TD Ameritrade Import Instructions

NOTES: In their trade history reports TD Ameritrade and Freetrade use option symbols for option trades rather than option descriptions. Therefore, when manually entering your open option positions from last tax year, you must enter them using the proper option symbol so that TradeLog can properly match them with the closing positions upon import.

Dividend Reinvestments - Please import from the downloadable CSV file if you have dividend reinvestments as the Transaction History report is missing important information on these types of transactions.

TD Ameritrade Website

These instructions are for the new TD Ameritrade web site.

There are now two different methods of importing transaction history from Ameritrade into TradeLog™:

Importing from the web using the Ameritrade Transaction History report.
This report is most useful when importing a few days or weeks worth of data to keep yourself up to date. This report also includes time of day.
Importing from a downloaded CSV file.
This report is recommended when importing an entire year's worth of trade history, but it does NOT include time of day.

Ameritrade Transaction History Import

NOTE: Please do NOT use if you have Dividend Reinvestments as this report does not provide enough information on this type of transaction.

Sample Online Transaction History Report:

General Procedure:

1. Log on to your Ameritrade trading account web site and click on Portfolio & Accounts
and then click on History & Statements.

2. Select a date range for the report and click the View button.

3. Use Edit, Select All. (Ctrl-A shortcut) to select the entire page.
     ... or ...
     Use your mouse to select the report table.
     Please make sure you select the field name header line.
     For tips on selecting a report table with your mouse see:
     Selecting a report table with your mouse

4. Copy the report data to the Windows clipboard
Edit, Copy or Ctrl-C shortcut

5. Run TradeLog

6. Click on the Ameritrade Imp speed button.

7. Click YES after the following popup dialog box appears

8. All of your trades will be automatically imported and matched.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

Ameritrade limits the number of transactions per page to 200, therefore you must select and copy one page at a time till all of your trades have been imported. If you have more than a few pages to import, we suggest you switch to the CSV file import.
It has been noticed that the last trade transaction on a page is sometimes duplicated on the top of the next page, resulting in mismatched trade in TradeLog due to these duplicate entries. Please review the last trade on each page and the first trade on the next page to see if this is the case.

After importing you may use the TradeLog Find, Duplicate Trades function to locate these to delete one of them.

Ameritrade downloaded CSV file Import

General Procedure:

1. Log on to your Ameritrade trading account web site and click on Portfolio & Accounts
and then click on History & Statements.

2. Select a date range for the report and click the Download button.

3. Please wait until a File Download box pops up.

Click the Save button (DO NOT click the open button)

4. A Windows Save As dialog box allows you to select where on your hard drive
you are going to save this file.

     Please select your "my documents\tradelog\import" folder
     (or whatever folder you are using as your data file folder
       - there should be an import folder under this folder)

Click the Save button to save the CSV file to your hard drive.

5. Run TradeLog

6. Click on the Ameritrade Imp speed button

7. Click NO after the following popup dialog box appears

8. Select the CSV file you just saved from the next popup dialog box and
click the Open button

9. All of your trades will be automatically imported and matched.

Freetrade and OLD Ameritrade web site

General Procedure:

Log on to your Ameritrade trading account web site and Click on the myAccount Tab.
Click on Account Details - Transactions.
Select a date range for the report and click the View Transactions button
Use Edit, Select All. (Ctrl-A shortcut) to select the entire page.
... or ...
Use your mouse to select the report table.
Please make sure you select the field name header line.
For tips on selecting a report table with your mouse see:
Selecting a report table with your mouse
Copy the report data to the Windows clipboard Edit, Copy or Ctrl-C shortcut
Run TradeLog
Click on the Ameritrade Imp speed button and the trades will be automatically imported and matched.

Ameritrade cancelled and corrected trades:

The old Ameritrade Account Details - Transactions report used an an unusual method to indicate cancelled or corrected trades in their trade history report that makes matching and deleting them automatically upon import impossible. We are still waiting to see how the new Account History will handle cancelled and corrected trades.

Cancelled or corrected trades are indicated as follows:

A buy transaction with a positive amount - a buy transaction is usually negative.
A sell transaction with a negative amount - a sell transaction is usually negative.

Example:

06-02-2003 1176161105 Buy or Sell Security BUY 2650.000 SHARES MPOW @ 0.825 2197.24

- Notice that the amount 2197.24 is positive rather than negative!

06-02-2003 Buy or Sell Security SELL 100.000 SHARES COST @ 37.301 -3718.93

- Notice that the amount -3718.93 is negative rather than positive!

Please note that absolutely no other indication is given as to what these transactions really mean! Sometimes these transactions are canceling a previous buy or sell transaction, and both should be deleted before import. In other cases these are corrected trades and should be imported.

No automated set of rules exists to filter these out, so we leave the decision making process up to the user by flagging these transactions with an "X" in the TradeLog open/close column.

You must then decide the following for each transaction marked with an X:

If this transaction is canceling other buy or sell transaction and therefore both the trade marked with an X as well as the matching trade should be deleted.
Or whether this transaction has no match and should simply be deleted.
Or whether this is a corrections trade and should be imported as a valid buy or sell. If so you should change the X in the open/close column to an O or C.
Or whether this is a valid sale transaction where the price is so low that the commission causes the amount to be negative rather than positive. If so you should change the X in the open/close column to an O or C.

PLEASE NOTE: We have found no other way to deal with these. Please complain to Ameritrade to look into this and make their trade history report more user friendly!