P&L tells you how much money you've actually made or lost. That's it.
If your P&L shows +$5,000, you have $5,000 more than you put in. This is the most straightforward way to measure investment success.
P&L answers the question: "How much have I actually gained or lost?"
It's simple math: take your current value, subtract what you invested, add back what you withdrew. The result is your profit (positive) or loss (negative).
No complex formulas, no annualization, no time-weighting. Just real money gained or lost.
P&L gives you the raw truth about your investments. While percentages and growth rates are useful for comparison, P&L tells you the actual dollar impact on your wealth.
For each asset in NetFiscus, you can see its P&L derived from your deposits, withdrawals, and current value. On your portfolio view, you can see the combined P&L across all your assets.
This answers the fundamental question every investor asks: "Am I actually making money?"
You invested $10,000 in a stock fund. Over time, you withdrew $2,000 (maybe to cover an expense). Today, the fund is worth $12,000.
Your P&L calculation:
You've made $4,000 in profit - real money you didn't have before.
Most investors meet these two terms early and find them confusing. The distinction is simpler than it sounds.
Because the NetFiscus formula compares your current value against your net investment, the P&L figure covers both at once. Money you took out has already reduced your net investment, so it still counts as profit. Money still sitting in the asset counts through the current value.
The practical result: you do not have to track two separate numbers. One P&L figure reflects your full position.
Withdrawals confuse people more than any other part of P&L. A worked example makes it clear.
You buy a rental property:
The calculation:
Notice that the $24,000 of rental income is not lost from the calculation. It lowered your net investment, which raised your P&L by exactly the same amount. The income you spent still counts as profit you earned.
This is why recording withdrawals matters. Skip them, and your P&L will understate what the asset actually produced.
P&L is particularly useful when:
NetFiscus uses a straightforward formula:
Net Investment = Total Deposits - Total Withdrawals
Net P&L = Current Value - Net Investment
Gain Percentage = (Current Value + Withdrawals - Deposits) / Deposits
The calculation considers:
All amounts are converted to your display currency using historical exchange rates from when each transaction occurred. This ensures your P&L reflects the actual purchasing power you invested.
If you hold assets in more than one currency, the conversion method decides whether your P&L is meaningful or misleading.
A common mistake is to convert everything at today's rate. That erases currency effects entirely and reports a profit you never made. If you bought an asset when your currency was strong and it has weakened since, that movement is part of your real result.
NetFiscus converts each transaction at the rate from its own date. A deposit made three years ago uses the rate from three years ago. Today's value uses today's rate. The difference between them is a genuine part of your P&L.
A short example. You are based in EUR and you buy a US fund:
In dollars you gained 10%. In euros you are down €100. Both are true. Which one matters depends on the currency you actually spend. Your display currency setting decides which view NetFiscus reports.
You can check any past rate yourself with the historical exchange rate tool, or read more about tracking investments across multiple currencies.
While P&L measures your absolute gain, MWRR (Money-Weighted Rate of Return) measures your compound growth rate. Both are valuable but answer different questions.
| Aspect | P&L | MWRR |
|---|---|---|
| Measures | Absolute profit/loss | Compound growth rate |
| Format | Dollar amount | Annualized percentage |
| Answers | "How much did I make?" | "How fast is my money growing?" |
| Timing impact | None | Significant |
Example of the difference:
You invested $1,000 in January and $10,000 in December. The asset grew 10% early in the year but stayed flat later.
Use P&L to understand your total wealth impact. Use MWRR to understand your investment efficiency and compare against benchmarks.
The gain percentage tells you your return relative to what you invested:
This percentage accounts for withdrawals too. If you withdrew money along the way, the formula ensures you're measuring return on your original investment, not just what remains.
One limit is worth knowing. The gain percentage is not annualized. A 40% gain earned over ten months and a 40% gain earned over ten years look identical here. When the time period matters, read the MWRR instead.
The formula never changes. What changes is what you record and how often.
Record every contribution as a deposit and every sale or cash sweep as a withdrawal. Update the account value monthly or quarterly. Dividends left inside the account need no entry, because they already show in the value.
Deposits are the purchase price, closing costs, and capital improvements. Withdrawals are the net rental income you take out. Update the property value once or twice a year. Do not update it monthly, because the estimate will simply add noise.
Record fiat you put in as a deposit and fiat you take out as a withdrawal. Moving coins between your own wallets is not a cash flow, so it needs no entry. Only the value update changes.
Deposits are the purchase price plus restoration or authentication costs. Value updates should be rare and conservative. An honest, slightly low estimate gives you a more useful P&L than an optimistic one.
Treat the balance as the value and each transfer as a cash flow. Interest that lands in the account shows up through the value update, so no separate entry is needed.
NetFiscus shows your P&L history so you can see how your profit has evolved:
This historical view helps you spot trends and understand when your investments performed best (or worst).
NetFiscus needs at least one deposit (inflow) to calculate P&L. Without knowing how much you invested, there's no way to determine profit or loss.
If you see "N/A" for P&L, record your initial investment as a deposit to enable the calculation.
Beyond individual assets, NetFiscus calculates P&L across your entire portfolio:
This aggregated view helps you understand which parts of your portfolio are driving your overall gains or losses.
No. P&L is an amount of money. Return is a rate. P&L tells you that you gained 4,000. MWRR tells you that your money grew at 7% per year. Two portfolios can show the same P&L and very different returns, because P&L ignores how long the money was invested.
Yes, if you record them. Dividends, interest and rental income are inflows. They raise your net investment when you leave them in the asset, and they count as withdrawals when you take them out. Either way the money is captured.
Brokers usually report only the assets they hold, in their own base currency, and many show realized gains separately from unrealized ones. NetFiscus combines every asset you track, converts each transaction at the historical rate for its own date, and reports one figure. Different scope and different currency handling produce different numbers.
Record the sale proceeds as a withdrawal and lower the asset value to what remains. Your net investment falls by the amount you took out, and the current value falls too. The profit you already made stays in the P&L figure.
Each transaction is converted at the exchange rate from its own date, so a currency move between your purchase date and today shows up in your P&L. You can look up any past rate yourself with the historical exchange rate tool.
P&L needs at least one deposit. Without a recorded inflow there is no way to know what you put in, so profit cannot be derived. Record your initial investment as a deposit and the value appears.
