Configuration

When you first start-up Share Trade Tracker the Configuration settings for the workbook have been set to the defaults. We will review below the settings that you can change and how you can use the configuration to enhance your use of Share Trade Tracker.

After clicking on the Configure option on the Ribbon you will be presented with the Configuration settings. The first tab is for the management of the Portfolio's within Share Trade Tracker

Portfolios

Portfolios are used to organise and categorise your trades into groups. These maybe specific types of securities or a strategy that want to be able to monitor and assess for performance over time. The workbook is delivered with a set of default Portfolio's, you can change these or add to them or delete if required.

The brokerage approach can be specified for each Portfolio. This is designed to allow you to apply the different brokerage methods for each Portfolio. The Default brokerage option is set in the Trade Settings configuration tab and applies for all Portfolios that do not have their own settings. When a Portfolio has it's own settings you select that option and then specify the details to apply as each trade is added to Share Trade Tracker that option will be used to automatically calculate the brokerage.

Exchanges

Exchanges are used to match a securities "symbol" to the right home exchange when the updating prices. Getting the right Exchange Code is really important as this will be used when the securities price is searched for on Yahoo. The workbook is delivered with a starting set of Exchanges and the "Yahoo Exchange Code". There should never be any need to change these values.

The "Familiar Name" will be the name of the Exchange that is displayed throughout the workbook. The "Yahoo Exchange Code" will be used as a suffix (eg BHP.AX) for the security symbol. This is then used when searching for that securities price and other information (eg Dividends).

Included to this form is access to a full list of Exchanges available on Yahoo. Click on that button if your Exchange is not included in the delivered list and then add those values. Once an Exchange is added it can then be used when recording Buy and Sell trades.

Click on the following Exchanges page to see a full list of available exchange codes

Data Source

Note: Update Share Trade Tracker v3.4.7 and later - Default data source Yahoo

Share Trade Tracker includes automated price and dividend data updates. The data is sourced from various sites that offer a reliable feed to update trading positions. There are 2 separate data source configurations required one for Prices and one for Dividends.

Price - The default data source for Prices is Yahoo, this data source is based on the historical price data provided on the Yahoo Finance site. For most Share Trade Tracker users this will be sufficient for your daily price update. For more details on the other options see Price Data Source

Dividends - The default data source for Dividends for Australian securities is ShareDividends, this is the only FREE source of dividend data available that provides franking credit and dividend details. For Overseas securities Yahoo is the default data source. For more details on the other options see Dividend Data Source.

Click here Data Source's Explained for more details on how to configure the Share Trade Tracker data source.

Trade Settings

The Trade Settings are configuration items used to make the process of Adding Buy and Sell trades easier and quicker. Lets step through each of these settings and where they are used.

Brokerage $ Value: This is the set Brokerage value that you pay per trade

Brokerage % of Trade: This is the % of a Trades value that you pay in Brokerage per trade

The Share Trade Tracker workbook allows for you to set each of your trades to use one of three (3) options for the default value of Brokerage. Even though this is the default value for Brokerage you can still change that value when Adding a trade. The options are

Use the Brokerage $ Value only
User the Brokerage % only
Use the Maximum of the Brokerage $ Value or % of Trade

Share Trade Tracker provides for Stop Loss and Take Profit warnings on your Open Positions. Those warnings are driven by the Stop Loss and Take Profit values stored with each Trade. When you first create a Trade the Stop Loss and Take Profit values are calculated based on the % values included to the Trade Settings.

Stop Loss: % used to calculate Stop Loss (eg 10% for $1.00 would set $0.90 as Stop Loss)

Take Profit: % used to calculate Take Profit (eg 15% for $1.00 would set $1.15 as the Take Profit)

The final Trade Setting is another Stop Loss feature that allows you to monitor your trades using a stop loss value compared to the Maximum Price for that trade over the time that you have held it. Based on this value if the current Market Price for a trade is less than the Floating Stop Loss % then it will be highlighted on the Open Positions worksheet.

Floating Stop Loss: % is used to set the comparison value that is highlighted on the Open Positions worksheet

To Reset the Maximum Price for all Open Positions, select Reset Max Price. It will set the Maximum Price for each Open Position to the purchase price for the trade. From that point the Maximum Price will be set by the prices returned through Update Prices.

Lastly at any time you can return the Default settings that were provided with the workbook by selecting "Reset Defaults". This will return the Trade Settings to the starting values.

Cash Options

The Cash Options settings will determine which transactions are taken into account when calculating the Available Cash on the Dashboard. These settings are also used as the default options for the Available Cash report.

By selecting or deselecting options the transactions for those worksheets are included or excluded from the calculation of the Available Cash.

Dividends

The Dividends feature retrieves the standard Dividend income and Ex Dividend Date. If the checkbox "Show Franking Details" is selected on the Dividends configuration tab then the Franking Credits and Franked % are also displayed. This is only applicable for Australian securities.

User Details

These customer details are used to register the copy of Share Trade Tracker on your computer.

Dashboard Auto Zoom

The default option for Share Trade Tracker is to "Auto Zoom" the Dashboard to the screen size. This can be disabled so that any zoom settings you set are retained. Just uncheck the "Auto Zoom" and the Dashboard will not zoom every time you select it.

Progress Form Always on Top

For long running processes in Share Trade Tracker (eg Update Prices, Find Dividends) a form is displayed to advise the user on progress and when they can expect it to complete. By default this option is selected.

Send Activity Information

This option is on by default and sends details on the status of your workbook is sent to the XLAutomation support team. This information is used to continue improvements in future versions of the workbook. You can de-select this option and no status information will be sent to the XLAutomation support team.

Note: No trading or other portfolio information is sent to XLAutomation.

Enable Find & Next + Select Rows, Sum and Average

All worksheets in Share Trade Tracker are locked, this protects the formulas and formatting from change. As part of that protection to avoid warning messages for most users the ability to use "Find & Next" has been disabled within the worksheets. Advanced users can set the option in this tab to "Enable Find & Next" throughout the workbook. If this is selected that user will receive warnings if they attempt to update or change data on a worksheet, they will also be able to use the "Find & Next" feature of Excel. By enabling this feature the user will also be able to Select Rows and use the standard Excel Sum and Average functions.

Log Files

Every effort has been made during the development of Share Trade Tracker to ensure that problems and issues do not impact your use of the workbook. But from time to time it may be necessary to create a Debug file for analysis by the XLAutomation support team. The Log Files settings are used to enable the creation of a Debug file.

The workbook is delivered with the "Generate Debug File" turned on. If the "Generate Debug File" is selected and you have recently experienced some problem or issue with Share Trade Tracker then it is likely that the error has already been captured in the Debug file. The file will be located in the "Logs" directory in the same location as the Share Trade Tracker workbook. Find the most recent file and send it to the XLAutomation Support Team along with a description of the problem or issue that you are experiencing.

If the "Generate Debug File" is turned off and you want to capture details of a recent problem or issue. Select "Generate Debug File" and then select "Clear Debug". Once that completes, select "Write Settings" to write the current workbook settings to the Debug file. Finally run through the steps to repeat the problem or issue that you are experiencing and then send the Debug file to the XLAutomation support team.

Reset Defaults

The option will allow you to reset Share Trade Tracker to it's starting configuration. The options include

Reset Sort Defaults
Reset Trading Activity Configuration
Clear all Trades
Clear all Other Data
Re-run the Welcome Startup Form

Choose any option or all of them to reset the workbook

Licence Agreement

The End-User Licence Agreement is displayed for review on the last tab of the Configuration form.