asset classes to track and to set individual targets for each, both at the portfolio level and at the account level³.
• It will show you how far off you are from your targets and make high-level recommendations for where (what account) to buy/sell to get back on track

One very nice feature of Portfolio Tracker is that a given asset can be divided up into multiple asset classes. For fans of asset allocation funds (like me) this is a critical feature. With this feature you can accurately depict that (say) XEQT is 25% Canadian equity and 45% US Equity.

Once I figured out the terms used in Portfolio Tracker, it was pretty straightforward to enter my own portfolio across the 5 RRIF, 2 TFSAs and 3 non-registered accounts.

What confused me at the beginning about Portfolio Tracker is that it has more layers than I’m used to:

• It starts with asset. Like XGRO, AOA or ZMMK. So far so good.
• Assets belong to one (or more) asset classes. If more than one, the percentage has to add up to 100%. Asset classes are where I focus my attention: Portfolio Tracker has more of them than I need⁴ by default but you can define as many or as few as you like.
• Asset classes in turn belong to a unique Asset Category)⁵.; a given Asset Category can be the parent of multiple asset classes (e.g. US Small Cap and US Total Market asset classes are both included in the US Equity Asset Category)
• And asset categories roll up into Parents (stocks, bonds, short-term)

One minor point of confusion to the Canadian user is the inclusion of TIPS which is a uniquely US investment vehicle. In Canada you can buy real return bonds or buy ETFs that hold TIPS if you wish. I don’t bother with either myself.

The only limitation I could find in this tool was that it didn’t support multiple currencies. If you hold USD assets (as I do), that is a very serious limitation, but one that I could (and did) correct myself pretty easily with a few changes. When I sent a note to the provided support email on that limitation, the author promptly replied and admitted it was not the first time someone had asked about it.

I recommend this tool as a user-friendly introduction to tracking your own portfolio.

1. I’ve built a new version based on pivot tables; on my to-do list is to make it generic enough to share. The new design lifts some ideas from Portfolio Tracker, in fact. ↩︎
2. At one time my own tracker did this too but as it requires web scraping code it breaks pretty frequently, and in the mean time googlefinance() has become much more reliable ↩︎
3. I’ve only really cared about portfolio level, but I have some broad rules about what goes where at the account level. TFSA: Equity only. RRIF: only place outside of the cash cushion where cash can be held. And the only place I hold bond funds. Non registered: equity only. ↩︎
4. It divides US Equity into small cap (“US Small Cap”) and total market (“US Total Market”). This particular example I found a bit weird since logically “US Small Cap” is normally considered part (albeit a very small part) of the “US Total Market”. ↩︎
5. Asset Categories for me are a level of detail I don’t need. If you set them to be the same as your Asset Classes then they effectively aren’t used. Although probably best to given them “AC”names so you don’t get mixed up, e.g. US Equity asset class belongs to US Equity AC asset category. ↩︎