Notes and Documents at the share and portfolio level

At the share level

I see within a share holding you provide a notes section that you can make a note on a holding.

This is an incredibly useful tool however it could be improved by two features.

  1. The ability to add an external document
  2. The tax year its related to

For LIC and Trusts, they often come out with an end of year tax document that you need to give to your accountant. They don’t specifically relate to a single dividend as you may may multiple dividends.

For unlisted investments held particularly in Super you need to get a valuation statement for the auditor.

When it comes to a partial demerger Wesfarmers splitting out Coles or Woolworths splitting out Endeavour again the documents as to how or on what basis you did the split are vital to retain.

It is a requirement to retain your CGT documents for 5 years after you dispose of the asset Asset document retention from the ATO This of course includes all the Purchase and conversion documentation. Say you originally had Coles, got taken over by Wesfarmers (so you had WES and WESN) and now spun back to Coles! It’s almost like family history!

So from Sept 1985 when CGT started you need to keep a lot of documents because even though it was acquired in 1986 you need to retain that till 5 years after you sell in in 2022 so that is 2027 - 41 years! This is why I tend to scan everything and what I look at Navexa for, apart from giving me portfolio and compliance side is filing system.

These are but a few examples of where there may be a note required on the share but not tied to a purchase or a dividend event. I’m sure there will be others but the ability to pen a note and attach a document would be incredibly useful.

Within the portfolio side I pin the documents relating to dividends, purchase, sale etc but not everything fits in that neat world.

This whole process becomes more useful when you have to cover the Anti-Money Laundering brigade of “where did the money come from?”. Having the story and having the documentation at hand helps.

While you currently record the date of making the note often you would want to sort on tax year, which would make the accountant’s job a little easier. So you really want two dates… the date you made the note as you did and the tax year the note relates to… This field should be optional as there may be documents that don’t relate to a single tax year.

At the Portfolio Level

At the portfolio level having a notes or similar section at the share level could be very helpful with the features defined above.

For example, SMSF’s are required to have an investment policy document. What a better place to put the document but in a notes area at the portfolio level.

Again if you are trying to keep the portfolio on track but not running a full set of accounts behind it large capital inflows could be noted here.

The requirements of Anti-Money Laundering will only get more complex over time. It becomes not only useful for you but when you start to transfer wealth between generations, often the story gets lost on the death of one party. The requirements however don’t seem to go away.

I agree with this, and while all the points brought up here are true, I would like to add that it would also be a great way to keep track of a investment thesis. Being able to add documents to an individual trade would also allow for a historical account of each trade. I have found this to be extremely useful when an investment goes sidewise.

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Hi @John_Talon you can add a doc to a trade already I was talking about adding to a share as a whole like a annual tax report or relevant notice from company unfortunately like I got fro MRG (receivership) so it still exists as an investment as this is the first stop to liquidation (the end). Cheers. Mike.