How a Swiss accountant uses Sharesight to track global portfolios

We talk to Paul Kümin from HMT Partners about how the Swiss-based accounting consultancy uses Sharesight's professional plan to track clients’ international investment portfolios. We also discuss why the new Multi-Currency Valuation Report is so useful, and why Sharesight is the best tool for clients with investments across different banks, markets and currencies.

1. Tell us about HMT Partners and what you do there.

HMT Partners is a Swiss company that specialises in accounting, payroll administration, tax and consulting services for national and international customers. It is a small company owned by my partner, who does the account bookkeeping while I work more as a part-time consultant and specialist for accounting and consolidation projects.

2. What made you decide to use Sharesight?

I had been using Sharesight for my private investments for about half a year when my partner got a new client with a huge investment portfolio. I think it’s running at CHF 32 million now, spread out over several banks – a big accounting challenge because everything would be in different currencies and for account/bookkeeping purposes in Switzerland you need to have everything in Swiss Francs. I told her I know this very neat web tool called Sharesight, which I’ve been using because I was so annoyed about spreadsheets and the inability to handle foreign exchange differences correctly.

Most of the tools or tutorials you find on the web are written or built by Americans and they don’t have that issue [of handling foreign exchange differences]. They think in US dollars, while Switzerland is very different because the share market is not that big here and everybody invests in foreign currencies.

In my private portfolios I had like 7, 8 or 9 different currencies. And I was so annoyed because I couldn’t see that – no spreadsheet ever gave me the information of how much money I was making or losing on the investment itself and what was the impact of the foreign exchange. Sharesight gives me that.

So since last summer, we’ve put everything our main client has in terms of portfolios onto Sharesight and shared access with him. I think we have one or two smaller clients also going into Sharesight now, but it’s mainly one big client that is a very large engagement for us.

3. How does Sharesight add value to your clients?

Sharesight is clearly additional value for our bookkeeping service package. Sharesight is just about the only tool I know that gives us the ability to track historical Forex results on individual investments or whole portfolios. And out of that you get something that is very valuable to the client.

I think our main client used to have somebody in India who was tracking his investments, because we would get some questions like, "How did you come up with this profit and loss position in your profit and loss statement?" And we haven’t heard anything like that now for several months. So I think he saved some money elsewhere because he got the information for free from us.

4. Which features do you find the most useful?

Multi-Currency Valuation Report

The introduction of the Multi-Currency Valuation Report is excellent. This is really something we need because our main client thinks in US dollars but as his company’s in Switzerland we have to do our books in Swiss Francs. There are also several other clients, most of them Russian or from the Middle East, who think in US Dollars or Bitcoin. I have to be able to track everything in multiple currencies, so the Multi-Currency Valuation Report is just fantastic. I’m really quite excited at the speed you have in introducing new features, solving problems and answering questions.

Other reports

We also use the All Trades Report and the Performance Report regularly. We use these reports to reconcile our bookkeeping with Sharesight. At the end of every month, we get all the trading vouchers from all the portfolios and reconcile everything.

Consolidated Views

We use the Consolidated View because we run several different portfolios for every different bank just to make reconciliation easier. Our main client has six active banks right now but he’s not thinking in six banks – he wants to know what the big picture is. So the Consolidated View is very important.

Try Sharesight for professionals today

If you’re an accountant or financial advisor looking for an investment tracking platform that both you and your clients will love, there has never been a better time to trial Sharesight's professional, and enjoy:

• The ability to aggregate – Track any combination of brokers or managed funds and over 40 worldwide exchanges.

• Automated portfolio admin – Automatically track new trades and dividend income (including DRPs).

• Powerful performance reporting – Access Sharesight’s performance reports at your fingertips instead of waiting for a third party.

• Advanced tax reporting – Taxable Income, All Trades and Sold Securities

• Direct portfolio sharing with clients

Put Sharesight's professional plan to the test with a free 30-day no-risk trial – there are no billing details or credit card required and you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel at any time.

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FURTHER READING

• 7 reasons why Sharesight is better than a spreadsheet

• Benefits of Sharesight Pro vs WRAP platforms

• How financial advisors meet AFSL requirements with Sharesight Pro