Just wondering, does anyone know where I can find information on how to audit what Sharesight did/does when you deposit AUD then exchange it to USD? How do I track/ensure that Sharesight used/uses the conversion rate that Selfwealth used?
Hey Piumi
Thanks for reaching out! I think originally my question was probably related to that thread, but the more I clarify what’s occuring, I think what I’m asking is slightly different than that discussion.
I’d like to suggest there’s two fundamentals issues that need resolving.
- There is no logic to check/upload the AUD > USD Forex buy/sell on Selfwelath & Stake. (this point is what I think should be associated with this thread).
- The other thread (that you linked) should discuss how to handle the business logic when a USD stock is bought on Selfwealth/Stake. (Per my comment on the other thread, my suggestion is to create a duplicate sell transaction on the Sharesight user’s Forex ledger)
It’s a very similar discussion, but not the same.
So I think I’ve understood it. Right now, there’s no way for Sharesight to upload the AUD > USD sale because Selfwealth does not trigger an automatic email (to Sharesight) for this transaction.
This is painful because everytime a Stake/Selfwealth user converts AUD>USD, they need to manually create a Forex BUY.
So my feature request is to enable automatic USD FX Buys.
Does Sharesight have some contacts inside Selfwealth that they could reach out to and ask Selfwealth to send auto emails when a user buys USD?
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Hi Hunter
I use Self Wealth. You can easily set Self Wealth to email all stock transactions including US ones directly into Sharesight. You need to do this via the Self Wealth website not their app. In Self Wealth go into Trading Accounts then select the Contract Notes tab. Here you can add emails to send the contract to. Copy and paste the email from the SS email on the Integrations/Trade Confirmation Emails Tab.
That does not cater for your transaction of AUD cash into USD cash… selfwealth does not email when you buy the USD Cash… (cash… not stocks)
As a stake user myself, what is your reason to track a forex buy? As the cash holding is then depleted as you make your trades? or you wish to just show your cash component to your portfolio?
New Sharesight user, currently grappling with the same issue.
The scenario is this:
You start with AUD in your SW account.
- Transfer some to USD account
- Buy some US shares
- Sell the US shares
- Transfer the USD balance back to AUD
The problem seems to be that Sharesight tracks your FX gain/loss based on when you transacted the US shares (2 and 3), not when you converted your cash (1 and 4).
Hi @twofootedgiant referring to the first and fourth transactions you have mentioned; conversion of AUD to USD and then USD back to AUD are completely independent from trades made, we have no way of tracking such FX conversions or determining the exchange rate used for such conversion. Sharesight can identify an FX event only based on the market it takes place and the portfolio tax residency it is recorded. This is why you see the USD trade getting converted to the currency of your tax residency.
@huntermit @goronwyprice @KNOX @twofootedgiant thank you for contributing to this discussion.
There might not be a quick fix for this one, but we’ll get in touch with SelfWealth to bring this matter to their attention.
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My take would be that you have to account for the conversion when you do the trade not when you transfer the money back to AUD. On the day you do the trade as far as the ATO is concerned you have incurred a capital gain event and so it must go onto your tax return. Say for example you sell some Google shares for $USD10,000. You may keep that money in USD till the following tax year, buy some other US shares or transfer it back to AUD. So the only real way of accounting for the gain or loss is when it takes place, so you need a logically based exchange rate. I would use the Sharesight one. By definition the FX aspect of the capital gain or loss is there because you have a logically based exchange rate on each transaction.
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Thanks - I understand the limitation placed by the available data.
I guess my immediate need is to understand how I can manually account for FX gain / loss associated with a cash transaction (conversion of AUD to USD or vice versa) and occurs independently of any asset purchase or sale. I can’t see a cash account transaction type that will do this.
My current approach is to manually adjust the FX rates for the USD trades so that the end result of the 4 steps above is correct (and the currency gain/loss is then reported as part of the asset gain/loss). This is a bit of a pain though, and only works for my particular situation because I converted some cash, bought a US share, sold it, bought another US share, sold that, then converted everything back to AUD. So I have the solid reference point of “what is the difference between the AUD amount I originally converted to USD and the AUD amount I received when converting back again?”
If I were continuing to use the USD account to trade, and periodically transferring money between AUD and USD accounts, I would need to be able to directly track the FX gains / losses for the cash transactions (even if it was a manual process to enter the data).
The ATO website talks about using a foreign transaction account under $250,000 balance that you can ignore currency fluctuations for tax purposes. Is that applicable here? Would then probably be considered double dipping if we also claimed the exchange rate fee for deductions as well?
Hi, jumping in on this conversation because I have the same issue after paying good money for this site.
Why can’t the system work this out? The data is all there in the self wealth system and is included in the cash transaction report (CSV file). The problem seems to be sharesight not having this functionality which is why I came here in the first place.
Step 1 - transfer AUD cash to US cash
Step 2 - Buy MANY US stocks with US cash
Step 3 - Sell MANY US stocks for US cash
Step 4 - Sit on US cash for a bit
Step 5 - Transfer US cash back to AUD.
Obviously CGT does not only include gains/losses on sale of shares, but also movements in the FX rate. SOME of that is included in the AUD conversion of the share price (when bought/sold) but there are other CGT implications from the movement in the FX rate until the cash is transferred back to AUD. I cannot for the life of me find any report or any assistance with this - the CGT report seems useless unless it includes a breakdown of the gains/losses into the share component and FX component.
Please help.