Frequently asked questions

No. IAG Journal is local-first: your trades, fills, positions, P&L, and balances live in a database on your own computer, and your broker credentials live in your operating system's keychain on that same machine. We never receive them. The cloud account exists only to sign you in and confirm your subscription is active.

You don't have to take our word for it. Our Security & Data Transparency page publishes the step-by-step checklist a subscriber (an iOS engineer and options trader) ran against a shipping build before connecting a live brokerage account — verifying the signed and notarized binary, watching every outbound connection with a free firewall while importing a CSV, and confirming that broker sync goes from your Mac straight to your broker rather than through us. The commands, the expected results, and the destinations observed are all listed so you can reproduce it.

TastyTrade and Interactive Brokers sync automatically in the background — no manual exports needed. IBKR posts a fresh statement about once a day, so that's how often it refreshes on its own.

Want it sooner? You can pull your latest data on demand any time by clicking the sync button — or the As of date — for a connected account. IBKR also has an optional near-real-time add-on that refreshes as often as every 15 minutes during market hours; turn it on from the Interactive Brokers row in Manage AutoSync. Your daily statement stays the source of record and reconciles everything automatically.

Yes. Open Settings and click your email address under Subscription — that opens the Account page, where sign out lives (along with your subscription status, reconnect, app updates, and connection diagnostics). Your accounts, imports, and trade history stay on that machine — signing back in picks up right where you left off.

While you're signed out the Journal shows a full-screen Connect screen and the top navigation is hidden. That's expected — Settings, Utilities, and your trades all come back the moment you sign in.

To sign back in, type your sign-in code into the box on that screen. You can get a code from your account page at iagjournal.com or click Email me a code in the app. No browser handoff is involved.

You don't need to sign out to change or re-run AutoSync — those controls live in Settings → Utilities while you're signed in.

The fastest path is the in-app Report button: Settings → Utilities → Recent Imports → Logs on the bad import → Report on the bad row. It automatically attaches the details we need, with your account number removed. Note the issue number it gives you and mention it in any follow-up.

If you're emailing us instead, include:

• Your broker, and whether the data came from a file you imported or from AutoSync.
• Your app version (Settings → About) and operating system.
• The specific symbol, date, and dollar amount — what you expected vs. what the Journal shows. “P&L looks wrong” is hard to chase; “my SPX 6/19 put shows −$1,240 but my broker says −$620” we can fix.
• For file imports: the file's first line (the column headers) and the problem rows, with your account number deleted.
• A screenshot of the screen where the number looks wrong.

It likely did sync — rolls often look “missing” when P&L attribution is set to Strategy. In that view, the closed/rolled leg is attached to the open strategy (you'll see it in the strategy's details as a rolled leg). The strategy stays listed as an open trade until the final leg closes.

A roll itself doesn't move your Strategy P&L — you're continuing the same position under a new expiration or strike. Check the strategy details for the roll, or switch attribution to Realized if you want to see the closed leg booked on its own.

Those are three different measurements — they aren't meant to be the same number.

Journal YTD is realized P&L only: gains and losses on closed positions (by close date), with commissions and fees already in the net. It does notmark open positions to market. If you've linked or imported another broker (for example Fidelity history for stock cost basis), that history is included when those lots close.

Your broker's YTD report (e.g. TastyTrade) is often realized + open mark-to-market— closed P&L plus unrealized gains or losses on positions still open. Open marks alone can create a large gap even when closed P&L is close. Broker reports also cover that broker's account only, using the cost basis they carry.

Transactions / activity “net”is usually a sum of cash flows (opens, closes, assignments, transfers, deposits) — not closed-trade P&L. Opens and closes largely cancel, so that total is often near zero and won't match either report.

Other common reasons the Journal and your broker still differ on realized P&L:

• Scope — the Journal can include linked brokers and multi-year cost basis from CSV imports; a broker YTD report is usually one account only.
• Multi-year equity — shares bought years ago and sold this year may book the full multi-year gain in the year of the sale in the Journal; your broker uses its own basis for that account.
• Transfers / ACATs— after moving positions between brokers, cost basis must carry through correctly. If transfer rows or basis don't line up, equity P&L can diverge even when options line up symbol-by-symbol.
• Fees, commissions, and rounding— small gaps are normal even with a single broker and only this year's trades. Broker YTD commission and fee totals often include costs on still-openpositions (stock you bought and still hold, open options), while the Journal's YTD fee and commission figures are tied to closedtrades that feed realized P&L. Regulatory fees can also arrive sub-cent from the broker and get rounded to the nearest cent on import and on broker exports — over many fills that can add up to a few dollars. Journal net P&L is already after commissions and fees on those closed trades, so comparing it to a broker “realized” column that treats fees separately will not match dollar-for-dollar.

For a fair check, compare Journal realized YTD to your broker's realized(closed) P&L on the same account — not their combined YTD that includes open marks, and not a transactions cash total. Expect commissions and fees to be close but not identical when open trades or cent rounding are involved.

First of all, thank you for enrolling in one of our IAG courses.

We believe the IAG Journal is an excellent tool, designed to reinforce what you learned and help you get the most out of your options trading. It is not, however, required to successfully implement the course material.

The IAG Journal was developed in partnership with Daniel Lemmon — a former Crash Course student and software developer — and Nicholas Gibbs. Building this highly requested tool takes a substantial investment of time, effort, and resources.

If you decide to use the Journal, we're confident you'll find it valuable. If not, the course itself is designed to deliver exceptional value on its own.

Type your sign-in code into the box on that screen — a short code that looks like K7Q4-M2XR. There are two places to get one:

• From the web — sign in at iagjournal.com and copy the code from your account page. If you've just subscribed, it's on the screen you land on right after checkout.
• From the app — click Email me a codeand we'll send one. Use the email address your subscription is under; a code sent to any other address won't sign you in. If nothing arrives within a few minutes, check your spam folder before requesting another.

Codes expire, and requesting a new one retires the previous one — so if you asked twice, use the code from the most recent email.

If the app says your computer's credential storageis blocked, your session can't be saved even though the code was accepted. That's security software holding the macOS Keychain (or Windows Credential Manager) shut — allow IAG Journal there and try the code again.

Anything else, open the Account page (Settings → your email address under Subscription), expand Diagnostics, click Copy diagnostics, and send that to support@iagjournal.com. The Account page is also what the lock screen shows, so you can reach all of this without getting past the lock first.

On an older version?Before 1.11.3 connecting handed off to your web browser. If the browser says you're done but the app stays on the Connect screen, click Enter code manually underneath and paste the code your browser shows — then update the app, which removes that handoff entirely.

This usually means the app's local database was left in a bad state after an unexpected shutdown. That screen can now fix itself: click Repair & Retry to clear the stuck file and reopen the app, with Restore Last Backup as a fallback. Both keep all of your trades — nothing is deleted, and your broker re-syncs anything recent automatically.

If it still won't open, that same screen can open its log folder or copy the log to your desktop in one click — send that to support@iagjournal.com and we'll take it from there.

AutoSync (trades flow in on their own): TastyTrade and Interactive Brokers. File import: Fidelity, thinkorswim (Schwab), Robinhood, Wealthsimple, and Merrill Edge — including Wealthsimple's multi-currency accounts, where CAD amounts convert to USD on import.

We add brokers based on what subscribers ask for and can send us a sample export from, so tell us which one you use — email support@iagjournal.com and say you'd like to be an early tester for it.