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Managing Investment Accounts

Investment accounts in Sure go beyond simple balance tracking. They help you understand your portfolio through holdings, trades, cost basis tracking, and investment activity labels.

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Understanding Holdings

A holding represents your position in a specific security. For example, if you own 50 shares of Apple stock, that’s one holding. Each holding tracks:
  • Security - What you own (stock, ETF, mutual fund, crypto)
  • Quantity - How many shares or units you hold
  • Price - Current market price per share
  • Amount - Total current value (quantity x price)
  • Cost Basis - What you originally paid

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Recording Trades

Investment accounts support manual trade entry to track your buy and sell activity.

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Trade Types

When recording a trade, you can specify:
  • Buy: Purchase of securities
  • Sell: Sale of securities
  • Dividend: Dividend income (recorded as a trade with qty: 0 and price: 0)
  • Interest: Interest income (recorded as a trade with qty: 0 and price: 0)

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Recording Dividends and Interest

Dividends and interest are recorded as trades to maintain data integrity: Dividends:
  • Require a security selection (the security that paid the dividend)
  • Recorded with qty: 0 and price: 0
  • Amount represents the dividend payment received
Interest:
  • Security selection is optional
  • If no security is selected, Sure creates a synthetic cash security for the account
  • Recorded with qty: 0 and price: 0
  • Amount represents the interest earned
This approach ensures all investment income is properly tracked while maintaining the requirement that trades reference a security.

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Transaction Fees

Trades support an optional fee field to track transaction costs:
  • Fees are included in the total amount calculation: qty × price + fee
  • Fees default to 0 if not specified
  • Useful for tracking brokerage commissions, exchange fees, or other trading costs
For example:
  • Buy 10 shares at 100/sharewitha100/share with a 5 fee = $1,005 total
  • Sell 10 shares at 110/sharewitha110/share with a 5 fee = $1,095 total (proceeds after fee)
To add a fee to a trade:
  1. Open the trade form (create or edit)
  2. Enter the fee amount in the fee field
  3. The total amount updates automatically to include the fee
Fees are automatically factored into your cost basis calculations and realized gains/losses.

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Securities Types

Sure supports various security types:

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Cost Basis Tracking

Cost basis is the original purchase price of your investments. It’s essential for:
  • Calculating gains and losses
  • Understanding investment performance
  • Tax reporting

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Cost Basis Sources

Sure tracks cost basis from three sources, in order of priority: This hierarchy ensures your manual entries always take precedence, calculated values override provider data, and provider data is used when nothing else is available.

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Setting Cost Basis Manually

You can set cost basis in two ways: From the Holdings List:
  1. Navigate to your investment account
  2. Find the holding in your portfolio
  3. Click the pencil icon next to the average cost
  4. Enter either:
    • Total cost basis: The total amount you paid for all shares
    • Per-share cost: The average price per share
  5. Click Save
From the Holding Drawer:
  1. Click on a holding to open its detail drawer
  2. In the Overview section, click the pencil icon next to “Average Cost”
  3. Enter the cost basis (total or per-share)
  4. Click Save
[!TIP] The cost basis editor provides real-time conversion between total and per-share values. Enter whichever format you have available, and Sure calculates the other automatically.

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Lock Protection

When you manually set a cost basis, Sure automatically locks it to prevent automatic updates from overwriting your value. You’ll see a lock icon indicating the value is protected. This ensures your manual entries remain intact during account syncs.

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Unlocking Cost Basis

If you want Sure to recalculate cost basis from your trades:
  1. Open the holding drawer
  2. Scroll to the Settings section
  3. Find “Cost basis locked”
  4. Click Unlock
After unlocking:
  • The lock icon disappears
  • Future syncs can update the cost basis
  • Calculated values (from trades) will replace the manual value

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Recording Trades

Investment accounts support recording various types of trades to track your portfolio activity.

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Trade Types

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Recording Dividends and Interest

Dividends and interest are recorded as trades with zero quantity and zero price, allowing them to be associated with specific securities while maintaining data integrity. Dividends:
  • Require a security selection (the stock/fund paying the dividend)
  • Recorded as a trade with qty: 0 and price: 0
  • Amount represents the dividend payment received
Interest:
  • Security selection is optional
  • When no security is selected, Sure creates a synthetic cash security for the account
  • Recorded as a trade with qty: 0 and price: 0
  • Amount represents the interest earned
To record a dividend or interest payment:
  1. Navigate to your investment account
  2. Click + New Trade
  3. Select Dividend or Interest from the type dropdown
  4. For dividends: Select the security that paid the dividend
  5. For interest: Optionally select a security, or leave blank for cash interest
  6. Enter the amount received
  7. Set the date
  8. Click Save
[!NOTE] Dividends require a security selection, while interest can be recorded without one. When no security is selected for interest, Sure automatically creates a per-account synthetic cash security (kind: cash, offline: true) to maintain data integrity.

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Trade Fees

All trades support an optional fee field to track transaction costs:
  • Fees are included in the total amount calculation: total = (qty × price) + fee
  • Fees default to 0 if not specified
  • Fees are tracked separately for accurate cost basis calculations

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Investment Activity Labels

Activity labels help you classify investment transactions. They appear as badges in your transaction list and help you understand your investment activity at a glance.

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Recording Dividends and Interest

Dividends and interest are recorded as trades with zero quantity and zero price. This approach maintains data integrity while properly tracking investment income:
  • Dividends require a security to be selected (the stock or fund paying the dividend)
  • Interest can optionally specify a security, or will use a synthetic cash security for the account
  • Both appear in your holdings and trade history
  • Both are properly labeled with their respective activity types
  • The zero-quantity, zero-price approach preserves the trade model’s required security association
When creating a dividend or interest transaction:
  1. Select Dividend or Interest from the trade type dropdown
  2. For dividends: Choose the security paying the dividend (required)
  3. For interest: Optionally select a security, or leave blank to use the account’s cash position
  4. Enter the amount received
  5. The trade is created with qty: 0 and price: 0, maintaining the security association

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Trade Fees

All trades support an optional fee field to track transaction costs like brokerage commissions, exchange fees, or other trading expenses.

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How Fees Work

  • Fees are included in the total transaction amount: Total = (Quantity × Price) + Fee
  • Fees default to 0 if not specified
  • Fees can be added when creating or editing trades
  • The fee field auto-submits like other trade fields

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Adding Fees to Trades

When creating or editing a trade:
  1. Enter the quantity and price as usual
  2. Add the fee amount in the Fee field
  3. The total amount updates automatically to include the fee
  4. Save the trade
Example: Buying 10 shares at 50witha50 with a 5 commission:
  • Quantity: 10
  • Price: $50
  • Fee: $5
  • **Total: 505∗∗(10×505** (10 × 50 + $5)
Fees are particularly important for:
  • Accurate cost basis calculations
  • Understanding true investment returns
  • Tax reporting and record keeping

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Available Activity Labels

[!NOTE] Dividends and interest are recorded as trades with zero quantity and zero price. Dividends require a security selection, while interest can optionally use a synthetic cash security if no specific security is selected.

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Setting Labels Manually

  1. Open a transaction from an investment or crypto account
  2. Scroll to the Settings section
  3. Find “Activity type”
  4. Select a label from the dropdown
  5. The change saves automatically

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Setting Labels with Rules

Create rules to automatically label transactions based on patterns:
  1. Go to Settings > Rules
  2. Create a new rule
  3. Set conditions (e.g., “IF transaction name contains ‘DIVIDEND’”)
  4. Add action: “Set investment activity label”
  5. Choose the label (e.g., “Dividend”)
  6. Save the rule
Example rules:
  • IF name contains “DIVIDEND” THEN set label to “Dividend”
  • IF name contains “INTEREST” THEN set label to “Interest”
  • IF name contains “FEE” THEN set label to “Fee”
[!NOTE] Internal movement labels (Transfer, Sweep In, Sweep Out, Exchange) are automatically excluded from budget calculations since they represent cash management rather than income or expenses.

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Tax Treatment Categories

Investment accounts have different tax implications based on their type: Sure automatically assigns tax treatment based on account subtype, but you can adjust it manually if needed.

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Understanding Gains and Losses

Sure helps you track two types of gains:

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Unrealized Gains/Losses

Paper gains or losses on holdings you still own:
If you bought 10 shares at 100(100 (1,000 total) and they’re now worth 1,200,youhaveanunrealizedgainof1,200, you have an unrealized gain of 200.

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Realized Gains/Losses

Actual gains or losses from securities you’ve sold. These are what matter for taxes. The Trend indicator on each holding shows your unrealized gain or loss, calculated from your cost basis. If cost basis is unknown (no trades and no manual entry), the trend won’t display.

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Crypto-Specific Features

Crypto accounts work similarly to investment accounts but have unique characteristics:
  • Exchange accounts support manual trade entry, letting you record buys and sells
  • Wallet accounts are sync-only, holdings are updated through provider connections
Crypto is taxable by default, though it can be held in tax-advantaged accounts (for example, a self-directed IRA).

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Adding Investment Accounts

  1. Click + Add Account on your dashboard
  2. Select Investment or Crypto
  3. Choose the appropriate subtype (see Account Types for all options)
  4. Enter your account details:
    • Account name
    • Current balance
    • Tax treatment (if different from default)
  5. Click Create Account
After creating the account, you can add holdings manually or connect a provider to sync them automatically.