Dare to Compare our TradeLog™ Software:
You may have looked at other software or internet services that claim to properly calculate your trading gains and losses. Most of them are sadly lacking. Either they are much too simplistic to handle the complex IRS laws regarding wash sales or they do not have an automated method of importing trade history from your online broker.
Some of the more commonly-used personal finance software programs, such as Quicken, MS Money, and TurboTax, are woefully inadequate in meeting the IRS requirements for Schedule D reporting or are unable to handle a large volume of trade activity. In addition, almost all of these products offer little or no support when things go wrong.
Please take a moment to compare our software with other packages out there...you will be glad you did come tax time!
Web Based Services: |
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| TradeLog™ | Comments | |
| Limited online broker import capability
Imports via OFX or Excel |
Direct importing from over 35 online brokers with additional supported brokers being added on a regular basis | OFX is a very complex banking interface. Few online brokers support it.
Brokers who do support OFX often limit user access to trade history to
the last 90 days only.
Where does this leave a user who needs to re-create trade history for a previous year? |
| Designed for long term investors | Designed for active traders who execute thousands or tens of thousands of trades per year | If you are a long term investor, then web based services may be a viable solution for you. However, if you are a short term investor doing many hundreds or thousands of trades per year, then why use a service that doesn't fit your specific needs as an active trader? |
| Cannot run reports quickly on thousands of trades | Runs "lightning-fast" reports on an unlimited number of trades | Imagine running a report on
a few thousand trades over the Internet. Now imagine 1,000 other
users trying to run the same report during the tax season just before a
filing deadline. Who has time to wait? TradeLog™ runs all of your reports directly on your PC...lightning fast! Our software has the absolute fastest database engine of any other in this market space. Reports usually take seconds (not minutes or hours) to run, even in a file containing tens of thousands of transactions. |
| Software runs via the Internet only | Software runs on your PC | How do you feel about
sending your trade history to a third party?
What if you need to run a quick report and you're not connected to the Internet?
The security and convenience benefits of TradeLog™ software are obvious. |
| Does not calculate wash sales between long and short trades for the same investment | If you short sell a stock and buy it back at loss (short trade) and then buy the same stock (long trade), this is a wash sale as defined by the IRS. | Without
properly calculating wash sales you cannot file an accurate, compliant
Schedule D with the IRS!
If you are an active trader or even a casual investor trading in and out of the same stock many times throughout the year, you will inevitably have wash sales and these MUST be reported to the IRS. The IRS wash sale rule also applies to "substantially identical" securities such as options and underlying stock. TradeLog™ can account for this and all other aspects of the wash sale rule whereas other competing programs fail. See Properly Calculates Wash Sales for details. |
| Does not calculate wash sales between stocks and options | If you sell a stock at a loss and then buy any option on that same stock, this is a wash sale as defined by the IRS. | |
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Very expensive for active traders $359 for 3,000 transactions |
Handles an unlimited number of
trade transactions for a set price:
$297 for TradeLog™ $349 for GTT TradeLog™ (MTM accounting) Lower cost versions for 1500 transactions or less are available - see our TradeLog Products page for details. |
TradeLog™ represents an exceptional value for active traders who execute many hundreds or thousands of trade transactions per year.
A TradeLog™ user pays a set price to purchase the software...no hidden fees or incremental charges. And all of our TradeLog™ versions come with a FREE one-year subscription to support and software updates! |
| NO phone support offered to users | FREE, unlimited support by 800 # or email for one full year. Users can talk to technical support personnel from 9am to 5pm EST, Monday through Friday. | What will you do come tax
time when you run into problems with your online account, you need
immediate help and your only support option is
email?
In our opinion, all software should come with FREE phone support. Especially one that costs many hundreds of dollars per year! |
| Updates? | Frequent updates | We respond immediately to each and every reported bug found in our software. A fix is generally provided within a matter of days. (See our Update/Download page for details.) We also try to incorporate user feedback into our software whenever possible. |
| Software must be re-purchased every year, or user loses reporting capability. | Annual subscription renewal
is not mandatory for viewing and reporting on existing data files
|
See our FAQ: What is included in a TradeLog™ one-year subscription for details. |
Personal Finance Software: |
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(ie: Quicken, MS Money) |
TradeLog™ | Comments |
| Limited online broker import capability | Direct importing from over 35 online brokers with additional supported brokers being added on a regular basis | How much value does a software program offer you if your broker isn't supported? |
| Designed for casual investors | Designed for active traders | Why purchase a generic software program that doesn't fit your specific trade and tax accounting needs as an active trader? |
| Cannot handle thousands of trade transactions | Handles an unlimited number of trade transactions | Active traders push generic accounting programs to their limits because of the high volume of executed trades. |
| Users must make numerous edits and match trades manually | Automated trade matching upon import using strict IRS FIFO trade matching | Along with its fully automated import capability, TradeLog™ offers many features that assist users when brokers misreport trades or list trades out of order of execution. |
| Have difficulty matching short sales | Automatic matching of short sales | Many brokers do not report when a trade is short. Tradelog™ has an exclusive "auto-assign shorts" feature which properly assigns a trade as short and then matches the buy to cover during the import process. |
| Cannot calculate wash sales as required by the IRS | Wash sales automatically calculated...even for short sales, unequal numbers of shares and across "substantially identical" securities such as options and underlying stock |
Without properly calculating wash sales you cannot file an accurate,
compliant Schedule D with the IRS! If you are an active trader or even a casual
investor trading in and out of the same stock many times throughout the
year, you will inevitably have wash sales and these MUST be reported to the IRS.
In addition, the IRS wash sale rule is very difficult to navigate...imagine trying to manually adjust for wash sales on 1,000 transactions! |
| Cannot generate a Schedule D | Generates a concise Schedule D attachment | TradeLog™ users can run a Gains and Losses report designed to function as a Schedule D attachment in minutes...even for tens of thousands of trades! |
| Does not handle Mark to Market accounting | GTT TradeLog™ handles Mark to Market accounting including the Section 481 Adjustment | Mark to Market accounting is the wise choice for active traders of securities - see our MTM Tax Topic for details. Currently, GTT TradeLog™ is the only software program available that fully supports MTM traders. |
| Phone support available at a "per incident" charge. | FREE, unlimited support by phone or email for one full year. Users can talk to technical support personnel from 9am to 5pm EST, Monday through Friday. | Imagine the following scenario: the tax filing deadline is just around the corner, you've run into difficulty using your tax preparation software and your only immediate support option is live help at $20 or $30 or more per incident! In our opinion, all software should come with FREE phone support. |
| Updates are released once per year | Updates are released frequently throughout the year | We respond immediately to each and every reported bug found in our software. A fix is generally provided within a matter of days. (See our Update/Download page for details.) We also try to incorporate user feedback into our software whenever possible. |
| Software must be re-purchased every year, or user loses reporting capability. | Annual subscription renewal
is not mandatory for viewing and reporting on existing data files
|
See our FAQ: What is included in a TradeLog™ one-year subscription for details. |
Popular Tax Software: |
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| (ie: TurboTax, TaxCut) | TradeLog™ | Comments |
| Limited online broker import capability | Direct importing from over 35 online brokers with additional supported brokers being added on a regular basis | How much value does a software program offer you if your broker isn't supported? |
| Designed for casual investors | Designed for active traders | Why purchase a generic software program that doesn't fit your specific trade and tax accounting needs as an active trader? |
| Cannot handle thousands of trade transactions | Handles an unlimited number of trade transactions | Active traders push generic accounting programs to their limits because of the high volume of executed trades. |
| Cannot calculate wash sales as required by the IRS | Wash sales automatically calculated...even for short sales, unequal numbers of shares and across "substantially identical" securities such as options and underlying stock |
Without properly calculating wash sales you cannot file an accurate, compliant Schedule D with the IRS! If you are an active trader or even a casual investor trading in and out of the same stock many times throughout the year, you will inevitably have wash sales and these MUST be reported to the IRS. Some tax software programs like TurboTax have a function whereby users can manually add wash sale adjustments, but only for equal numbers of shares. |
| Does not handle Mark to Market accounting | GTT TradeLog™ handles Mark to Market accounting including the Section 481 Adjustment | Mark to Market accounting is the wise choice for active traders of securities - see our MTM Tax Topic for details. Currently, GTT TradeLog™ is the only software available that fully supports MTM traders. |
| Phone support available at a " per incident" charge. | FREE, unlimited support by phone or email for one full year. Users can talk to technical support personnel from 9am to 5pm EST, Monday through Friday. | Imagine the following scenario: the tax filing deadline is just around the corner, you've run into difficulty using your tax preparation software and your only immediate support option is live help at $195.00 per incident! In our opinion, all software should come with FREE phone support. |
| Updates are released once per year | Updates are released frequently throughout the year | We respond immediately to each and every reported bug found in our software. A fix is generally provided within a matter of days. ( See our Update/Download page for details.) We also try to incorporate user feedback into our software whenever possible. |
| Software must be re-purchased every year | One-year renewal of support
and update subscription is not mandatory.
|
As TradeLog™ software does not
stop working after one year, users with expiring support/update
subscriptions may choose not to renew. Renewals are available at
a reduced cost. See our FAQ: Product Updates and Support for details.
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Schedule D and Wash Sale Generators: |
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(ie: programs under $100) |
TradeLog™ | Comments |
| Limited online broker import capability | Direct importing from over 35 online brokers with additional supported brokers being added on a regular basis | How much value does a
software program offer you if your broker isn't
supported?
Many of these programs require you to first enter your trades into an Excel spreadsheet and then reformat the data so it can be imported. Active traders just do not have time to fool around with such complicated import procedures. |
| Designed for casual investors | Designed for active traders | Why purchase a generic software program that doesn't fit your specific trade and tax accounting needs as an active trader? |
| Cannot handle thousands of trade transactions | Handles an unlimited number of trade transactions | Active traders push generic accounting programs to their limits because of the high volume of executed trades. |
| Supported by Excel or Access databases | Supported by a proprietary binary data base | TradeLog™ was designed with speed in mind and it has the absolute fastest database engine of any software in this market space. Our reports usually take seconds (not minutes or hours) to run, even in a file containing tens of thousands of transactions. |
| Most do not properly calculate wash sales per IRS regulations | Wash sales properly calculated...even for short sales, unequal numbers of shares and across "substantially identical" securities such as options and underlying stock | Without
properly calculating wash sales you cannot file an accurate, compliant
Schedule D with the IRS! If you are an active trader or
even a casual investor trading in and out of the same stock many times
throughout the year, you will inevitably have wash sales and these
MUST be reported to the IRS.
Most of the sub-$100 wash sale generators simply do not handle this complicated rule properly if at all. This can cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars, not to mention trouble with the IRS. See proper wash sale calculations for details. |
| Does not handle Mark to Market accounting | GTT TradeLog™ handles Mark to Market accounting including the Section 481 Adjustment | Mark to Market accounting is the wise choice for active traders of securities - see our MTM Tax Topic for details. Currently, GTT TradeLog™ is the only software available that fully supports MTM traders. |
| NO phone support offered to users | FREE, unlimited support by phone or email for one full year. Users can talk to technical support personnel from 9am to 5pm EST, Monday through Friday. | What will you do come tax
time when you run into difficulties using your Schedule D and wash
sale generator software, you need immediate help and your only support
option is email?
In our opinion, all software should come with FREE phone support. |
| Updates? | Frequent updates | We respond immediately to each and every reported bug found in our software. A fix is generally provided within a matter of days. ( See our Update/Download page for details.) We also try to incorporate user feedback into our software whenever possible. |
| Software must be re-purchased every year, or user loses reporting capability. | Annual subscription renewal is not mandatory for viewing and reporting on existing data files |
See our FAQ: What is included in a TradeLog™ one-year subscription for details. |
Click here to view a comprehensive list of TradeLog features
Product Info:
In an age of scaled back support, we feel that our customers deserve to speak with a live person.