Tracking the wheel: a spreadsheet or an app

Most people start the wheel in a spreadsheet, and many never need anything else. The tool matters less than one habit: record what happened, and let the numbers follow from it. This guide shows that habit on one covered-call roll, then when a sheet does the job, where it starts to strain, and what an app adds.

What any wheel tracker has to get right

Whatever you use, it has to keep five things straight.

1. Events, not running totals. Each sale, buy-back, roll, assignment and expiry is its own row, with its date. Totals are worked out from the rows, never typed over them.
2. Premium collected is not premium kept. A credit is yours once its option is bought back, expires or is assigned. Until then it is still at risk.
3. Basis moves only when premium settles. An open credit does not lower your cost basis.
4. A roll is two legs. Buying back the old call and selling the new one are two events, each with its own cash.
5. Cycles end. When your shares are called away, that cycle is over, and the next one starts from its own basis.

One roll, as a sheet should hold it

The demo dataset, on a made-up ticker, DEMO: shares bought, then a covered call rolled once.

From those four rows:

• Premium collected: 180 + 240 = 420.
• Realized: 180 − 30 = 150, from the first call, which is closed.
• Still at risk: 240, the credit of the open call.
• Adjusted basis: 21.50 falls to 21.00 once the first call settles, (6,450 − 150) ÷ 300. The open 240 does not count yet.

The usual shortcut sums one “premium” column and calls the 420 income. Only 150 of it is settled; the other 240 can still be lost. The guide Premium collected vs realized P&L works through it in full, and Covered-call cost basis after a roll does the same for the basis.

When a spreadsheet is enough

A sheet is a sound tracker when:

• you run one or two positions and roll now and then;
• you keep one row per event, as above, and never type over a total;
• you are glad to keep the formulas right as rows are added.

It costs nothing, and you can see every number it uses.

Where a sheet starts to strain

The habit gets harder to keep as the wheel grows.

• Rolls and partial closes add rows, and a formula that stops one row short gives a wrong total without saying so.
• Assignments move shares and cash in one step, and the basis of the new shares has to be worked out by hand.
• Corrections tend to overwrite the cell, so what you changed, and when, is lost.
• Several accounts mean a filter or a tab each, and totals that have to agree.
• Year-end means sorting out again which events belong to which year.

What an app adds, and what it does not

yourfinance keeps the same event log and works the numbers out from it:

• every sale, buy-back, roll and assignment is recorded as an event, and a roll as one event with both legs;
• premium collected, premium still at risk and realized are shown apart, and the basis moves only when premium settles;
• a correction is added as a new event, so the earlier record stays;
• the Decision Desk lists what needs a decision;
• it reads CSV exports from IBKR, DEGIRO, Trading 212 and Trade Republic, and its own template;
• your records stay on your computer. There is no yourfinance account, and it never asks for your broker login.

What it does not do: it knows only what you record or import, it is one more program to learn, and after the 10-day free trial it has a one-time price.

Moving your sheet into the app

A sheet that keeps one row per event maps onto the yourfinance history template: one row per event, with the date, the quantity and the price and, for an option, its strike and expiry. The sheet below is that template, filled in with the demo roll above. It imports into yourfinance as it is: in Import, choose the file, check the preview, and confirm. Imports explains what the preview checks.

Whichever you choose, keep one row per event. A sheet that does that is a sound tracker; an app that does it for you saves the arithmetic, not the judgment.