Chart Reporter

How do I reconcile a trading journal with an MT5 statement?

By Chart Reporter Reviewed 2 min read

The short answer

Reconcile identity and scope before totals. Match the broker account, record identifiers, final state, date basis, timezone, currency and cost components. Start with a handful of known trades; only expand to a full period once the individual records agree.

Write down the comparison contract

A statement and a journal can each be correct while answering different questions. One might include open positions, balance adjustments or a different calendar boundary. Define the intended comparison: completed trade results, for one account and currency, over a specified interval.

Choose several records with known tickets, including an ordinary close and a partial-close case if available. Record their opening and closing times and remaining volume. This makes a mismatch reproducible. A screenshot of two grand totals rarely reveals whether the difference comes from one missing record or a definition applied to every row.

Inspect components before aggregation

For each completed record, check profit, signed commission and swap. Chart Reporter's net formula adds those three components. Confirm whether the statement has other account-level lines outside that trade calculation. Do not force deposits or withdrawals into trading P&L to make an ending balance match.

Then verify how the two systems group partial exits. Deal rows and complete trade records can have different counts. Inspect the execution sequence without adding event proceeds to a trade total that already includes them. If a position is still open, establish whether the selected performance view includes it at all.

Expand the sample and preserve the finding

Once the selected records agree, compare the period's included trade identifiers. Investigate boundary trades using the same timezone and timestamp basis. Check history access and archived-account state before assuming that older records were lost.

Keep a short reconciliation note describing the scope, the source statement date and any known unresolved gaps. If a mismatch remains, provide support with tickets, times, filters and EA version, excluding credentials and unnecessary personal details. Reconciliation establishes confidence in the recorded sample; it does not establish future returns or prove that every form of broker equity movement is represented by the journal's closed-trade total.

Sources and further reading

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