Your brokerage account holds both investments and cash. You might own shares while also holding Canadian dollars, US dollars or other currencies.
Adjustibl tracks each currency's balance as money enters and leaves your account. For foreign currency, it also tracks its historical cost in Canadian dollars. These two amounts help explain how much cash you have and any currency gain or loss when you use it.
How cash moves
Buying an investment usually spends cash. Selling an investment usually brings cash back into the account. Deposits, withdrawals, income and fees change the balance too.
Each currency is tracked separately. If you hold CAD $500 and USD $300, those are two balances. They cannot be added together without converting them to the same currency.
For a purchase or sale, Adjustibl uses the recorded cash settlement to work out which currency was paid or received. This normally follows the transaction's net amount and currency. Check the Cash settlement fields if your statement shows a different payment. The stock's name or listing alone does not tell Adjustibl which currency left your account.
A balance and a cost are different things
Suppose you buy USD $1,000 for CAD $1,300, with no fees. You now have:
| What you are tracking | Amount |
|---|---|
| US dollars held | USD $1,000 |
| Historical cost in Canadian dollars | CAD $1,300 |
| Average historical cost per US dollar | CAD $1.30 |
If the exchange rate changes tomorrow, you still hold USD $1,000. Its value at today's exchange rate may have changed, but its historical cost has not changed just because the exchange rate moved.
When you acquire more foreign currency, its CAD cost is added to the existing cost. Adjustibl uses the resulting average cost when you spend part of that currency.
Buying a stock can also produce a currency gain
Consider a capital account where you hold USD $400 that originally cost CAD $520. You spend all USD $400 on shares when the applicable exchange rate is CAD $1.50 per US dollar. Assume there are no fees.
| Part of the purchase | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| CAD value of the USD spent | USD $400 × 1.50 | CAD $600 |
| Historical cost of that cash | Recorded cost | CAD $520 |
| Currency gain | CAD $600 − CAD $520 | CAD $80 |
| Starting cost of the shares | CAD value paid for the shares | CAD $600 |
The CAD $80 gain belongs to the currency you held before buying the shares. The shares have their own cost, which will be used when you later sell them. You do not have to convert the cash back to CAD for spending foreign currency to matter.
When you sell shares and receive foreign currency, that cash enters your balance with its CAD value at acquisition. Spending or converting it later can produce another currency result.
These are transaction results, before any annual reporting adjustment. For individuals with foreign-currency gains or losses on capital account, the CRA describes a $200 annual net threshold. It is not a separate allowance for each transaction, currency or account. See the CRA's foreign currency guidance.
Cash in more than one account
Your cash balance belongs to the account where the money is held. Having USD in one account does not make it available to spend in another without a transfer.
Within an Adjustibl portfolio, positive foreign-currency costs are averaged across accounts with the same Capital gains or Business income treatment. Those two treatments remain separate. Registered tracking keeps cash costs separate for each account.
This is how Adjustibl groups your records. Separate portfolios do not automatically combine their costs or annual results, so choose your portfolio structure with your complete records in mind.
CAD cash is tracked too. Its CAD amount does not create a foreign-exchange gain or loss.
What a negative cash balance means
A negative balance means the recorded activity has spent more of that currency than was available in the account. Adjustibl treats that shortfall as borrowing.
Money received in that currency first reduces the amount owed. Anything left over becomes positive cash. For foreign currency, repayment can produce a currency gain or loss as Adjustibl compares the CAD value of the debt being repaid with the CAD value of the repayment. Borrowing is tracked separately for each account and currency.
If you did not actually borrow, check whether an opening balance, deposit or other transaction is missing. An incomplete history can make an account appear overdrawn.
Setting your starting balances
You can start from a known date instead of importing your entire account history. An opening cash balance records the money you already held when that history begins.
Under Opening balances, expand Cash and enter the amount held in each currency. For foreign currency, also enter its total historical CAD cost or the equivalent average historical exchange rate. Adjustibl calculates the other value.
For example, USD $1,000 with a historical cost of CAD $1,300 means an average rate of 1.30. The CAD cost is for the whole balance, not for each dollar. Use the recorded historical cost rather than converting the balance at today's rate.
Opening balances share a starting date within a portfolio and tax treatment. Choose that date consistently across the accounts you are including. Regular activity cannot precede the shared opening date; calculation ordering uses a supplied settlement date when applicable, otherwise the transaction date.
You can leave an opening balance unentered and add it later through Opening positions. Enter zero only when the starting balance really was zero. Missing starting cash can affect subsequent balances and borrowing calculations.
Moving your own money
For a transfer between your own accounts with the same tax treatment, record a Transfer out in the sending account and a Transfer in in the receiving account.
The outgoing transaction's Calculations explanation shows the historical CAD cost removed. Enter that total as Total historical cost (CAD) on the incoming transaction. This carries the cost with the money instead of treating the transfer as a new currency purchase at today's rate.
The two entries are recorded manually; Adjustibl does not match them automatically. A movement into or out of a registered account has different reporting consequences, so do not treat it as an ordinary transfer between two capital accounts.
Checking the result
Open a transaction's Calculations explanation to see its investment and cash effects. Use the cash columns in the transaction table to follow balances through the account, then compare them with your statement.
The annual report's Cash section brings together cash balances, historical CAD costs and the applicable currency results. Historical cost tells you what the remaining cash cost; it is not its current market value.