BorderFolio/Contribution tracker
Tracking contributions by month
Last reviewed 24 August 2026
A contribution is the money you actually put in. BorderFolio stores every purchase as a dated contribution — quantity, price per share and the commission charged — then groups those purchases by calendar month. That gives you the amount invested per month, your average pace, the streak of consecutive active months, and the gaps. It is the one part of a portfolio you fully control, so it is the part the product is built around.
How contributions get in
- From a statement. Every purchase line in an imported broker statement becomes a contribution, backdated to the trade date — so an eight-month statement produces eight months of history immediately.
- By hand. Log a purchase as you make it. No broker connection is required, which also means no broker can break the record.
Because the history lives in BorderFolio rather than being read live from a broker, changing brokers or closing an account does not erase it. Statements from a new broker import alongside what is already there.
What is measured
| Metric | Definition |
|---|---|
| Invested this month | Sum of contributions dated inside the current calendar month, commissions included. |
| Monthly pace | Your actual average contribution per month over the tracked history — not a plan or a target. |
| Median month | The middle month of the history, which a single large transfer cannot inflate. |
| Streak | Consecutive months, up to now, in which at least one contribution was made. |
| Active months / gaps | How many months of the tracked period had contributions, and where the empty ones fall. |
| Contributed vs market growth | Per month: how much of the change in portfolio value came from you and how much from the market. See the true return methodology. |
Pace is deliberately computed from what you actually did. A plan is a separate, clearly labelled number: when your real pace and your plan diverge, both are shown rather than the flattering one.
What the record is used for
- Distance to a milestone. At your current pace, how long until $100K, $250K or your own target — with the estimate driven by the pace you actually keep.
- Planning the next contribution. What one more contribution changes: allocation drift against your target weights, expected dividend income at each fund's own trailing yield, and the cross-border tax effect of putting it into one holding rather than another.
- Consistency. Streaks and gaps make the habit visible, which is the variable that actually determines the outcome over a decade.
Free and Pro
Free keeps a full contribution log but displays the last three months, along with the pace and streak headline. Pro unlocks the complete history and its analytics — rhythm, median, gaps, per-month contributed-vs-growth snapshots — a custom monthly plan with target allocation and drift, and CSV export of the contribution history.
Common questions
What is a contribution tracker?
A contribution tracker records the money you put into a portfolio — each purchase with its date, quantity, price and commission — as a first-class history, independent of what the market did afterwards. BorderFolio uses that record to show monthly pace, consistency and how much of the portfolio is deposited capital rather than market growth.
How do I track investment contributions by month?
Import a broker statement or log a purchase manually. BorderFolio groups purchases into calendar months and shows the amount invested per month, your average and median monthly contribution, the current streak of active months, and gaps where nothing was invested.
Does the contribution history survive a change of broker?
Yes. Contributions are stored in BorderFolio, not read live from a broker, so moving accounts or closing a broker relationship does not erase the record. Statements from a new broker are imported alongside the existing history.