The five required fields
Edgelog needs five pieces of data to create a normalized closed-trade record: symbol, side, entry price, volume or quantity, and P&L. Symbol is the broker’s instrument name, such as EURUSD or a contract ticker. Side describes whether the trade was a buy/long or sell/short. Entry price is the opening execution or valid average entry. Volume is the quantity or position size.
P&L must be the realized result for the row—not total account equity, margin, cash balance or cumulative profit.
Exit price, fees, open time, close time and ticket/transaction ID are optional fields when the report includes them. The importer may infer common names, but you remain responsible for checking that an inferred mapping matches the source report. If a required field is not present, use a different export rather than mapping an unrelated number to make the file import.
Map by meaning, not by a similar-looking label
Broker reports use different labels. “Instrument”, “pair” or “contract” may mean symbol; “direction”, “action” or “B/S” may mean side; “qty”, “units”, “lots” or “size” may mean volume. But “price” may be an average fill, current market price, closing price or limit price. “Amount” might be units, quote-currency value or cash movement. “Profit” may be gross or net.
Read the report’s column description and inspect example values before accepting the suggested field.
Many statements include both order and execution data. An order can be partially filled or canceled; an execution is an actual fill. A row with an opening fill and a separate closing fill is not automatically a completed trade with both entry and exit values. Choose a report that already groups completed trades, or understand the export’s grouping before mapping.
Check direction, decimal signs and units
Check at least one buy and one sell in the preview. Direction should be explicit; do not infer direction from whether P&L is positive or negative. Profit and loss signs must stay intact: a losing trade should not turn positive because of parentheses, a minus sign or a locale-specific decimal separator.
If values use commas for decimals or thousands, verify the preview rather than assuming the parser interpreted them correctly.
Confirm volume units as well. Forex files may express lots, units or notional amounts. Futures may report contract counts; stocks may report shares; crypto may report coin quantity. These numbers are not interchangeable. Edgelog can store mapped trade size but does not know the broker’s instrument multiplier or repair a wrong unit choice for you.
Treat dates and fees carefully
A file can contain trade date, order creation time, execution time, settlement date and close time. Map a timestamp only when you know what event it represents. Broker reports may use server time, UTC, a chosen timezone or a local account timezone. Compare several rows against the original platform and keep a consistent timezone across batches.
Fees may appear as commission, exchange fee, swap, financing or a combined net result. Avoid subtracting a fee twice: if the P&L column is already net of commission and swap, mapping those costs again can distort analysis. When the report separates costs, preserve each only if you understand its sign and Edgelog’s fee convention.
A five-row validation routine
Before importing a large account history, inspect a winning buy, losing buy, winning sell, losing sell and one row with a fee or partial close if available. Compare instrument, direction, prices, size, P&L and timestamps with the source report. Then compare total trade count and net result for a short date range. Only proceed once the preview tells the same story as the source.
For broker-specific export steps, start at the broker CSV import hub. If the headings are correct but the parser reports missing fields or invalid values, use CSV import troubleshooting.