By: Bryan Tropeano
When tax season rolls around, one of the hardest parts of filing is figuring out exactly how much you made from your investments. If you buy and sell stocks, ETFs, or crypto, keeping up with profits and losses can get complicated fast.
That is why it helps to monitor capital gains throughout the year instead of waiting until tax time. The right tools can help you track your investments, calculate gains automatically, and save hours of number crunching when you file.
Here are some of the best free tools to monitor capital gains and stay organized for tax season.
Why You Should Monitor Capital Gains Year-Round
If you monitor capital gains regularly, you will know exactly how your investments are performing and how much you might owe in taxes. This gives you time to plan ahead, adjust your portfolio, or offset profits with losses before the deadline.
Tracking also helps you understand how much of your income comes from long-term versus short-term gains, which affects your tax rate. The more consistent you are about updating your data, the easier tax season becomes.
Best Free Tools to Monitor Capital Gains
1. Google Sheets or Excel Templates
Spreadsheets are still one of the simplest ways to monitor capital gains manually. You can set up a custom sheet or download free templates that calculate profits and losses automatically based on your entries.
It takes a bit of setup time, but you have complete control over your data and can design your sheet exactly how you like.
2. Empower (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower connects directly to your brokerage accounts and tracks your overall investment performance. It can monitor capital gains, show you historical returns, and help you see how your portfolio is growing over time.
It is a great option if you want both a financial overview and easy capital gains tracking in one dashboard.
3. Sharesight
Sharesight is designed specifically for investors who want detailed performance reports. It automatically tracks dividends, cost basis, and realized gains.
The free version lets you monitor capital gains for up to ten holdings, which is ideal for smaller portfolios.
4. Koinly
If you trade crypto, Koinly is one of the best free tools to monitor capital gains from your digital assets. It connects to exchanges and wallets, calculates profits, and gives you an overview of your taxable income from trading.
Even with the free plan, you can see your total gains and download reports for reference.
5. CoinTracker
CoinTracker works much like Koinly and helps crypto investors monitor capital gains automatically. It imports transactions from your exchanges and shows both realized and unrealized profits.
The free plan includes portfolio insights that make it easier to track performance across multiple wallets.
How to Make the Most of Capital Gains Tracking
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Sync your accounts often so your numbers stay accurate.
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Review your cost basis to ensure gains and losses are calculated correctly.
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Separate short-term and long-term gains since they are taxed differently.
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Download reports before tax season to save time when filing.
Why These Free Tools Are Worth Using
If you monitor capital gains regularly, you will have fewer surprises when it is time to file taxes. Free tools can handle most of the tracking work for you without the cost of premium tax software.
They help you understand how your investments are performing, plan ahead for taxes, and make smarter financial decisions all year long.
About the Author: Bryan Tropeano is a senior producer and a regular reporter for NewsWatch. He lives in Washington D.C. and loves all things Tech.
