Assets & Holdings

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Revaluation sweep runs mondays · 7:15am and keeps the What you hold dashboard fresh. Mondays — prices every quoted holding from the open web, writes the month's valuation, and speaks only when something moved.
• What is captured lands in the Holdings register dataset, which lives at Data/Holdings Register in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Valuation log dataset, which lives at Data/Valuation Log in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Holding activity dataset, which lives at Data/Holding Activity in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Target mix dataset, which lives at Data/Target Mix in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The What you hold dashboard reads from the dataset and shows, at a glance: net worth · what you hold, today · what you owe · holdings on record · where it sits, by class · value month by month · movers since the last sweep · where it sits, by account · where it sits, by currency · your mix against your target · money in and out, by kind · go through your own figures · cost against value · how this board works.

The wiring, in one breath: Holding capture writes to Holdings register · Statement read writes to Holdings register · Holdings register shown by What you hold · Valuation log shown by What you hold · What you hold kept fresh by Revaluation sweep · Revaluation sweep writes to Valuation log · Statement read given to Elm · Income, fees and gains writes to Holding activity · Mix, accounts and currency writes to Target mix · Holding activity shown by What you hold · Income, fees and gains given to Elm · Mix, accounts and currency given to Elm.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Put every holding on the register once, with the units and what you paid, the day you install — a rough cost is fine, a blank is fine. What you hold, today and Where it sits are worth a glance from the first Monday, when the Revaluation sweep has priced the quoted holdings.
• Say a purchase or a sale the way you'd say it to a friend — "bought 20 more of the index fund at $102", "sold the Ether" — and Holding capture moves the register. With two holdings that could fit, name which; if you don't, Elm asks rather than guessing.
• When a broker statement or a contract note arrives, add it to the vault and say what it is. Statement read moves the positions from the document, not from memory — that is the correction that keeps Cost against value true.
• Read Value month by month on the first Monday of the month, after the sweep has written the month's row for every holding. It sums what was there that month, so a holding you sold leaves the line honestly rather than vanishing from history.
• Read the Source column before you read the Value column. "Web quote" is a price somebody published this week; "Your estimate" is yours, and Elm will never dress one up as the other. When the monthly card asks for the property or the savings, Go through your own figures on the board puts each property or balance you value yourself in front of you, one at a time: type the new figure, or keep the one there.
• Ask Elm for the case both ways when you are weighing a sale or a rebalance — and expect the plain line that this is a record, not financial advice. The decision, and any adviser, is yours; nothing here can touch an account.
• Tell Elm what your holdings pay and cost as it happens: "Northwind paid 184 on Friday", "the platform took its 37 fee", "put 500 into the index fund". Income, fees and gains keeps each one on the Holding activity record, and Money in and out, by kind adds them up. A sale goes there too, with its gain worked out and the method written beside it so you can check it.
• When a tax return comes round, ask for the year's sales and income. You get every sale with its cost, gain and working, the income totals, and how gains and dividends are generally taxed where you live, from the tax authority's own page, named. What to claim stays yours, or your accountant's.
• Tell Elm the split you aim for, once ("60% funds, 25% shares, 15% cash"), and Your mix against your target sets each class beside it every Monday, the gap in points and in money. It is arithmetic, never a nudge: ask what reaching it would take and Elm works it through on your figures, and it never says to buy, sell or rebalance.
• Say which account each holding sits in and the currency it is priced in, and Where it sits, by account and by currency fill in. Ask how a kind of account works, a tax-free wrapper or a pension, and Elm reads the government's own page first and names it.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, datasets and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• What you call each holding — the name on the register is the word Elm uses back.
• When the Monday sweep runs, or turning it off and keeping the register by hand.
• Which holdings are never priced — a pension you would rather not watch weekly, say — and the currency you think in.
• How big a move earns a card: 5% of the total and 10% of a single holding are the defaults.
• Whether the monthly ask for your own figures happens at all, and on which week.
• Your target mix: set it, change it or clear it whenever you like. With no target the mix list stays empty; Elm never proposes one.
• Each holding's account, currency and yearly charge, by telling Elm or editing the row.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. Installing ends with "Meet Elm", the Kit's own keeper, and a short conversation, not a form. Elm looks before it asks: it first checks what you have already told 1Presence and any statements or valuations in your vault, asking your permission to look there if it needs it, and shows you what it found so you can confirm or correct it. Then it offers the territory of ownership as one tap-to-answer panel (property, shares, funds & ETFs, bonds, crypto, precious metals, cash & savings, something else), leaving out what it already found, and takes each holding in turn: what you call it, how many units, roughly what you paid, where it is kept, and, for a property or a balance no market quotes, your own figure, written as your estimate with the day it is as of. Each row lands as you say it; a blank stays blank. Near the end Elm asks once whether you aim for a particular split across the classes; name one and it is kept as your target, or leave it.
2. Nothing in that conversation looks up a price, and nothing reads an account — there is no connector to grant, now or later. Positions are what you say or what a statement you add prints. If Markets & Investing is installed, the watchlist rows marked as held are offered by name; if Mortgages & Loans is installed, what you owe is already on its register and the board nets it.
3. If you stop part-way, nothing is lost. Whatever is still missing (a fund with no units, which the sweep cannot price, or a flat with no figure) waits on the Kit page with a way back to Elm, the board says how many parts are in place, and Elm offers it once the next time you talk. Tell it a part does not apply to you, or that you have finished setting up, and it stops asking. While the register is still empty, the Monday sweep leaves one card inviting you in rather than pricing nothing. The research desk (the watchlist, the case for and against a name) is the Markets & Investing Kit's; Elm hands you across rather than keeping a thesis here.
4. From the first Monday with a holding on the register, the Revaluation sweep looks up a current price for every quoted holding from the open web — the source and date on each — writes the value to the register and to this month's row of the valuation log, and redraws the board. Most weeks it says nothing. It leaves a card only when the total or a single holding moved materially, when a price could not be found, or, once a month, to ask whether the property or the savings have moved.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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