Sharesight¶

cgt-calc reads two Sharesight reports: All Trades for acquisitions and disposals, and Taxable Income for dividends and tax deducted from them. This is useful when Sharesight already combines activity from several brokers into one GBP portfolio.

Use a Sharesight portfolio whose base currency is GBP. The importer treats local income and the portfolio value of foreign-exchange trades as GBP.

Export the reports¶

All Trades¶

Export all trades from the portfolio's first transaction. Earlier acquisitions can still affect disposals in the tax year you are reporting; see Before you start.

1. Open Tax and select All Trades Report.
2. Set the date range to Since inception.
3. Select Do not group (Holdings).
4. Export the report to a spreadsheet or Google Drive. Do not use the PDF export.
5. Open the exported spreadsheet and save or download the sheet containing the All Trades table as a CSV file.

See Sharesight's current All Trades Report instructions for the report controls.

Taxable Income¶

1. Open the portfolio's Taxable Income Report.
2. Set the date range to the tax year you are calculating.
3. Export the report to a spreadsheet or Google Drive. Do not use the PDF export.
4. Open the exported spreadsheet and save or download the report sheet as a CSV file.

Sharesight recommends checking its income figures against your dividend statements because the report relies on third-party data. Its Taxable Income Report instructions explain the available periods and exports.

Prepare the directory¶

Keep both CSV files directly in one directory, for example:

sharesight/
├── All Trades Report.csv
└── Taxable Income Report.csv

Use the filenames shown above when saving the CSV files. cgt-calc does not read the original .xlsx files or search subdirectories.

cgt-calc reads every CSV in the directory whose name starts with All Trades Report or Taxable Income Report. An All Trades report exported Since inception repeats the trades of every earlier export, so move an older All Trades file out of the directory when you add a new one. cgt-calc stops when two files hold the same transaction; see Two files in the directory hold this transaction.

Do not rename or delete columns when converting the worksheets. In addition to the legacy headings, cgt-calc accepts aliases including Market Code, Qty, Instrument Currency and Exch. Rate. You can compare the legacy structure with the sanitised example reports.

Generate the report¶

For the 2024/25 tax year, run:

cgt-calc --year 2024 --sharesight-dir sharesight/ --no-balance-check

--year 2024 means 6 April 2024 to 5 April 2025. --no-balance-check is needed because these two reports do not contain the complete cash activity required to reconcile a broker balance. Follow Generate a report to find and check the output.

Supported activity¶

The Sharesight importer currently handles:

Equity grants¶

cgt-calc identifies an equity grant through the trade comment. To record a vest:

1. Record it as a Buy in Sharesight.
2. Enter the market value per share on the vest date as the price.
3. Include Stock Activity anywhere in the trade comment.

cgt-calc then treats the row as stock activity rather than a cash purchase. A Sell row carrying that marker is rejected. If the CSV has no Comments column, cgt-calc warns that it cannot detect these markers.

Known limitations¶

• Opening Balance trades are not supported. Sharesight uses them when the original buy and sell records are unavailable, but cgt-calc needs the original acquisition dates and costs for UK share matching.
• Split, Consolidation and Bonus rows are not supported. They stop the import with an unknown action error. Do not delete such a row on its own to make the calculation run: later quantities and gains would be wrong. For a split or consolidation, remove the row in a working copy only together with a RAW STOCK_SPLIT row stating the change to your whole pooled holding.
• Cash deposits, withdrawals and balances are not imported, which is why --no-balance-check is required.
• Taxable Income sections other than local and foreign dividend payments are not imported.
• If a newer All Trades report gives a non-zero brokerage charge in a currency different from the trade currency (GBP for foreign-exchange rows), the import stops. That fee cannot yet be represented exactly from this report without risking an incorrect allowable cost.
• Overlapping reports are not merged. cgt-calc stops when two files hold a transaction that reads the same in both. It cannot detect a transaction that the two files state differently, such as a trade whose quantity or comment you edited in Sharesight between two exports, and counts that one twice. Do not keep an older Since inception All Trades export of a portfolio beside a newer one, or a report whose dates another file already covers.

Troubleshooting¶

No transactions are detected¶

Check that you converted the spreadsheet worksheet to CSV: .xlsx files are not read. Confirm that both files are directly inside the directory passed to --sharesight-dir, and that their filenames start with All Trades Report and Taxable Income Report. Filenames are matched case-insensitively; additional text after Report and uppercase .CSV extensions are accepted.

Missing expected columns¶

cgt-calc found the report's header row but not every column it needs. This happens when headings were edited during conversion, or when Sharesight has changed the report format.

First upgrade cgt-calc using the same method you used to install it and try again. If the error remains, open a GitHub issue with:

• your cgt-calc version from cgt-calc --version;
• the complete error message; and
• the CSV header and a sanitised failing row.

Do not upload an unredacted report: it can contain holdings and other sensitive financial information.

Unknown action¶

Compare the named action with Known limitations. Do not remove the row unless you replace it with an equivalent supported transaction whose UK tax treatment you have verified.

Two files in the directory hold this transaction¶

cgt-calc found the same transaction in two CSV files and stopped, because reading both would count it twice. The error shows the transaction once for each file, with the file and the row it was read from. It reports the first one it finds; the two files can share others.

Open both files and compare them:

• One file is a copy of the other, such as a report downloaded twice. Move one of them out of the directory.
• Both are All Trades reports for the same portfolio, exported Since inception. Each starts at the portfolio's first trade, so the newer one already holds the trades of the older one as Sharesight records them now. Move the older file out of the directory.
• The two reports cover date ranges that overlap, as two Taxable Income reports can. Keep both files until you have exported reports whose date ranges do not overlap, then use those instead.
• The two rows are separate transactions that only look the same. This can happen when the directory holds reports for two portfolios: for example, the same trade or dividend in each. Both must be counted, so put both rows in one file as described below.

Do not delete either of two separate transactions, and do not run cgt-calc on the two files separately: either would leave transactions out of the calculation. Instead:

1. Copy both original files to somewhere outside the directory, and edit the two that stay in it. Their names must still start with All Trades Report or Taxable Income Report, or cgt-calc does not read them.
2. Compare the column headings above each of the two rows. If they are the same and in the same order, insert one of the two rows as a new line directly below the other. If they differ, export both reports again in the same layout first, or put each value of the row under the matching heading of the file it moves to. Never paste the row over one that is already there.
3. Remove that row from the file it came from.
4. Run cgt-calc again. If the two files hold another matching pair, it reports that one next.

cgt-calc counts every row of a list, including rows that match. A row placed anywhere other than directly below its match can fall outside the list it belongs to and be left out.

The portfolio or dividend totals look wrong¶

Check that the All Trades export starts at the portfolio's first transaction, the Taxable Income export covers the tax year being calculated, and both came from the same GBP portfolio. Compare dividends and deducted tax with your broker statements, and review the terminal's final portfolio for missing or excessive holdings before relying on the tax report.