How to track your shares in Australia

February 28, 2026

TrackMyShares Team

If you own shares on the ASX, keeping an accurate record of your holdings is not optional. The ATO expects you to report capital gains and dividend income at tax time, and without good records you risk overpaying tax or scrambling to reconstruct your trading history every June.

Beyond compliance, tracking your portfolio properly helps you understand your actual investment performance, plan your next moves, and avoid costly mistakes. In this guide, we walk through how to set up share tracking for an Australian portfolio using TrackMyShares.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or tax advice. Consult a qualified tax professional or financial adviser before making investment decisions.

Why tracking matters for Australian investors

Many Australian investors rely on their broker app to check share prices. That gives you a snapshot of what your holdings are worth today, but it does not tell you the full story.

A dedicated portfolio tracker provides:

Accurate cost base records for every holding, which you need when calculating capital gains at tax time
Dividend tracking including franking credits, which directly affect your tax return
Performance measurement across your entire portfolio, not just individual stocks
A single view if you hold shares across multiple brokers like CommSec, SelfWealth, or Stake

The ATO requires you to keep records of every share transaction for at least five years after you sell. Starting with a proper tracking system saves you from digging through old broker statements later.

Setting up your Australian portfolio

Getting started with TrackMyShares takes just a few minutes.

Create a portfolio and set the market to ASX and the currency to AUD
Choose between a simple portfolio (enter shares and average cost) or a transaction-based portfolio (record individual buy and sell trades)
Start adding your holdings by searching for any ASX-listed stock or ETF

TrackMyShares covers all ASX-listed securities, including individual stocks like BHP, CBA, and CSL, as well as popular ETFs like VAS, VDHG, VGS, and A200.

Prices are updated throughout the day, so your portfolio value stays current without needing to refresh manually.

For investors who want detailed tax reporting and lot-level tracking, a transaction-based portfolio is the better option. It allows TrackMyShares to calculate your capital gains and losses automatically based on your actual purchase history.

Importing trades from Australian brokers

If you have an existing trading history, you do not need to enter every transaction by hand. Most Australian brokers let you export your trade history as a CSV file.

TrackMyShares supports CSV imports that work with exports from popular platforms. There are dedicated import guides for CommSec, SelfWealth, Stake, Superhero, and CMC Markets. The import tool maps your columns automatically where possible and lets you review everything before confirming. If you have exports from multiple years or brokers, the CSV merge tool lets you combine them into a single file before importing.

This is particularly useful if you have years of trading history that would take hours to enter manually. Import your full history once, and from then on you only need to add new trades as they happen.

You can also set up email transaction forwarding to automatically log trades. Forward your broker confirmation emails to your portfolio's unique email address, and TrackMyShares parses the details and queues them for your review. This keeps your portfolio up to date without manual entry after each trade.

Tracking dividends and franking credits

Dividends are a significant part of returns for many Australian investors. Companies like the big four banks, Telstra, and Wesfarmers pay regular dividends, often with franking credits attached.

TrackMyShares helps you track your dividends in several ways:

Dividend yields displayed for each holding
Projected annual income across your portfolio
Dividend calendar showing expected payment dates month by month
Historical dividend payments tracked over time

Franking credits are especially important for Australian investors because they reduce your tax liability. A fully franked dividend from a company that paid the 30% corporate tax rate means you receive a tax credit for the tax already paid. If your marginal tax rate is lower than 30%, you may even receive a refund of the difference.

Keeping accurate dividend records, including the franking credit component, makes your tax return significantly easier to complete.

Monitoring performance

Once your holdings are in, the TrackMyShares dashboard gives you a clear view of where you stand:

Total portfolio value and daily change
Total gain or loss on each holding and overall
Allocation breakdown showing how your portfolio is distributed across individual stocks, sectors, or asset types
Performance chart tracking your portfolio value over time
Benchmark comparison to see how your returns compare against the ASX 200 or S&P 500

Understanding your actual returns (not just whether the share price went up) is essential for making informed decisions about rebalancing, taking profits, or adding to positions.

If you hold shares across multiple brokers, consolidated portfolios let you create separate portfolios for each broker and then view them as one combined portfolio for analysis and reporting.

TrackMyShares also supports portfolio rebalancing, which lets you set target allocations for each holding and see trade recommendations to bring your portfolio back in line. This is useful after a market run-up shifts your allocation away from your plan.

You can set up push notifications or email notifications to receive daily portfolio updates with your current value and daily change, so you stay informed without needing to log in.

Staying on top of tax obligations

Australia's financial year runs from 1 July to 30 June, and capital gains tax (CGT) is one of the most common areas where share investors need to report.

When you sell shares for more than you paid (including brokerage fees), you have a capital gain. If you held the shares for more than 12 months, you may be eligible for the 50% CGT discount, which halves the taxable gain.

TrackMyShares helps you stay prepared:

Tax reports break down your realised gains and losses for any financial year
Short-term vs long-term classification so you know which gains qualify for the CGT discount
Tax-loss harvesting analysis to identify holdings with unrealised losses that could offset your gains

You can learn more about how CGT works on the capital gains tax page, including worked examples and the CGT calculator.

Rather than scrambling to gather records in June, keeping your portfolio up to date throughout the year means your EOFY reporting is already done when you need it.

Record keeping requirements

The ATO requires you to keep the following records for every share transaction:

The date you bought and sold the shares
The number of shares in each transaction
The purchase price and sale price
Any costs associated with buying or selling (brokerage fees, for example)
Dividend statements including franking credit details

These records must be kept for at least five years from the date you lodge the tax return that includes the disposal. A portfolio tracker that records this information as you go is far more reliable than trying to piece it together from old emails and broker statements.

Get started

Beyond shares, you can also track manual assets like investment properties, cash accounts, and collectibles, as well as precious metals like gold and silver. This gives you a complete picture of your net worth in one place.

TrackMyShares is free to start with support for up to 20 holdings. The PRO plan unlocks unlimited holdings, multiple portfolios, transaction tracking, tax reports, dividend calendars, and more.