Setting up your first tracking

You don't need a complex setup. One line of credit (HELOC or investment loan), one brokerage account, and a few minutes to record your initial events.

How the app thinks

The app doesn't import bank statements or parse CSV files. Instead, you record financial events — borrow, buy, sell, distribute, pay — and the app computes every balance from those events. A single event can update your credit balance, brokerage cash, holdings, and deductible split all at once. See how balances are tracked for the full picture.

What you need

• A credit account — a HELOC, line of credit, or similar revolving credit facility. This is where you borrow from.
• A brokerage account — a non-registered cash account where you buy and hold investments. Not a TFSA or RRSP — interest on borrowing for registered accounts isn't deductible.

The app currently supports one credit account and one brokerage account. If you use multiple credit lines or brokerage accounts, you'll need to choose which pair to track.

The basic cycle

Leveraged investing follows a repeating cycle. Each step is recorded as an event in the tracker:

1. Borrow — You draw funds from your credit line and transfer them to your brokerage. The app records this as non-deductible principal until invested.
2. Buy — You purchase securities with the transferred funds. The app moves the borrowed amount from non-deductible to deductible invested principal, and tracks how much of each holding is funded by borrowing.
3. Receive distributions — Your holdings may pay dividends or return capital. The app records where these go and how they affect the borrowed/personal composition.
4. Interest is charged — Your lender charges interest on the outstanding balance. The app calculates how much of that charge is deductible based on the time-weighted balance composition during the period.
5. Make payments — You pay down your credit balance. The app applies payments to interest first, then principal — and tracks how payments affect the deductible/non-deductible split.

What the app does at each step

You don't need to calculate anything yourself. For each event you record, the app:

• Updates all affected balances (credit, brokerage cash, holdings)
• Maintains the borrowed vs. personal split across every balance
• Recalculates interest deductibility when compositions change — including retroactive adjustments for events like Return of Capital
• Provides a plain-English explanation of what changed and why, visible in the event detail view

Events are validated against your balance state at each event's date. For example, you can't record a purchase without sufficient cash from a prior borrow or deposit. If you edit or delete a past event, subsequent events may become invalid — the app highlights these and excludes them from calculations until you fix them. You can add historical events at any time; the app recomputes all balances from scratch.

A simple example

You borrow $20,000 from your HELOC and transfer it to your brokerage. You buy $20,000 of an ETF. A month later, your lender charges $100 in interest.

Because 100% of the outstanding balance was borrowed for investment, 100% of that $100 interest charge is deductible. The app tracks this automatically — and if later events (a partial sale, a personal withdrawal, mixed use) change the composition, it adjusts the calculation going forward.

What's next

Once you're tracking, real-world events will start to change the picture. The common scenarios explain what happens and how the app handles each one:

• Selling holdings — how proceeds are split
• Return of Capital — retroactive adjustments
• Mixed HELOC use — personal spending on your investment credit line
• Interest capitalization — paying interest by borrowing more