Sync your TD Ameritrade Transactions Effortlessly

Note: This is not working now due to TD Ameritrade blocking it for Singapore accounts 🙁

One of the few processes in StocksCafe that has yet to be fully automated is the entering of transactions into StocksCafe.

While we would love to make your investment journey as smooth as possible, it is not easy to get this data from most brokerages. Thankfully, there are some exceptions such as TD Ameritrade where the brokerage provides APIs for third-parties to easily and safely retrieve your transaction data, with your permission.

Today, we are happy to share that you can now easily sync your TD Ameritrade transaction data to StocksCafe.

Note: There is no special collaboration between TD Ameritrade and StocksCafe. We are adding this feature because we believe this is something that will benefit StocksCafe users.

How to Sync Your TD AMERITRADE Account

Preparation: We strongly recommend that you create a new portfolio dedicated for this syncing.

1. Go to this page. Choose the portfolio you would like to use for syncing, then enter your 9-digit TD Ameritrade account ID. Click on the “Sync Transactions” button.
2. You will be redirected to an authentication page in TD Ameritrade. On that page, enter your username (not account ID) and password of TD Ameritrade. Once you click “Log In”, you will need to click “Allow” button which will give StocksCafe READ ONLY access to your TD Ameritrade account.
3. After clicking on “Allow” in the previous step, you will be redirected back to StocksCafe and the sync is complete. You should be able to see your synced transactions in the portfolio you have chosen.

Things to Note

• As this is a new feature and TD Ameritrade’s API documentation did not list all the possible transaction types, there is a possibility that the syncing might fail, and it is deliberately designed this way. If it fails, please contact us so that we can handle the transaction types we missed.
• Limitation: Stock splits and reverse splits are not handled. This includes options with the underlying stock undergoing a split. Please adjust for them manually. Tutorials: How to handle stock splits and reverse splits.
• There is no way for StocksCafe to know your TD Ameritrade username and password as the login is done on TD Ameritrade’s page. All we are given is READ ONLY access. This means we do not have the ability to edit or modify your account in any manner. In addition, this READ ONLY access is only valid for 30 mins.
• If you have just performed the transaction (e.g. just made a new trade), it is not going to immediately be available for syncing. Our personal experience is that trades are available for syncing 6 hours after the market closes.

FAQ

What transactions are synced?

• Buy/sell stock transactions as portfolio transactions
• Buy/sell option transactions as option transactions
• Fees or Interest occurred as portfolio transaction fees
• Money being wired in/out of account as cash transactions
  

Can I edit/delete the synced transactions?

Yes, you can. We are using the unique ID provided by TD Ameritrade to determine if a transaction has been synced before, so any edited/deleted transaction will not appear again in future syncs.

However, we do not recommend editing/deleting transactions. If there is an issue, contact us so we can improve on it.

Will StocksCafe auto-sync for me on a regular basis?

No. StocksCafe cannot auto-sync for you because we do not have your username and password. The READ ONLY access token given to StocksCafe each time is only valid for 30 mins.

In that case, how often do I need to sync it?

We recommend at least once a month, at the start of the month since TD Ameritrade gives interest or charges fees at the end of month depending on your cash balance / leverage.

Of course, you can sync more regularly than that but please note that the latest trades is likely to only be available several hours after the market closes (based on our personal experience).

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That is it. We hope you will enjoy this new capability!

And yes, we can already hear that you want more brokerages to be able to sync with StocksCafe. Our next target would be IBKR, as they have such API available as well.

However, as we do not have an IBKR account at the moment, we would need volunteer(s) to work with us on it. If you have been using IBKR for a while and is willing to help StocksCafe add it to the platform, please comment here.

A special shout out to roycris for volunteering to help with the TD Ameritrade integration!

Happy investing!