Fixing things is fine. But surely there must be a way to do it that doesn't require me to constantly be on the line with customer service. It isn't that I had one service request, but that I had many. And at a point you just lose patience. I never had the problems with gainskeeper I've had with tradelog. It simply works & this software does not. And the reason I use software like this is to save time & avoid aggravation. I don't use it for extra aggravation. This company has no idea what customer service is or what their customers want. Avoid tradelog at all costs. It is less than worthless.
We have many thousands of users who have had no problems with our TradeLog software. Please do a search for TradeLog on this web forum to see what I mean. But no software is perfect, eventually any software program will show problems. But we are the only company who takes pride in solving such problems as soon as we see them no matter how many updates this requires. We do not hide this fact on our web site and we do not apologize for this. Compare that with the other sofware you mention who acknowledges on their web site (although they do not make it easy for you to find) that they do not calculate wash sales between short sales and long trades or between stock and option trades as required by the IRS. You may not have the immediate problem of importing your trades, but do you wish to risk problems with the IRS? And they don't always come up with the right numbers either! Please do a search for them on this site to see what I mean. In addition we are the only trader tax software company that has an 800 number so you can speak to a live person. I understand that preparing one's taxes can be quite emotionally charged, but all we ask for in return is some common courtesy when making such requests. Trader Taxation is a complicated task. Anyone that thinks that just because they were able to import from their broker into a tax program the last few months with no apparent problems, does not mean that things have been done right. What is working today may not work tomorrow, or may not be accurate today. But I really need to get back to supporting our users so they can get their taxes filed accurately ond on time. Bantering back and forth like this when someone bad mouths our software is most unproductive, and probably outside the mission of this web site.
The software is more trouble than its worth. If tradelog is so wonderful, why does gainskeeper keep winning the readers choice awards from "technical analysis of stocks & commodities" (and tradelog does NOT) http://www.gainskeeper.com/us/articles/GKNEWS_20080225_2.aspx The reason is everybody who tries tradelog quickly concludes it's more aggravation than it's worth. Tradelog requires constant revision & each revision requires yet another contact with a customer serivce department that's abrasive and extremely obnoxious with consequent "down time" where the software is simply non-functional. Apparently coming up with a smooth upgrade mechanism is just too difficult. Microsoft has no problem doing this with windows. Turbotax does the same thing. But tradelog?? Constant every-day aggravation is what awaits you. Anybody want to drive flaming stakes through their eyeballs? Try tradelog. It amounts to the same thing. Any takers?
Just because software wins a readers choice award does not make it accurate, and we do not advertise in this magazine. TradeLog is downloadable software that requires a user be able to download a setup file with no errors. You admitted that you were able to get the update and it worked even though we had to provide an alternate method (email) of getting it to you because you could not download it using your Internet connection. Since many thousands of other users have successfully downloaded the same setup file, the problem is cannot be on our end. We are not the only software company who has had users have problems downloading a setup file via the web. Just do a Google search on "setup file corrupted" to see what I mean. You just want to argue and drive stakes thru my eyeballs.
I have been using gainskeeper for years without problems. The problems started when I tried to save a few dollars by using tradelog. I am quite capable of downloading a setup file. I have done that many, many times with many other systems without issue, without a hitch, and without a problem. But really my problem with your software isn't even that. It's that you have many, many updates & have not seen fit to provide a painless way of installing them. Windows does this. Turbotax does this. Any number of other systems from Norton to AI Roboform have done this. Only with yours, is there consistently a problem whenever there is an update rendering the system unusable. This is almost unique among commercial software. It's always something. The last time (before this) when I updated, things were working perfectly fine with what I had. After installing your update (the latest available) my fidelity update stopped working. I have actually seen correctly applied updates of yours render a working system unusable. That time your support lamely replied fidelity had changed their format. Well, what I HAD (before updating) worked, and your update KILLED IT. And now this. As I say, this is quite unique for a commercial system. Incidentally, my degrees from Rice were in Mathematics. I was a software guy for Schlumberger in the early 80's before medical school. My post-doc was medical informatics and I am published in the field (expert systems in radiology and intelligent monitors). I'll take gainskeeper over this treatment any day. Maybe your 1000's of users just don't know any better.
This just keeps getting worse and worse. Since you want this made public, I have no choice to respond in kind so everyone on this site knows what we have gone through: 1. I have all of your emails for support and on Jan 5 you had a problem when you tried to import a report that had NO buys or sells in it. Then on that same day you tried to import 2008 trades into a 2007 data file and you admitted "user error." 2. Then on Feb 23 you had a problem logging into your Fidelity account and we asked you to download a fix because as we explained Fidelity changed their login security. For some reason your download of the update failed. We asked you to try the download again and it worked and you thanked us. 3. Finally on April 24 you tried to download the latest update and you got a corrupt setup file again and emailed to tell us we suck. We identified a problem that is plaguing the Internet for many companies that offer downloadable software. Companies much larger than ourselves with much larger user bases. The problem has been escalating across the net and a quick search on Google shows this to be true. Certainly any guy with software experience knows that these things crop up from time to time due to problems beyond our control such as with Windows, Internet Explorer, and the web. So we now offer two methods for our users to get updates: 1) Download our setup file from your web browser as we have been doing for the last 8 years. 2) And for the less than 1% of the population that for some reason get a corrupt download, we provide a link for you to email the software to yourself. But you did not even try our suggestion. Instead you immediately began a hurtful public attack on my integrity. You even admitted in this forum that after you did try it, it worked just fine. But you already set out on this course which I find objectionable. Especially for someone who claims such an academic background. What else can anyone do?
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I refunded your full purchase price even though you are 3 months past the one month perfomance guarantee.
Guys, I want to intermediate here to help you go back to a normal relationship. Tradelog wants to make it up to you iacahn. He understands you, and he is being fair,and will not able to turn the clock back. Why you do not call this matter closed or close to being closed? If you feel you need to vent more, you can vent on me. I will take it so that you guys become friend again.
Now my question, I just started a corporate entity which will be doing trading. Fiscal year starts May 1. In what format should one report the trades for tax purposes?
TurboTax asked you if you want to directly download the tax information from your broker. It has a list of brokers for you to chose yours. Most are there. TurboTax can download up to 3,000 transactions, and wash sales are included as a transaction. You don't need gainskeeper or tradelog unless you have more transactions. TurboTax has customer service that will walk through any problems. When they are busy, last three weeks until April 15, you will end up on hold for an hour or more. I use Premium version, but call to make sure you get the right product to do what you want. If you use Quicken Financial Software to download and track your trades TurboTax will download IB from your Quicken account. I didn't see TS in the participating Broker access.