Portfolios
Adding a portfolio
Tap the Edit button to enter edit mode and add a new portfolio to the list. You can create a portfolio from scratch or just create a link to an existing portfolio on the device or on iCloud. In the latter case you will be asked to choose among the available portfolios on iCloud or just locally. Otherwise you create an empty portfolio by defining its name and optional password. Touch ID or Face ID will be used for authentication if available on the device. By default the reference currency of a new portfolio will be the US Dollar if you have an english version of the application or the Euro for a french version. You can change this afterwards if you like.
Removing a portfolio
Tap the Edit button to enter edit mode and remove a portfolio from the list. You can also slide the portfolio’s entry to the left when not in edit mode. You will be asked if the portfolio should be deleted altogether or just removed from the list.
Editing a portfolio
Enter Edit mode and tap the Info button at the right end of the portfolio’s entry. You can also double-tap or long press a portfolio in the list when not in edit mode. You can change the name and/or password of the portfolio, as well as move it to or remove it from iCloud. The password is stored in your keychain.
Opening a portfolio
You open a selected portfolio by tapping on its name in the list. Opening a portfolio shows its contents (possibly after asking for authentication). Only one portfolio can be open at any time (even by another Gama or Gama Pocket application). The portfolio’s data files stay on the device but on demand a copy can be moved to iCloud to make it available to other Gama or Gama Pocket applications. Gama is only compatible with Apple’s iCloud Drive. In this case each time a portfolio is closed or when Gama is made inactive, the portfolio’s file will be saved to iCloud. Please note that it may take some time before this procedure is completed, depending on the network and access provider. It may happen that a portfolio has not yet been saved to iCloud when it’s reopened. In this case, an alert will tell you and offer the possibility to open the local version stored on the device. However, if the portfolio was last modified by another Gama or Gama Pocket application, you should wait till it has been updated on iCloud and downloaded to the device.
Exporting a portfolio
You can export a portfolio by hitting the Export button. Exporting a portfolio is useful to create a backup copy of a portfolio or to share it with someone else. It will be stored in a single file which can be moved wherever you like. Please note that this portfolio file is not password-protected, in case the original portfolio was. Please note that you should never otherwise move or rename the portfolio’s file (with a ‘gama’ extension) or folder inside your Gama iCloud Drive subfolder, as Gama will not be able to find it again.
Importing a portfolio
You can import a portfolio by hitting the Import button. To import a portfolio in Gama, choose its file (previously exported) from a standard file selection dialog and specify if you want it located in your iCloud Drive folder or just locally on your device. Gama will then copy it to the appropriate location and add it to the list as well. Import will fail if a portfolio with the same name already exists.
Settings
The application settings are accessible by tapping the cogwheel button in the left corner of the portfolios’ screen. You can choose whether you want to use tags for the transactions and associate each tag with a short phrase. You can also choose if you want to receive notifications and you can specify the advance delay (in days) to notify the user of any upcoming programmed transactions.
On the standard Gama Asset Manager applications a “Buy Upgrade” button will be present. You can buy the upgrade (through an in-app purchase) to upgrade the standard version to the extended one and get access to all the investments .
The Restore Purchase button lets you restore the purchase of the upgrade if you removed the application from your device or installed it on another device.
Finally the version number of the application is displayed as well as links to this website and user guide and a button to send an email message.
Please note that Gama Asset Manager and Gama Pocket all support Dark Mode on iOS and Mac OS.
The open portfolio
Once a portfolio has been opened, you will see a screen with a bottom tab bar containing 5 tabs: accounts, investments, assets, budget (categories) and programmed transactions. The screen corresponding to each tab may be divided into several panes which can be resized or hidden at will. The standard version does not contain the investments tab.
The accounts tab
The left part of the screen lists all the accounts of the portfolio with their type icon, name and current balance. When you select one or more accounts, the right part of the screen will display all the corresponding transactions. An Edit button lets you create, delete, edit or move an account. Double tap or hold your finger on an account to modify it. You can also delete an account by sliding it to the left as usual. Deleting an account deletes all its transactions. You can select multiple accounts if that option has been chosen in the segmented control above the list.
Creating/editing an account
Set the name of the account, its currency and type. You can also set the name of the bank institution and account number if you want. Banks are created on the fly via the dedicated pop-up menu (see Creating/editing a bank). Enter the initial account balance and creation date.
There is also a switch you can set when you want to close the account. A closed account appears grayed out in the list and is frozen. No transaction can modify it, it does not appear in the assets and its transactions do not show up in any categories (budget). Of course, when you close an account, all its programmed transactions will be deleted.
Yet another switch can be set to tell Gama to automatically import transactions from a CSV file into the account. The file must be located in the folder with the same name as the portfolio and have the same name as the account. According to whether the portfolio is stored on iCloud or not, this folder will be located on the iCloud Drive ou locally on the device. The transactions from the CSV file will be imported into the account when opening the portfolio. A transaction import scheme must have been defined for the account’s bank.
Finally another switch lets you specify if this account should be displayed by the Gama Pocket application for iPhone™.
The currency is to be chosen from a drop-down menu listing the available currencies, but you can add a new currency on the fly (see Creating a currency).
Loan accounts are a bit different: you have to tell whether it’s a lending or borrowing account, define the (annual) interest rate, the number of repayments and the type: constant annuities, constant amortizations or interest only. You must also set the repayment frequency, the principal (capital lent or borrowed) and the starting date. This type of account is used to track any changes to the capital lent or borrowed, usually as a result of periodic repayments.
The transactions
The accounts’ transactions are listed in reverse chronological order. Above the list are 4 buttons from left to right: a global (de)select button, a button to verify a selection, a spy-glass button to search for transactions and a More button. The latter pops up a menu including actions to quickly edit a selection and to import or export transactions in a CSV file. If you have chosen to use transaction tags in the application settings, you will also find a tag button which, when tapped, pops up the tags menu to associate a tag with the current selection.
On the right part of the list header there are 4 buttons to add one of the 4 types of transactions: withdrawal, deposit, transfer and loan repayment, as well as a trashcan button to delete the current selection.
Double tap or long press a transaction to edit it. Slide it to the left to delete it. Slide it to the right to verify or repay a transaction (if applicable).
Verified (cleared) transactions can only be edited on explicit permission by the user. The date of non-verified transactions appears in orange. By default, transactions involving cash accounts are always verified upon creation.
Inside the list, the transactions appear with the issue date, optionally followed by a transfer or repayment button, the transaction’s amount and corresponding account balance.
Underneath you will find the payee/payer, assigned categories and investment name. A maximum of 100 transactions will be displayed in the list. To see more, tap the More Transactions button at the bottom of the list.
Creating/editing a withdrawal or deposit
In the Details section, you set the date, status (verified or not), kind, amount, tax amount, payee or payer and a note. Normally a transaction belongs to the account currently selected in the accounts list, but you can choose to associate it to another account if you like. There are 7 kinds of transactions related to the 7 kinds of investments: monetary (money), stock, bond, fund, gold, valuable and real estate. For non-monetary kinds, some additiional data must be entered: the name of the investment and the type of transaction (purchase, sale, dividend received, interest received or paid, (bond) repayment and rent received or paid. You also have to enter the number of units and the price per unit. Note that you can create an investment on the fly (see Creating an investment). There is also a button to set the unit price of the investment to its quotation at the selected date. This is only useful for purchases and sales. Prices can be entered in the currency of your choice, but eventually they will be converted to the account’s currency.
The Categories section allows you to assign the transaction’s amount to one or more expense or income categories. The total amount is splitted between the various selected categories in such a way that the sum always matches the transaction’s amount.The categories are chosen from a drop-down menu listing all existing categories and you can add a new category on the fly if needed (see Creating a user category). A withdrawal is normally assigned to an expense category but can also be linked to an income category in the case of a refund. The same is true for deposits and income categories. In the case of a non-monetary transaction kind, the category(ies) will be set automatically for you and cannot be altered.
Creating/editing a transfer
You set the date, the account from which the money is transferred and the account into which it is transferred, the status (verified or not) and the amount. Accounts can also be created on the fly (see Creating an account).
Creating a loan repayment or transaction refund
You create a loan repayment if the active account is a loan account, otherwise you will create a withdrawal or deposit refund. Let’s first focus on loan repayments. The Details section first contains a button to choose the type of repayment: periodic (recurring) or final (one shot). Enter the date of the repayment, the credited (debited) account, the name of the payee (payer) and the amount. Gama will compute and display the corresponding amortization and interest amounts according to the type of loan defined when creating the account. The Categories section will be filled out automatically for you and cannot be altered. As soon as you tap the OK button, the loan repayment is transformed into 2 transactions: a transfer to the credited or from the debited account corresponding to the amortization amount and a withdrawal or deposit to or from the same account corresponding to the interest amount. This amount is automatically assigned to the interest received or paid category.
Regarding withdrawal and deposit refunds, you can create one or many refunds provided the total amount of all refunds does not exceed the amount of the transaction to refund. For a withdrawal the refund will be a deposit and vice versa for a deposit. The category will be automatically filled in for you and you should not need to change it. All other fields can be modified as you wish. If you change the amount in such a way that the sum of all the refunds exceeds the amount to refund, an alert will be displayed. You can then fix the amount automatically or leave it as is, in which case all refunds will no longer be considered as refunds but as ordinary transactions.
Quick data entry
You can gain some time in setting certain data for a selection of transactions. Choose this action from the More (°°°) menu to change the payee (payer), single category and note of the selection.
Importing transactions
You can import transactions from a CSV file stored in the cloud. Unless a transaction import scheme has already been defined for the current account’s bank, a dialog will let you define the correspondence between the fields of the file and the transaction’s data. Only the date and amount fields are mandatory. The account field is also required if one cannot deduce into which account the transactions should be imported. If you do not wish to import a field, set its number to 0. Field numbering starts at 1. When you tap the OK button, you will be presented with a standard file selection dialog to choose the CSV file at some location in the cloud. When reimporting a file previously exported from Gama, no data will be lost in the process if all the fields were exported. By defining an import scheme for the account’s bank, the import process can be made much simpler and faster. It can even be automated (see Creating/editing an account). Only exporting the CSV file from the bank application or site must still be done by the user.
Importing transactions into Gama follows these rules: if the transaction to be imported does not exist, it is simply added to the account, otherwise it will not be imported but only verified (cleared). This way it is easy to periodically clear transactions by comparing them to the data from a financial institution while preserving your own data.
Exporting transactions
You can export a selection of transactions to a CSV file in the cloud. A dialog lets you define the correspondence between the fields of the file and the transaction’s data. Besides the name of the file, you must specify the type of field separator (« , », « ; » or tab) to be used in the file and also whether the fields should be quoted. Only the file name, date and amount fields are mandatory. If you do not wish to export a field, set its number to 0. Field numbering starts at 1. Leave the default numbering as is to export all the transactions’ data to the file, so they can be reimported without any loss at all. When you tap the OK button, you will be presented with a standard folder selection dialog to choose where to put the CSV file in the cloud.
The investments tab
This tab displays 4 panes. On the left you’ll find the different kinds of investments from currencies to real estate. Although currencies are not true investments they are displayed here because they share many features with the other kinds of investments. Selecting an investment kind triggers the display of the corresponding investments in the middle pane. Select an investment in this list and you will see the quotations of the investment displayed both as a list in reverse chronological order and as a chart. The header above the list of investments shows 2 icons: one to sort the list alphabetically and one to open the web page of any selected investment for which such a link has been defined. On the right of the header there is an Edit button to create, move or delete investments. Please note that you cannot delete an investment still in use by some transactions. You have to delete the transactions first. You edit an investment by double-tapping or long-pressing its name. The list of investments shows for each one its name above other data depending on the kind of investment. The header above the quotations list contains buttons to (de)select all quotations, delete a selection and add a new quotation.
Long-press anywhere on the chart to display the value of a quotation at the chosen date. You can select a section of the chart by holding and sliding your finger to the left or to the right. The list of quotations will be updated accordingly. Double-tap the chart to return to the full view.
Creating/editing an investment
For any kind of investment you always have to set its name and currency (except for currencies of course) an optionally a web page and note. Other data can be entered depending on the investment kind. The currency must be chosen from a drop-down menu listing all existing currencies and you can also create a new one on the fly. An empty portfolio contains some well-known currencies by default.
Currencies
You set the currency’s symbol and optionally its ISO code. The latter allows you to download exchange rates at a selected frequency (daily, weekly or monthly). A switch lets you specify whether the currency will be the portfolio’s reference currency. All asset and budget amounts are relative to this reference currency. Finally another switch must be set for cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin,…).
Editing a currency’s exchange rates
For currencies the quotations are actually exchange rates relative to the reference currency. Underneath the list there is a button to download exchange rates for a specified period of time and frequency.
Stocks
You may set the code of the stock to download quotations at a selected frequency (daily, weekly or monthly). This code can usually be found at websites like Yahoo Finance,… If the stock does not have a code, you can always retrieve its current value on financial websites and add it manually to the list of quotations. Entering the url of such a site in the proper field is particularly useful in this case. You should also select from drop-down menus the activity sector and geographical region pertaining to the stock, both of which will be used for asset allocation. Some activity sectors and regions are defined by default for any new portfolio, but you can edit the menu to add or delete your own.
Editing a stock’s quotations and splits
Below the list you’ll find 2 buttons: the first one lets you swap the list between quotations and splits and the second is used to download quotations or splits for a specified period of time and frequency. A split is defined by its date and split rate (usually a positive integer value). When a stock is splitted, the quantity of stocks held in the portfolio is multiplied by the split rate and its unit price (or quotation) is divided by the rate.
Bonds
You must select the type of the bond: standard, convertible or reverse-convertible. This is only informative. You should also set the bond’s emission date, its duration in years (can be a decimal value), annual interest rate and payment frequency (from monthly to annually or at maturity).
Editing a bond’s quotations
As is usual for bonds, the quotations are not expressed as values in the bond’s currency but rather as percentages of its nominal or face value. Bond quotations must be entered manually.
Funds
You should specify if the fund is of the capitalization or distribution kind. Just as for stocks, you must also set the activity sector and geographical region of the fund.
Editing a fund’s quotations and splits
Fund quotations and splits must be entered manually.
Gold and precious metals
You just set the name, currency, web page and note of this kind of investment. Quotations are entered manually.
Valuables
Besides the name, currency, web page and note, you can set the author (for a work of art) and a photo of the valuable item.
The photo can be taken on the fly using the device’s camera or chosen in the user’s photo album. Both the photo and a thumbnail of the photo will be stored in the portfolio. The thumbnail of the valuable item will be displayed on the list of valuables. You can see the full scale photo by tapping on the thumbnail.
Real estate
Besides the name, currency, web page and note, you can set a photo of the real estate property just as for a valuable item. There is also a location field in which you can enter the address of the property. The thumbnail of the property is visible in the list of real estate properties alongside a button which, when tapped, will show you its location on a map.
The assets tab
A portfolio’s assets are mainly computed from the purchase and sale transactions and investment quotations.
This tab presents 3 panes. The leftmost is a list of different kinds of assets from which you can select one or many. By default they are all selected. The right pane lists all the assets from the selected kinds in a multi-column table. For accounts this means all the active (non closed) accounts and for the other types of assets all the investments of the selected types held in the portfolio over a well defined period. You can set the starting date and end date of this period below the table. The assets’ data are displayed in 8 columns from left to right: the kind of asset, its currency, its name, quantity, value, gain, ROI and annual ROI. For accounts the quantity usually equals the value and is the account’s balance at the end date of the period. It will be different if the account’s currency differs from the portfolios’s reference currency. For the other investment kinds it’s the number of units present in the portfolio at the end date of the period (except for bonds for which the quantity is the nominal value of the bond). Values are expressed in the portfolio’s reference currency. Gains (or losses) are computed for the selected period. The (annual) ROI of accounts is undefined because it’s meaningless. Below the table you can see the total value of the portfolio at the end date of the period as well as its ROI and annual ROI over the selected period. The header above the table contains a button to (de)select all the assets in the table and 3 mutually exclusive buttons to select the type of chart displayed in the bottom pane of the screen.
The first one corresponds to a line chart to view the evolution of the selected assets over the chosen period. The second one displays a bar chart with the annual gains of the selected accounts (if only accounts are selected) or the annual return of the asset selection otherwise, for each year of the period. The last button shows a pie chart with the asset allocation of the selection according to one of 5 criteria to be chosen in the segmented control above the table. These criteria correspond to the asset kinds, currencies, assets, activity sectors and geographical regions. The last two criteria only pertain to stocks and funds.
When the line chart is on display, you can change the time frame by holding and sliding your finger to the left or to the right on the chart. When a single investment is selected in the table, the line chart also displays the purchase and sale points.
The budget tab
This tab is divided into 3 panes. The left pane lists all the expense and income categories. Select one or several categories and the list of the matching transactions will be displayed in the right pane. The bottom pane shows a bar or pie chart with the same data. All values are expressed in the portfolio’s reference currency. The budget balance is shown on top of the transactions list. It is defined as the difference between the total net amount of the budgeted transactions (income – expenses) and the net budget allocated (income – expenses). In this way it represents your saving performance over the chosen period: green if you could save some money and red otherwise.
The header above the list of categories contains several buttons, from left to right: a button to choose the selection mode (single or multiple selection), a button to sort them alphabetically, a button to choose the current month, current year or any other year for which the matching transactions will be shown, a button to expand or contract all the categories (expanding a category displays its subcategories) and finally an Edit button to add, move or delete categories from the list. The headers of both the expense and income sections display a button to (de)select all the expense or income categories, a progress line and two or three values. Their meaning is the same for both sections, so we will only explain them for the expenses section. The value above the line, if present, is the total amount of expenses for the selected time frame. The value on the left below the line is the amount of budgeted expenses for the same period and the value on the right below the line is the budget allocated to the expenses for this period. If all expenses have been budgeted there will be no value displayed above the line. The progress line itself and the two values below it only appear if some budget has been defined for an expense. It shows the progress inside the time frame and will be colored in green if the total amount of budgeted expenses lies within the expected limit or in red otherwise. This explanation also holds for the individual categories.
Budgets may be viewed for the current month or for a specific year. Budgets are always tied to a year, but you can only modify the current year’s budgets.
When in Edit mode, you can create new (sub)categories, move them around, edit or delete them. Only the categories that you have defined yourself can be deleted. The predefined categories cannot be removed. You can also double-tap or long-press a category to edit it.
Creating/editing a category
You set the name and optionally the budget you want to allocate to the (sub)category. If you define a budget you must also choose the corresponding time frame (monthly or annual). The sum of the budgets allocated to all the subcategories of a category must be ≤ the budget of the category itself. There’s also a switch to specify whether the category is active or not. An active category can be assigned to transactions and so will be present in the list of categories to choose from when creating or editing a transaction. Deactivate a category when you know you will no longer be using it and remove it from this list. Inactive categories also appear greyed out in the list.
Transactions per category
The right pane of the budget tab lists all the transactions for which some amount has been assigned to the selected category(ies). The date, account and assigned amount of the transaction are displayed along with some other data as appropriate. Negative amounts appear in green for expense categories or in red for income categories. Double-tap a transaction to edit it in the accounts tab.
Budget charts
You can choose between a bar chart or a pie chart. The bar chart displays the daily or monthly evolution of the expense and/or income amounts over the selected period. The bars will be coloured in vivid red or vivid green for negative or positive amounts respectively. The light red or light green bars show the allotted budget amounts. You can touch a bar to display its value on the chart. You can choose to display either the expenses or the revenues or both.
The pie chart shows the relative amount allocation (%) for the various selected categories and subcategories over the set period. If you hold your finger over a wedge of the pie, you will see the corresponding monetary value.
The programmed transactions tab
Programmed transactions are listed in order of next occurrence. They can be created, modified and deleted just as the ordinary transactions. They do not however have any impact on an account’s balance. By sliding the transaction to the right or by hitting the appropriate button, you can either post (generate) the current occurrence of the transaction at once or skip it. If a programmed transaction’s occurrences will be auto-generated, its date shows in purple and you cannot slide it to the right.
The date of the next occurrence is shown as well as the date of last occurrence (for periodic transactions). A bell icon may appear if a notification will be sent when the transaction is about to be issued (the delay is defined in the application’s settings). The details of these programmed transactions are identical to those of the ordinary transactions except for the data related to the date. You must define the period of recurrence for the transaction (from every week to every year or single shot) and both the starting and final dates (obviously one date only for single shot). There are two more switches. The first one lets you define whether the upcoming transaction(s) should be generated automatically or not and the second one specifies if the user should be notified in advance of the transaction’s occurrence. When a programmed transaction is due (the current date is later than the date of next occurrence), its date will show in orange.
The banks tab
Banks are listed in alphabetical order and can be created, modified or deleted. Select a bank to show the corresponding accounts. Double-tap an account and you will be taken to the accounts tab to edit it.
Creating/editing a bank
Enter the name of the bank and optionally its web site url. In this case, the web site icon on top of the banks list will be enabled for the selected bank. There is also a switch to define a transaction import scheme. If on, you will be able to specify the correspondence between some transaction data and the fields of a CSV file to import from this bank (see Importing transactions). Only the date and amount fields are mandatory. If you do not wish to import a field, set its number to 0. Field numbering starts at 1.
The payees tab
Payees are listed in alphabetical order et can be created, modified or deleted. The broom-shaped icon on top of the list lets you delete at once all those orphaned payees who do not appear in any transaction. Select a payee to show the corresponding transactions. Double-tap a transaction and you will be able to edit it either in the accounts tab or in the programmed transactions tab.
Creating/editing a bank
Enter the name of the payee. There is also a location field in which you can enter the address of the payee. In this case, next to its name in the list, a button will appear which, when tapped, will show you its location on a map.