Comparisons

BullBenchmark vs Sharesight: tax reports or a benchmark

Sharesight has tracked portfolios for a long time and built its reputation on reporting. Its performance and dividend reports come with tax documents that follow the tax returns of the countries it serves.

Sharesight publishes on its own site which countries it produces tax documents for, and that list decides most of this comparison. Check it there rather than here, because it is the kind of fact that changes.

We are the paid alternative writing about a competitor, so this page keeps to properties you can verify yourself.

What each one is

Sharesight is a portfolio tracker organised around reports. It produces performance and dividend reports and tax documents that follow the rules of a particular set of countries, which is why many people meet it through an accountant rather than through an advertisement. The product is in English.

BullBenchmark is organised around a comparison. You upload your broker's export file, and the dashboard shows whether your own decisions beat the index you could have bought instead, in the currency you spend.

It exists in six languages and costs €5.99 a month or €59.99 a year, with a 14-day trial that takes no card.

Where Sharesight is the better choice

You file a tax return in one of the countries it reports for. A tax report is useful only when it matches the form in front of you. If your country is on that list, a document built for your return is worth more to you than a benchmark chart, and we do not produce one.

You want to benchmark against a particular fund rather than an index. Choosing any share or fund as your comparison is useful, and we do not offer it. We offer the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100 as total-return series in your base currency. If your reference is the ETF you nearly bought instead, check which tracker gives you that.

Your accountant already reads its reports. If the person who prepares your return works in a tool every day, handing them something else creates work for both of you. That is a valid reason to pick a tracker.

Where we are different

One tax report, and we say what is in it. It gives your realized and unrealized gains and a position overview, all brokers combined, with an Excel and a PDF file per year.

The figures come from your own export files. We are not a tax adviser and we file nothing for you, so check the figures and decide for yourself whether they fit the return in front of you. Our reports are raw material for your accountant rather than a finished document.

Six languages, not one. Money is a subject people prefer to read in their own language, so the site and the dashboard are translated into six: English, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and Italian. The weekly email and the year reports are still in English, whichever language you set.

Currency is part of the calculation. A euro portfolio measured against a dollar index carries the exchange rate in the result, and over several years the currency effect alone can change the outcome. Both sides are converted at the historical rate of each day, and you choose the currency of the dashboard.

Your broker converts at its own rate and its own moment, so small differences from its statement are normal, as multi-currency portfolio tracking explains.

The benchmark replays your cash flows. We build a simulated index portfolio that received your deposits on the same dates and bought a total-return index tracker with all of it. That is the difference between a fair comparison and a flattering one, as set out in how to check whether you are beating the S&P 500.

Five questions to ask any tracker

This is the same short test we publish on every comparison page, because it survives the feature changes that make comparison tables useless. Ask any tracker, ours included.

Does it show a time-weighted return, and does it say so? If the only number is a percentage next to your total value, you are looking at something that mixes deposits with performance.
When it compares you with an index, does it replay your cash flows, or does it draw the index's own chart next to yours? Ask for the number after a large deposit and see whether the comparison moves.
Is the benchmark the total-return version of the index, with dividends reinvested?
Is everything converted to one base currency at historical rates, including the benchmark?
Does the calculation include closed positions, fees and withheld tax, or only what you still hold today?

The answers are usually visible in the product within ten minutes of loading your own data.

What we are deliberately not claiming

We do not publish Sharesight's prices, plan limits, import formats or the current list of countries its tax reports cover. If that list has changed, their own site is the place to check. We have not run our broker files through their importer, so nothing here judges how well it works.

What we can state precisely is our own side. BullBenchmark costs €5.99 a month or €59.99 a year, in one plan. The trial is 14 days and takes no card.

The import is a CSV or XLSX file with a column mapper for layouts we have not seen before. We never ask for a broker login, and there is a one-click export of everything we hold about you.

Who should pick which

Pick Sharesight if your tax return is in one of the countries it reports for, if your accountant already works in it, or if you want to choose your own benchmark instrument.

Pick BullBenchmark if you are in the euro area, if you would rather read your numbers in your own language, or if you want to know whether your portfolio is ahead of the index after dividends, fees and currency.

Pick both if you file your tax return in one country and hold your investments in another. Neither of them needs your broker password to work.

The live demo is a sample portfolio across two brokers, with the benchmark calculated the way this page describes.

BullBenchmark reads the transaction export from your broker and shows your return next to the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, fed with the same deposits on the same dates, in your own currency. The first two weeks are free and no card is needed.