Your Cash Is Part of Your Portfolio: Track It in Any Currency

Cash is part of your portfolio, and tracking it means recording every idle balance alongside your positions so your returns reflect your real capital base. PortfolioTrackr holds cash in any of 100 supported currencies, each shown in its own currency and converted to your display currency at live rates.

Why invisible cash makes your returns look like a lie

Invisible cash inflates your reported return, because a percentage gain measured only against your invested money ignores the idle money sitting beside it. If half your capital earned 20% and the other half sat in cash, your actual portfolio return is closer to 10%, not 20%.

This is the gap most broker apps and spreadsheets quietly leave open. They show the performance of what you bought and treat cash as an afterthought, or as a number living in a different app entirely.

• Dry powder distortion: holding 40% cash while the invested 60% runs hot makes your headline return nearly double the truth.
• Currency blind spots: a USD cash balance and a EUR cash balance are not the same money, and a single-currency view flattens that difference.
• Context loss: you cannot judge whether you are heavily invested or sitting on the sidelines if the sidelines are not on screen.

Honest performance means counting every dollar, euro, pound and dirham you control, invested or not. That is the whole point of tracking cash alongside positions.

What cash accounts in PortfolioTrackr actually do

Cash accounts hold balances in multiple currencies next to your positions and roll them into your portfolio total at live exchange rates. Each balance sits in the same portfolio as your stocks, ETFs and crypto, so the total you see is the total you actually have.

Here is what the feature does, stated concretely and nothing more:

• Multi-currency balances: keep a USD balance, a EUR balance and a GBP balance in the same portfolio, each held in its own currency.
• Live conversion: every balance is converted into your portfolio's display currency at the current rate when the total is calculated.
• Per-currency breakdown: the summary card shows a per-currency breakdown, so you see both the raw balances and the converted figure.

That last point matters for anyone holding money across borders. If you earn in one currency and invest in another, the breakdown shows you exactly how much of your total is sitting in each, before it is blended into one number.

How this connects to your invested holdings

Cash and positions live in one portfolio total, so the summary card reflects everything you control at once. The same portfolio can hold AAPL on the NASDAQ, EMAAR.AE on the Dubai Financial Market, BTC-USD and a cash balance, all converted into a single figure.

If you already organise your account by type, this pairs naturally with the ability to group holdings by asset type across stocks, ETFs and crypto. Cash becomes one more line that belongs in the picture rather than a number you keep in your head.

How to set up a cash account step by step

Setting up a cash balance takes under a minute and uses the same portfolio you already track positions in. The flow is deliberately plain.

1. Open the portfolio you want the cash to belong to.
2. Add a cash account and choose its currency, for example USD, EUR or AED.
3. Enter the balance you hold in that currency.
4. Repeat for each additional currency you want to track, one balance per currency.
5. Check the summary card, where the per-currency breakdown and the converted total now include your cash.

You do not need to connect a broker for any of this. Manual entry works on every plan, so cash tracking is available the same way whether or not you ever link an account. If you do decide to link one later, our guide on connecting a brokerage account to a portfolio tracker walks through how each connected broker gets its own read-only portfolio.

What you see once your cash is in the portfolio

Once cash is in, your summary card shows a total that includes both invested value and idle balances, converted at live rates. The number finally matches the money you actually control.

Concretely, the summary card gives you:

• A true portfolio total that blends positions and cash into one figure in your display currency.
• A per-currency breakdown listing each currency balance before conversion, so nothing is hidden inside the blended number.
• Honest return context: because cash is counted, your performance is measured against everything you hold, not just the invested slice.

Consider a simple example. You hold $60,000 in positions that gained 20% over the year, so $10,000 of gain, and $40,000 in cash that did nothing. Measured against positions alone, that reads as a 20% year. Measured against your real $100,000 base, it is a 10% year. The cash account is what forces the honest version onto the screen.

Multi-currency in one view

The per-currency breakdown keeps currencies separate while still giving you one combined total. Someone paid in pounds who invests in dollars can see the GBP cash and USD positions side by side, then read the single converted figure underneath.

PortfolioTrackr supports 100 currencies for display and conversion, so the display currency you choose for the total is up to you. This is the same multi-currency engine that powers how the app handles foreign holdings across 100 stock exchanges worldwide.

The honest limits you need to know before you start

Two behaviours of cash accounts are important enough that you should understand them before you enter a single balance. Both are deliberate, and stating them plainly is fairer than letting you discover them later.

Entering a balance edits the target, it does not add on top

When you enter a balance for a currency, you are setting the target balance for that currency, not adding to what is already there. The system books the difference between the old balance and the new one.

• If you hold $5,000 and later enter $5,000 again, your balance stays $5,000. It does not become $10,000.
• To record a $2,000 deposit on top of an existing $5,000, enter the new target of $7,000.
• Think of the field as "what the balance should now be", not "how much to add".

This is the single most common point of confusion with any balance field, so it is worth repeating to yourself the first few times: you are stating the new total, not the change.

A currency with no exchange rate is excluded and disclosed

If a currency has no available exchange rate, its balance is excluded from the converted total and that exclusion is disclosed on screen. It is never silently folded into your number.

This matters most for frontier and thinly traded currencies. Rather than invent a rate or quietly drop the balance into the blend, PortfolioTrackr leaves it out of the converted figure and tells you it did so. You keep the raw balance in the breakdown; what you lose is only its contribution to the single converted total, and you are told exactly that.

Who cash tracking is for, and who it is not for

Cash tracking is for anyone whose reported returns would look different once idle money is counted, which is almost everyone who holds cash between trades. It is most useful in a few clear cases.

This is for you if:

• You keep meaningful dry powder and want returns measured against your full base, not just what is invested.
• You hold money in more than one currency, for example earning in EUR while investing in USD.
• You want one honest total across positions and cash instead of stitching numbers together from several apps or a spreadsheet.

If you are weighing that last point, our comparison of a portfolio tracker versus a spreadsheet covers why live conversion and a single total beat manual cell formulas that go stale the moment rates move.

This is probably not for you if:

• You stay fully invested with essentially no cash on the sidelines, in which case the cash line adds little.
• You want automatic transaction syncing from a cash or current account. Cash accounts here are balances you set and update, not a bank feed.
• You expect the balance field to behave like a running ledger of deposits and withdrawals. It stores a balance, not a transaction history.

For a broader sense of where cash tracking sits among everything the app does, the honest comparison of portfolio tracker apps for 2026 puts the feature in context against the rest of the toolkit.

The bottom line

Your cash is part of your portfolio, and counting it is the difference between a flattering number and an honest one. PortfolioTrackr holds balances in 100 currencies next to your positions, converts them at live rates, and shows both the per-currency breakdown and one combined total.

Remember the two rules before you begin: entering a balance edits the target and books the difference, and a currency with no available rate is excluded from the total and disclosed. Once cash is in, a 20% year on half your money reads for what it really is, and your summary card finally shows the full amount of money you actually control.

Frequently asked questions