Importing trades from a CSV means downloading your trade history from the broker as a spreadsheet file and letting the journal read it, so no fill has to be typed in by hand. Any broker whose export has one line per fill works: you tell the journal once which column holds the ticker, the date, the quantity and the price.
What the file needs
Brokers name their columns differently, but a usable export carries the same few facts for every fill. Four are required; the rest make the import more exact.
| Field | Required? | Typical column names | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ticker | Yes | Symbol, Instrument, Ticker | US stock and ETF symbols; option lines are left out |
| Date (and time) | Yes | Date, Trade Date, Run Date, Date/Time | US order (month first) when written with slashes |
| Quantity | Yes | Quantity, Qty, Shares | A negative number reads as a sale when there is no side column |
| Price | Yes | Price, Trade Price, Fill Price | Price per share of the fill |
| Side | No | Action, Side, Buy/Sell, Trans Code | Buy, Sell, Sell Short or Buy to Cover |
| Fees | No | Commission, Fees, Fees & Comm | Up to two fee columns can be added together |
| Open/close code | No | Code, Open/Close | Tells an opening short from a sale of shares bought earlier |
Exports that give a date without a time still work: trades on the same day keep the order of the file.
Step by step
- In the broker's website, find the trade or transaction history, choose the period and download it as CSV. Start with a period of a few months that begins when you held nothing.
- In the journal, choose the import and pick your broker if it has a preset; otherwise pick the generic option that lets you map the columns.
- Choose the column for each field. Most journals remember the mapping, so the next file from the same broker needs no setup.
- Read the preview before importing: the number of trades found, which lines were left out and why, and any trades already in the journal.
- After the import, add the stop, target and setup to each trade. A broker file has the fills but not the plan, so R multiples and risk can only be calculated once the stop is known.
How fills become trades
A broker lists fills; a journal reviews trades. The usual rule groups fills per ticker into round trips, from flat to flat again, first in, first out: buys open or add to a long position, sells reduce it, and the trade closes when the position is back to zero. A sale with no shares held opens a short only when the broker marks it as a short sale; otherwise the purchase happened before the file's period, and the line is left out rather than guessed.
| Date | Action | Quantity | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 03/02 | Buy | 100 | $40.00 |
| 03/05 | Buy | 50 | $41.00 |
| 03/12 | Sell | 150 | $44.00 |
Illustrative numbers only: these three fills become one long trade of 150 shares with an average entry of $40.33 and an exit at $44.00, a gain of $550 before fees. With a planned stop of $38.00 added afterward, the risk was $2.33 a share and the result about +1.6R.
Common problems
- Sales without the purchase. The period starts in the middle of a position. Export from an earlier date, or accept that those lines are skipped.
- Day and month swapped. A non-US broker may write 03/02 for 3 February. Export with a year-first date (2026-02-03) if the broker allows it.
- Duplicates after a second import. Overlapping periods are fine when the journal skips trades it already has; check the preview's count.
- Dividends, transfers and interest. These lines are not trades and are left out.
- Mutual funds and money-market sweeps. Their symbols look like stock tickers, so delete those lines before importing.
- An orders export instead of fills. Some brokers export orders, including canceled and rejected ones. Keep only filled orders, or export executions if the broker offers them.
- Several accounts in one file. Import one account at a time, so a sale in one account isn't matched with a purchase in another.
- Fees missing. Some exports have no fee column. P&L will be slightly high; add fees by hand where they matter.
Brokers with a ready preset
Step-by-step guides for the exports Clear Tape reads without any mapping: Interactive Brokers, Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Robinhood.
In Clear Tape
In the trade journal (Journal in the dashboard menu), Import CSV offers the four broker presets and Other broker (map the columns) for any other file; the mapping is remembered. The file is read in your browser and only the trades are sent; the import never connects to a brokerage account. One file can be up to 2 MB and 10,000 lines, stocks and ETFs only. The preview shows the trades found, the lines left out with the reason, and the trades already in the journal. The import is free on every plan; see the trade journal page. For what to write next to each imported trade, see how to keep a trading journal.
To look at a file before importing it, the free trade history analyzer reads the same CSV in the browser and reports habits such as trades opened right after a loss.
Moving from another journal? The Tradervue alternative, TradeZella alternative and Edgewonk alternative pages compare how each one imports trades, what it measures and what it costs.
For educational purposes only. Not investment advice.