Your first portfolio

You have a net worth figure and a list of institutions. Now we turn that into something structured enough to answer questions.

What a portfolio actually means here

Forget the narrow definition. For this course, your portfolio is everything that affects your net worth — not just tradeable securities.

That means shares and funds, but also property, fixed deposits, cash, crypto, insurance with a surrender value, loans you owe and loans owed to you.

Tools that only handle shares are the reason people end up with several half-pictures. If your view excludes your mortgage, it is not a view of your finances.

Set it up in this order

Work from largest to smallest. Most people’s net worth is dominated by two or three items, and getting those right delivers most of the accuracy.

1. Property

Usually the biggest number on both sides at once. Record the current estimated value as an asset, and the outstanding loan as a separate liability.

For valuation, use a recent estimate from a local listing site or an agent’s appraisal. Update it once or twice a year — property does not need frequent revaluation and pretending otherwise adds noise.

2. Retirement and pension accounts

Frequently the second largest and the most commonly forgotten, especially accounts from previous employers. If you have changed jobs and never consolidated, there may be more than one.

3. Market investments

Shares, ETFs, mutual funds, bonds. For each holding you want the quantity, the average price paid, and the currency. Quantity and cost matter more than today’s price, since a good tracker fetches the price for you.

If you do not know your average purchase price, estimate. A wrong cost basis is better than an absent holding, and you can correct it later.

4. Cash and fixed deposits

Current accounts, savings, term deposits. For fixed deposits record the maturity date — it matters for planning and it is exactly the sort of thing that gets forgotten until it silently rolls over at a worse rate.

5. Crypto

Quantity per coin and where it is held. Read-only exchange connections can handle balances automatically; if you connect one, confirm the key cannot trade or withdraw.

6. Insurance

Only policies with a surrender or maturity value count as assets. Pure protection policies are still worth recording somewhere, because your family needs to know they exist, but they do not add to your net worth.

7. Loans and other debts

Mortgage, car loan, student loan, credit card balances, family loans. Record the outstanding amount, not the original amount.

The trap: perfectionism

The most common failure is not laziness. It is trying to make everything perfect in one sitting — hunting for the exact purchase price of a fund bought in 2019, reconstructing years of dividend history, before recording anything at all.

Four hours later, nothing is finished and the project is abandoned.

Do this instead:

First pass, one hour. Every account with a rough current value. Accept the approximation.

Second pass, later. Add real cost basis and dates for the holdings that matter most.

Third pass, ongoing. Add transactions as they happen from now on.

A complete rough picture beats a perfect partial one, because the rough picture already answers “what am I worth and where is it?” — which was the point.

Historical transactions

You will face a choice: enter years of past transactions, or start from today’s position?

Start from today if you mainly want to know where you stand and track from here. Record current quantities and a reasonable average cost. This suits most people.

Enter history if you want accurate lifetime returns, or need records for tax purposes. It is more work but gives genuine performance figures.

You can start with the first and add history later for individual holdings. You are not locked in.

When it is working

You should be able to open one screen and see:

• Total net worth in your chosen currency
• The split between asset types
• Your largest individual holdings
• Total debt
• Change since last month

If your setup answers those five, it is doing its job, whatever tool it lives in.

Practice step

Add your three largest assets and all of your debts — nothing else yet.

For most people that is a home, a pension, one investment account, and whatever is owed. It takes about twenty minutes and typically captures 80% of the total. The rest can wait for a second sitting.

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Next: Import or type it in? — the fastest way to get data in without errors.

Agni Folio handles all of these asset types in one place, including property, deposits, insurance and loans. The core is free.