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.

Specify a starting balance and start date for a Portfolio to enable the return calculations on the Dashboard. For example your Portfolio may start with a balance of $50,000 on the 1st May, 2014. The return calculation will then determine the performance of your Portfolio based on the Buys, Sells, and Market Value of the open positions.

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.

Default Sort

Each of the worksheets within the Share Trade Tracker workbook is sorted according to the Default Sort. The workbook is delivered with the Sort set to Trade Date (descending) followed by Security Code. You can change to the Default Sort for the workbook and all worksheets will then use that sort. For example you might want to sort by Portfolio and then Security Code to arrange each of your Portfolio's on the worksheets.

Important Note: The charts displayed on the Dashboard are dependent on the sort by Trade Date (descending) to show a true picture over time. If the worksheets are not sorted by Trade Date (descending) the compounding values will not reflect the correct values over time.

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 the Price at which the system will start displaying 3 decimal places. This has been designed for those securities that trade in fractions of cents. The default setting is $0.20, so any security that has a price less than $0.20 will display as 3 decimal places $0.195.

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.

User Details

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

If the "Send Activity Information" is selected then each time you Open Share Trade Tracker a 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.

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.

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.

Clear All Trades

The workbook is delivered without any trades or dividends. If for some reason you want to return the workbook to it's starting state you can use this option to delete all existing Trades, Dividends and Security Prices. Once this option is selected and then confirmed it cannot be undone.