In this article
Banana Accounting offers a professional, simple and innovative solution for managing your investments with precision and efficiency. Its integrated securities accounting feature allows you to handle bonds, shares, funds, and other financial instruments, even in multiple currencies, directly within your accounting file.
There is no need to use complex spreadsheets. everything is managed in one place, with the same accuracy, flexibility, and reliability expected from professional accounting software.
Banana Accounting, complements online portfolio solution focused on trading and let you maintain a complete, transparent, and professional record of your investment activities, ensuring clarity and full control over every financial detail, in any currency.
Ideal for
Banana Accounting offers a professional, powerful, and accessible investment accounting solution, developed in collaboration with financial specialists to meet the real needs of investors and accountants anywhere in the world. Already trusted by organizations managing assets from hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions, it provides the accuracy, transparency, and flexibility required for professional portfolio management like:
- Family offices managing diversified investment portfolios.
- Independent accountants and bookkeepers offering investment accounting services.
- Non-profit organizations with investment or endowment funds.
- Small businesses and self-employed professionals managing their own investments.
- Pension funds overseeing large multi-asset portfolios.
Key Features
Investment accounting is traditionally available only through specialized and expensive solutions.
Banana Accounting, thanks to its highly innovative features, such as the unique neutral numbers system not offered by any other accounting software, stands out as one of the few international accounting solutions accessible to everyone. It provides a fully integrated investment accounting system that combines professional-grade functionality with the simplicity and flexibility that make it easy to use for any type of investor or organization anywhere in the world.
- Complete investment overview.
Keep a detailed list of all your investments — bonds, shares, ETFs, funds, and more — directly linked to specific asset accounts. - Multi-currency support.
Manage international portfolios with built-in currency conversion and automatic tracking of both unrealized and realized exchange rate gains and losses. - Detailed transaction recording.
Record quantities, prices, and exchange rates directly within standard accounting entries — no extra modules or steps required. - Accurate valuation tracking.
Maintain a precise record of the accounting value of your investments at all times. - Expense and income management.
Monitor commissions, management fees, dividends, and interest income with full transparency. - Automatic profit and loss calculation.
Instantly determine gains or losses when selling any investment. - Comprehensive reporting.
Generate detailed accounting and investment performance reports for complete financial insight.
Introduction to the Investment accounting
Multi-currency investment accounting is one of the most complex areas in accounting.
It combines two different accounting approaches: financial accounting, based on the double-entry method, and securities accounting, which resembles inventory management, involving quantities and purchase prices.
There are many aspects to consider — from valuation methods to profit and loss recognition — which is why we have prepared an Introduction to investment accounting.
This guide outlines the key challenges, including how to determine the book value of investments and how to calculate realized and unrealized gains and losses, both on securities and on exchange rate differences.
Structure of the Investment Accounting File
Banana Accounting is a highly modular financial accounting system that allows you to create files with features activated only when needed.
The multi-currency investment accounting setup is among the most advanced, as it combines double-entry financial accounting with inventory-style management for tracking securities, quantities, and valuations. A typical Investment Accounting template or file includes the following elements:
- File properties
- Company names, Currency and Accounting Period.
- Settings Specific to the Investment accounting .
- Accounts Table
- Contains the chart of accounts and defines how data is grouped for the Balance Sheet and Income Statement.
- Enter the Opening amounts.
- Items Table
- Lists and codes all investments, such as bonds, shares, and funds.
- The Asset Investment column links each security to its corresponding Balance Sheet account — a key element of the entire solution.
- Exchange Rate Table
Defines the currency codes and stores both opening and current exchange rates for accurate multi-currency management. - Transactions Table
- Records all investment transactions.
- Enter the double entry account, amounts and exchange rate for the financial accounting.
- Enter the Item code, quantity and price specific for the Investment accounting.
- Double-Entry Accounting Reports
Provides access to all standard accounting reports such as Balance Sheet, Income Statement, Account Cards, and more. - Investment Accounting Extensions
You need to install the Add specific functionalities for investment management, including profit and loss calculations, valuation reporting, and other analytical tools tailored to securities accounting.
Account Table
Within the Accounts Table you define all the necessary accounts that are specific for the portfolio accounting:
- Accounts for investments.
The accounts that are associated with each Investment (Item Table, column Asset Account).
It is in the Assets part of the accounting plan non displayed on the following image.- Opening amounts: Should be equal the sum of the opening amounts of all Investments associated with this account.
- Earning and Loss on investment sales.
Used when you enter a sales transaction. - Bank charges.
- Currency exchange gain or profit.
Items Table with all Investments
The Items Table is directly linked to the Transactions table, allowing it to function as a basic warehouse management system for your investments.
Before entering a transaction for a new stock or bond, you need to create a line of the Investment in the Item table:
- The id which is generally the ISIN of the security.
- The quantity and initial unit price.
- The Investment Account specified in the Account Table
- Each Item need to be associated with an Asset account in the Account Table.
- The sum of the opening values of all securities sharing the same account should be equal to the opening amount of the account.
- The currency of the Investment must be the same as the associated Asset account .
- The "Current Quantity" column automatically updates based on the purchases and sales recorded in the Transactions table.
- The "Current Price" field allows you to manually enter the latest market price of each security, enabling an up-to-date view of your portfolio's value.
You can easily paste updated prices from Excel to keep your portfolio values current. - Group different investments together to have a better view and also totals.
Accounting Transactions with Investments Details
The Transactions Table is central to this seamless integration of Double entry and Investment accounting.
All information in one place
With the well-known double-entry accounting method, you can easily track all types of investments, including:
- Purchase of investments
- Sale of investments
- Realized and unrealized gains or losses on investments
- Realized and unrealized exchange rate gains or losses
Transactions data with all relevant information
Within Transactions, you have dedicated fields to track all essential investment details, including:
- Security IDs
- Quantity
- Unit Price
- Exchange Rates
- Bank Charges
- Commissions
When selling an investment, you can also record:
- Realized Profit or Loss
- Realized Exchange Rate Profit or Loss
- Interest Income from Sale
- Any Additional Information You Need
Multi-line Double entry Transactions
Following the typical concept of double-entry accounting, all details related to investment purchases or sales are recorded in multi-line transactions. This allows you to enter all necessary information across multiple lines. The system is flexible — you can easily track additional expenses, commissions, or other details by simply adding a new line.
In the Transactions table the purchase or sale of investment is entered using a compound transaction, so you enter all detail using multiple rows:
- The first line is the Bank account of the transaction.
- Enter the Item identifying the security ID as specified in the Item Table.
The Item is repeated on each line so that the software can associate the information regarding costs, charges, commissions, gains and loss, to the specific investment and pepare reports. - Enter the Quantity and Unit Price and exchange rate.
The software will automatically calculate the amounts and update the accounts value and also the item current quantity. - Bank charges are entered in a separate line.
- When entering sale use separate lines to enter:
- Gain/Loss from investment.
- Gain/Loss from currencies.
- The command Calculate Sale Data will calculate both values based on the historical data, so you can easily complete the transaction.
This information is all what is needed for the software to generates comprehensive reports on the status, purchases, and sales of your securities, providing you with a clear overview of your portfolio.
Balance Sheets & Income Statements
With fully customizable accounting plan and presentation, you can manage any kind of business, financial corporations, foundations, non-profit organization or private fortune. Get instantly Balance sheet, Income statements and all the other double entry reports ready for auditing.
Investments and Portfolio Reporting
The software makes available multiple reports.
Getting Started
- You can see how it works by using one of our templates.
- Adapt your current accounting in just a few steps.
- Use the extensions to calculate the profit or loss on the sale of securities and obtain various reports.
Documentation
Is there more you need?
The solution is already in use by several customers, but we still consider it in development, as we continue to improve it based on user feedback and requests. Please feel free to reach out if you have any specific questions or requests. Given the time invested in development and the high value it provides to select customers, we may offer it through a specific subscription plan in the future.