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To get started using TradeMax with minimal amount of time, please follow steps below or see the online tutorial :
 Notes : If your PC system is Win 7 or Windows Vista , you will be required to run TradeMax as an administrator during the process of handling your transaction charts or reports . How to run TradeMax as an asministrator in Window 7 or Vista?
Open Database or Create an New Account File
| Basic Function |
| 1. Create New |
Enter the account name and press "Open" to create a new account file. |
| 2. Open Exist |
Click an existing account file (e.g. DemoAccount.tmx) and press "Open". |
| 3. Select Folder |
Click "Select Folder" button to select account file folder from your computer. Or click the Triangle button and select "open" to open account file folder. |
Setup an account to import your trades
You can setup a separate account for each brokerage and trader by right-clicking the item on the Account List and selecting the “Add New Account“.
TradeMax will pop-up a dialog box to complete your account information. For usage within TradeMax the minimum information required to be entered is the Broker Name, Account Name, Type and Currency.
Then TradeMax will automatically create you a new account in the Account List like the following: (For example, Interactive Brokers Jone is the new account name)
The FY2008 contains the whole trade data and the baseline positions of the tax year 2008 and the trades executed in January of the following tax year
The Finance Data contains the cash flow data, for example, cash dividends.
The Trade Data contains the important data for the Schedule D purpose
Learn more about: Setup a New Account.
Enter Previous Year Holding Positions
This Step is of key importance to new users of TradeMax !
If you are using TradeMax for the first time and have hold open position from previous tax year, you should manually enter each position into TradeMax before you import the trade data of current year so as to match your trades between these two years perfectly.
For example, you bought some stocks in 2009 and remained open at the year end, if you import trade data in 2010 without entering the open position carried from 2009, TradeMax will fail to match trade data, the generated reports and wash sale calculation will also be inaccurate.
You can locate a list of your open positions at year-end by viewing your December monthly statement for the previous tax year. For example, if you are working on tax year 2010, you will need to locate your December 2009 monthly statement.
Learn more about: Append a Trade.
Note:
- Since your held positions do not belong to the current tax year, you need to select the Trade Include In Year checkbox and enter the specific tax year.
- Please do not enter or import any closed positions from any year prior to the current tax year.
- This only needs to be done once for each brokerage account. Every year thereafter, you can use the function End Of Tax Year to copy your year-end open positions to your next tax year data file.
- If you have no open positions, you can skip this step.
Import Your Trades
With the function Import Trade, you can import trade history from a downloaded CSV file, Text file, QIF file to the existing account (for example, AB Watley John) or directly import trade history from online broker accounts. the users also can choose to import data copied from broker Transaction History Reprot by copy and paste.
Learn more about: Download a Data File.
The import function are available under the Account List: Right-click on the Account which you want to import your data file and select the Import Trade.
Learn more about: Import Trade.
Learn more about: Import Trade from Online Broker
(Note: TradeMax supports the following brokers via OFX Server : Ameritrade OFX Server, Fidelity Investment, Penson Financial, Schwab, ScotTrade, BOA Investment, E*Trade, Harrisdirect , OptionsXpress, Vanguard, Merrill Lynch, UBS)
Learn more about: Import Trade from Broker Transactionary Report
Trades are matched by symbol and matched for buys, sells, partial fills and short positions, even if your broker doesn’t flag short sales on your reports. Our software uses “open a trade, close a trade” terminology rather than “buy” and “sell”, which eliminates confusion as to whether your positions are long or short. After you import the trade data into TradeMax, a Report Wizard dialog box will pop up to simplify the process of generating reports, but you should use End of Tax Year function to generate baseline position or enter your baseline position by hand before generating the report, otherwise the results will be inaccurate.
Note:
- Please import the current tax year trade data and January of next tax year for the tax purpose.We suggest you import the data until the end of the March in case of the negligence.
The January of next tax year trades are required for properly calculating wash sales.
- Please do not import any closed positions from any year prior to the current tax year as this also will distort the profit/loss calculations for the current tax year.
Confirm Your Data
After each importing, you need to make sure everything is matched properly and the unmatched trades will be displayed in Red in TradeMax , TradeMax provides three confirmation steps to complete the task:
- You can click the Information Icon at the down-left corner, the Information Grid will appear, then click the Scan Tab to scan the status of transactions in the current data grid and the concerned trades will be highlighted in red or green so that you can adjust your trades.
- You can check whether your holding position carried from previous year were imported completely or not by comparing your holding positions in TradeMax with your broker's December statement
The holding positions should be the same.
Learn more about: How to display all holding position.
If there is any unmatched position, you can check these:
- Make sure to take unsettled trades on the December brokerage statement into account.
- Make sure to adjust for securities referring stock splits, mergers, spinoffs or symbol name changes.
Stock Splits | Mergers | Spinoffs | Changing Symbols
- Run 1099-B Summary Report to see if the amounts in this reports are accord with your brokerage 1099.
The Difference in the lower right of 1099-B Summary Report should be minimal.
Learn more about: How to run the 1099-B Summary Report.
If your 1099-B Summary Report doesn't match your brokerage 1099, you may need to check the following:
- Is open Short Sales from Previous Tax Year included in your brokerage 1099?
- Is options Trading included in your brokerage 1099?
- Is there any unsettled trade on the December brokerage statement?
Adjust Your Trades for Tax Purpose
After all data is confirmed, the next step is to take some adjustment for the tax purpose. If there is no such trade, this step can be skipped.
End Of Tax Year
After all trades executed during the tax year have been imported and matched correctly, you are ready to end the tax year on your account for the next tax year. It is a step to show the year end open position and wash sales defer loss and it also can generate next year baseline position and defer cost to these positions. After End of Tax Year, you will not need to repeat STEP2 and STEP 4 on subsequent year
Learn more about: End of Tax Year topic.
Note:
To enable TradeMax to calculate wash sales and defer losses to the following tax year where applicable, you need to enter the trades executed in January of the following tax year
first.
If you have several different brokerage accounts, you must combine these into one account so that TradeMax can calculate wash sales across accounts.
Use right-clicking the account and select the Add View > Custom to complete the Combine Account process. Then run the combined account just as the single accounts.
Learn more about: Combine Your Accounts.
Run Reports
To generate a report, right-click the specific account and select the specific report type.
The following report types are available:
- Cost Basis Transaction Report - This report is for those users who track the cost basis in stocks, bonds and mutual funds to report a cost basis when an investment is sold.
- Daily Account Value - This report provide you with a simple way to track your trade data on daily basis, with the Daily Account Value function, you can easily compare and monitor your trade performance through the generated chart so as to make a better investment strategy and maximize your capital gains.
- Daily Market Value Report - This report is for those users who track the performance and market value of the securities on daily basis in specific finance year. The report will show the portfolio of every transaction on daily basis.
- IRS Schedule D-1 - This report is for those users who require a more exact replica of the IRS form.
- Mark to Market Detail Report - This report is for those users want to record the price or value of a security, portfolio on a daily basis to calculate gains and losses or to confirm that margin requirement are met.
- Mark to Market For Form 4797 - This report is for traders in stocks, options and single-stock futures who elect mark-to-market accounting to report their trading activity on Form 4797
- Mark to Market Gain/Loss Pie Report - This report is for those users who want to calculate mark to market trading performance for each securities and track the mark to market gains and losses for a fiscal year or date range.
- Realized Gain/Loss Pie Report - This report is for those users who want to calculate trading performance for each securities and track the realized gains and losses for a fiscal year or date range.
- Realized Gain/Loss Report - This report is for those users who require trade transaction detail. Such as Security, Quality, open price, Open date, Open Commission, close price, close commission, sales price, cost basic, Actual gain &lose for each transaction. Moreover, it can be grouped by ID, Symbol, or TradeDate.
- G& L Report - This is the default report created by TradeMax for filing with Taxes.
- SummaryReport - Display or print a trade summary report. This valuable summary or aggregation of an entire ID or Symbol allows a user to see how one Symbol performed versus another
- Transaction Detail Report - A report display all trade detail. This report lists each and every transaction as displayed in the grid. Additionally, the profit or loss can be summed by Trade Number, Ticker, or Date.
- Unrealized Gain/Loss Report - This report is for those users who want to get the information of Gain/Loss when the price of the securities decrease or increase after buying, but he or she has yet to sell it.
- Wash Sale Detail Report - This report allows you to analyze your disallowed wash sale losses that have been deferred to next year
- Section 1256 Report - This report is for those users who want to get the information of Unrealized Gain/Loss amount and 60% long term amount and 40% short term amount auto-calculated by TradeMax as an attachment to Section 1256 contract.
File Your Taxes
After running TradeMax G&L report, you can either print it in appropriate format and attach it to your tax return, then file by mail, or just export your gains and losses generated by TradeMax to popular Tax software with TXF Export function.
- Print the generated G&L Report and mail your IRS tax forms
In the Description of Property column on your IRS Schedule D (for cash basis accounting), write “See attached report”. Then simply copy the totals from your TradeMax IRS Schedule D-1 Gains and Losses report to the appropriate section on the schedule.
Learn more about: How to Print your Report.
- Export your Gains & Losses to popular tax software with TXF Export function.
TradeMax provides you an easy way to export your G&L with TXF Files.
Learn more about: How to Export Tax Year Gains & Losses to TXF format .
TXF File Export is a report type which allows importing your TradeMax gains and losses into popular tax software. |
