Interactive Brokers Import Instructions

brokerConnect™ Import  |  Web Import

NOTES:
As of 02/15/2008 IB now allows our TradeLog brokerConnect to grab the TradeLog formatted report using a date range rather than by week or month so users can import an entire year all at one time. Large amounts of trade history may cause the IB server to time out, so you may have to decrease the date range appropriately or import one month at a time.

As of ver 7 TradeLog uses the new IB TradeLog report format which is a custom flex report created by IB especially for our TradeLog software.  This new report format is far superior to the IB HTML report format  in that it provides for accurate daily conversion from foreign currencies to whatever base currency your account may be using.

For example: Traders of Canadian stocks, or traders of futures settled in foreign currencies such as the DAX, can get an accurate P&L in USD (or whatever your account base currency is) across their entire trade history.  This was previously not possible when importing from the IB HTML formatted statements.

brokerConnect™ Import

General Procedure: 

NOTES:

Some users have experience timeout problems when using brokerConnect. You can try changing the timeout value to 120 seconds or greater to see if that helps.  But it has been our experience that IB sometimes cannot handle the requests and it times out.  You can try again at a later time and usually it will work.  Or you can import from the web per our instructions below.

Also IB has instituted a new login password challenge procedure when logging in. In some cases this may disable brokerConnect from connecting to your account.  If you wish to use brokerConnect then you may have to call IB to disable the login password challenge feature.  If you do not wish to disable this will have to import using our web import method.

1.  Run TradeLog and click on the IB Imp button.

2.  A popup dialog box will ask whether you want to import using brokerConnect™ or to import from the Web.  Click YES to import using brokerConnect™.

3.  A popup dialog box allows you to enter your
User Name
, Password, and Account Number

This information gets encrypted and is stored in your TradeLog data file.  It only needs to be entered once for each brokerage account.

The next time you click the IB Imp button your information will be displayed in the box and you simply click the OK button to continue.

The From date pick box shows the from date that will be used for this import. You can use the default date or if you want to import a specific day or you can select the first of the month date from the drop down calendar fro a specific month.

The To date pick box allows you to select your own end date for a custom date range import. The To date must always be a Monday through Friday, so if you select a To date that is a Saturday or Sunday, TradeLog will revert back to Friday's date.

The default date range is Max which will import up to yesterday or to the end of Jan of next tax year to bring you completely up to date for the current tax year.

Select 1 Month to import one month at a time. 

Clicking on the Timeout button allows you to increase the time TradeLog will wait for a response. This may be necessary if you have a slow internet connection or large amounts of data.  You may also have to reduce the date range as well and import in smaller chucks.

4.  Click OK and TradeLog will connect to the IB web site to get your most current trade information.

TradeLog will try to automatically login to your account. 

If you have enabled the IB Security Code challenge feature on your account then you will be able to enter this manually and click the Login button yourself. Otherwise TradeLog will Login automatically.


and then navigate to the TradeLog flex report:

Note:
If the window goes blank and remains blank, then IB's servers have timed out. Please try again later.

5.  Your trades will be automatically imported and matched.

Web Import

  • IB has drastically changed the formatting of their HTML statements under Report Management -   Activity Statements and these cannot be imported into TradeLog.  The HTML formatted legacy statements may still work but these will only be available for a few more weeks.
  • Under Report ManagementActivity Downloads there is a NEW report format in the Format drop down box exclusively for TradeLog. This is a custom flex report which is far superior to the HTML/Web formatted reports.  This is the report the we import from using brokerConnect™, which is our recommended import for IB, but you can also use web import to import this report.
  • These new Activity Downloads reports are only available as Daily and Monthly reports.

General Procedure:   

1.

Log in to your Interactive Brokers account using your User Name and Password: 

2. Click on the plus sign in front of Report Management
and select Activity Downloads:


  
3.

Select the appropriate Daily or Monthly Statement from the drop down dialog box, select TradeLog from the Format drop down box and click the View/Download button.

NOTE:
To bring your TradeLog data file quickly up to date, it is recommended that you import from the Monthly Statements first, from the oldest month to the most recent month.

Then use the Daily Statements to bring your TradeLog data file up to the current day.  You may also import from exclusively from the Daily Statements if you wish.
 
4.

Select the entire report using your web browser's Edit, Select All (Ctrl-A keyboard shortcut) command.

Then Copy the selected report using your web browser's Edit, Copy (Ctrl-C keyboard shortcut) command.

(You may also use your right mouse click Select All command followed by the right mouse click Copy command).

The data is now on the Windows clipboard (an imaginary storage location for copied windows data).
 

5. Run TradeLog.
 
6. Click the IB Imp button.

A popup dialog box will ask whether you want to import using brokerConnect™ or to import from the Web.

Click NO to import from the Web.

 

7 Your trades will be automatically imported and matched.