This is a software built for importing your trading information to report your year end tax info. This company is out to get your money. The software works, but then when your subscription expires, they lock it so you can't edit it. This makes it so every year when you want to re-use it you have to spend $200+ to upgrade your subscription so you can use the software you already bought. I dealt with them on the phone all week because I bought an upgrade in January, my hard drive crashed and I wasn't back up until last week, but now my subscription expired. So now even though I paid for the software, I can't edit any entries. They would not resolve the issue at all. They just sent me canned messages in email about how they have great customer service and that I can just pay the subscription fee to make it work. Companies like this with their arrogant policies really make one wonder how they stay in business.
i agree i find them arrogant and disrepectful. used them for 4 years but i dropped them 10 months ago as i found them rude as hell. great software but very expensive
Many brokers offer a download that either does all the work (IB and Ameritrade for example) or that with a little work with a spreadsheet for open positions on December 31st can be just as good. Granted if you have huge numbers of long-term holdings with stock splits, reinvested dividents, mergers, spinoffs etc a good program like GainsKeeper can do wonders for you.. Ameritrade happens to use the GainsKeeper product, as do other brokers. Or there's PLENTY of other software with lifetime licenses that can be bought for under $100. Just Google: trader gain/loss tracking to see plenty of good products.
You're right; it's pretty ridiculous what they charge. I wouldn't mind if they charged like $50 for additional years, but charging almost as much as you paid for the program that you paid initially is nuts. Unfortunately I'm stuck using TradeLog because my accountant uses them. Saves more on accounting fees than it costs. Here are some tricks I use to make sure that I don't pay every year for updates. First, I make sure all my trades are downloaded (and correct) for the year as soon as I'm done trading for the year. That way, if there's an update I miss after year-end, I already have all my trades downloaded for the year. When my year of support and updates is about to expire, I don't renew, but I do make sure I have the most recent updates. I only renew when my taxes are due, and only if the program no longer supports my broker's web format. I've used the program starting in tax year 2003 or 2004, and I've only had to renew once, which expires this summer. So for example I did my first renewal in summer 2006, just before my 2005 taxes were due. Then I downloaded my 2005 trades, and of course my 2006 trades will be taken care of since I have free updates until summer 2007. At the end of this year I will download my 2007 trades and make sure everything's correct. The only way I will have to renew before the end of this year is if one of my brokers changes their web format between summer and the end of the year. Then I will renew again in summer 2009 if necessary, just before my 2008 taxes are due...which should cover years 2008-2010. Bottom line is, I'm renewing about every 3 years instead of annually.
BTW, I've contacted them several times for help (while I was paid for the year, of course) and they've always been very prompt and helpful in their responses. I'm guessing they don't give you the time of day if your year is expired.
To correct myself, if this does happen, I will wait until summer 2008 to renew, and download the rest of my 2007 trades at that point. Should this happen, which I think is unlikely, I will have to renew every other year, but in most cases I think every third year will suffice.
It is sad when a software company gets bad mouthed in a forum and all the facts have not been stated. 1. TradeLog is sold as a one year subscription as are many of the reputable trader tax accounting software programs on the market, and this fact is plainly stated on our web site and purchase page. 2. TradeLog is priced below our main competitor Gainskeeper and in is only half the price for the full version. And this is even after they recently reduced their prices! 3. Most software in this market is priced on an annual basis. 4. Tradelog is the ONLY software that has phone support. This is not cheap and when doing your taxes most users find that being able to pick up the phone to speak with a live person is worth every penny. 5. The IRS schedule d and the wash sale rule is probably the most complex forms of all the IRS tax forms. Most cheap trader tax software programs fall far short of meeting these requirements, and many even state on their web sites that they do not meet the IRS wash sale rules. Why do you think TurboTax and TaxCut do not handle this properly if it was so easy and cheap to program? You get what you pay for. As Lee Iacocca once said "If you find a better 'trader tax software', buy one." David Eich, TradeLog author
They lock it but you can still use it on your desktop. I bought tradelog1000 in 2004 and have used it every year since....with no accounting problems.
Hi All, I shopped around for the best tax software and chose TradeLog over Gainskeeper for two reasons: 1. The TradeLog trial was much easier to use than Gainskeeper (for me). 2. The TradeLog price includes an UNLIMITED number of trades. With Gainskeeper, you have to buy additional 'buckets' if you trade alot (over 500 trades a year). This is bad for the frequent daytrader. Gainskeeper would have been cheaper for me initially (because I could have gotten an MB Trading discount), but with the high volume of trades I do, TradeLog is way cheaper! Not a paid cheerleader, just a happy customer. Peabo