Why am I seeing duplicate trades?

Duplicate trades usually happen because of how your trade source identifies each record. If the source provides stable IDs, we can dedupe them; if not, matching becomes 'best-effort'.

The risk of seeing duplicates depends entirely on the quality of the data identifiers provided by your broker or platform.

The role of stable IDs

Think of a stable ID as a unique fingerprint for a trade that never changes.

• If a stable ID is present: TraderSign can recognize that a trade has already been imported. Even if you upload the same history multiple times, we will correctly deduce that no new trades need to be added.
• If a stable ID is missing: We have to use "best-effort" matching. This means we compare fields like symbol, time, and price to guess if a trade is new. While this works well most of the time, it is not a guarantee and can lead to duplicates.

When are duplicates most likely?

You are most likely to encounter duplicates when using a source that doesn't provide those stable IDs. This typically happens in these scenarios:

1. Overlapping History: If you upload one file covering "Last Month" and another covering "Year-to-Date," and neither has stable IDs, our fallback matching might fail to recognize the overlap.
2. Re-uploading Weak Data: If you upload the same file twice from a source without stable IDs, even tiny changes in the data formatting can cause the system to see the trades as new records.
3. Mismatched Sources: Combining two different exports that describe the same trade using slightly different formatting or rounding.

How to investigate and fix

If you see duplicates, your first stop should be the Import History page.

1. Go to Settings → Import History.
2. Look for multiple imports on the same account that might overlap in date range.
3. Check the source of those imports to see if they were likely to lack stable identifiers.

Cleaning them up:

• Delete an Import Run: If a specific file upload caused the mess, you can often delete that entire import from the history page to wipe those trades out cleanly.
• Manual Cleanup: You can delete individual duplicates directly from your trade log.

How to prevent duplicates

• Check for Stable IDs: When possible, use platforms or brokers that provide unique trade identifiers.
• Avoid Overlapping Imports: If you know your source has weak ID support, be extra careful not to import the same date ranges twice.
• Review History: Check your Import History before re-trying an import to ensure the previous one didn't already finish.

If you have any further questions or need assistance, please contact our support team.