If your capital gains seem inaccurate, you see a message in red saying "more sales than buys" in the Calculate Tab, or you see trades highlighted in red on the Reports & Export Tab, you have unmatched trades that need to be corrected.
An unmatched trade means you have entered data showing a sale or spend of crypto but did not enter data showing the source of that crypto. Essentially, you are inputting data that shows you utilizing some amount of a coin that you don't indicate having.
This can happen for several reasons:
- All of your trades have not yet been imported
- You have not added your beginning-of-year coin balances to the Opening Tab
- The timestamps in the data you imported were inaccurate and had a sell/spend occur before a buy
- A list of specific causes can be found here
You will need to locate and correct all unmatched trades in order to calculate your capital gains and losses correctly. We've outlined the best process in order to locate and correct your unmatched trades.
First: View your unmatched trades.
1- Go to the Reports & Export Tab (1)
2- Click the drop down arrow next to Options (2) and select Only Show Unmatched (3)
The Capital Gains Report section will now list only your unmatched trades. Focus on the first trade in the list, and correct them one at a time.
Second: Locate the exact trade that is reporting as unmatched.
1- Go to the Trading Tab (4)
2- Click the drop down arrow next to Options (5) and select Show Balances (6)
The table will now contain a new column called Balances (7). With this column, you can see when a crypto balance goes negative. A negative balance means you do not have enough of that crypto to cover the trade.
*Most of your unmatched trades can be located on the Trading Tab, but keep in mind there may also be some on the Spending Tab. The Spending Tab does not have a show balance option, so you will need to compare the date with the unmatched trade, with the dates on the Spending Tab.
Third: Correct the unmatched trade.
As mentioned above, there can be various reasons an unmatched trade may occur. As such, there can be several ways to correct your unmatched trades. You need to figure out which method is right for each individual unmatched trade.
1- Most unmatched trades are simply caused by missing trade information. All you need to do is make sure all of your trading data has been entered into your account. Even a single trade made from a random exchange that you never used again, should be entered in.
*When using API to import your data: after you connect your API by entering your keys, be sure to click the "Import Trades" button that appears, to finalize the data import.
2- If you purchased or received crypto in previous years, and do not add that data to the Opening Tab of the current tax year, unmatched trades can occur. For example, if someone gifted you 1 BTC back in 2014 and you spend or sell the 1 BTC in 2018, the acquisition data of that 1 BTC will need to be in the 2018 Opening Tab in order for an accurate calculation to occur.
3- Currently margin trades are not supported by BitcoinTaxes. If you have imported margin trading data, we suggest removing it - otherwise, the data can cause unmatched trades.
*You can enter the crypto profits and losses from your margin trading in the Income & Spending Tabs, respectively. Adding margin trading data in this fashion will only ensure your coin balances are correct, and may not represent accurate capital gains calculations on those margin trades.
4- Some exchange CSV exports may contain inaccurate timestamps for your trading data, resulting in your imported data showing a sale occur before a purchase.
In the image above you will notice there is a sale of 5 ETH listed before a purchase of 5 ETH. In reality, the purchase was made before the sale, but the data was imported incorrectly.
In these types of instances, you do not need to re-import all your trades to correct this single unmatched trade. You can simply manually edit the trade data by hovering your mouse courser over the date. You will see two new icons appear, a pencil (8) and an X (9). You can click on the pencil icon to edit the trade, and add a timestamp to rectify the mistake. You can also use the X icon to delete the trade all together.
Following this process will help you correct most of the unmatched trades you may have, and as always, if you need further assistance, please reach out to us at support@bitcoin.tax.
You can also view our video below, for some additional tips from Gordon Law Group: