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Tracking Balances on the Ledger and Transactions Pages
Tracking Balances on the Ledger and Transactions Pages

Learn to track and understand balances in-app for accurate reports using the Transactions page Balance view or the Ledger view.

Vivi Turla avatar
Written by Vivi Turla
Updated over a month ago

Ensuring your account balances are tracked correctly is key to accurate tax reports. Crypto Tax Calculator (CTC) provides detailed Ledger and Balance views for each transaction to keep everything in check.

This can help you resolve missing purchase history and zero-cost buys.

Here’s a quick overview of the available information when viewing the balances.

Column

Description

Category

The type of transaction, such as "Buy," "Sell," or "Income."

Date

The outgoing asset and its quantity from your individual wallet or exchange.

Outgoing

The outgoing asset and its quantity from your individual wallet or exchange.

Incoming

The incoming asset and its quantity to your individual wallet or exchange.

Fee

The fee asset and its quantity disposed of from your individual wallet or exchange.

Outgoing Balance

Balance of the individual outgoing (source) account after the transaction.

Incoming Balance

Balance of the individual incoming (destination) account after the transaction.

Overall Balance

The overall token balance across all imported exchanges and wallets after the transaction.

Tracking Balances: Ledger View and Balance View

There are two ways to access the balance view in CTC.

1. The 'Show Balances' view on the Transactions Page

Click 'View’ on the Transactions page.

Then turn on the toggle for ‘Show Balances’. You can turn this on and off anytime, and it will not affect calculations.

Tip: You can use filters to view balances of specific currencies, accounts, etc. This is helpful if you want to track the running balances per currency and/or account.

2. The ‘Ledger’ page

The Ledger page offers similar balance tracking functionality, with shortcut filters for currency, account (wallet or exchange), and date range designed to help solve missing purchase history.

The Ledger page does not allow adding other filters. If you need to use other filters, we recommend using the Transactions page.

There are two ways to access the Ledger page:

  • On the Transactions page, click the transaction to expand the transaction details. Click the ‘View Balance’ tab. Then click the ‘View ledger’ button of the asset you want to review.

  • The Review page has a ‘Resolve missing purchase history’ section if you have any warnings about missing purchase history. Hover to the asset you want to review and click ‘View ledger’.

How Transaction Categories Affect Your Balances

Each transaction category affects balances differently. How balances are calculated for certain categories depends on your tax settings. It is important that you properly understand and categorize your transactions.

Tip: The Overall Balance depends on your transaction category, while the Outgoing and Incoming Balances depend on the direction of your transaction.

General Guide

Action

Direction

Example Categories

Outgoing Balance Impact

Incoming Balance Impact

Overall Balance Impact

Acquisition

Incoming

Buy, Cross Chain Buy, etc

-

Increase

Increase

Income

Incoming

Income, Interest, Staking Reward, etc

-

Increase

Increase

Moving Assets Between Own Accounts (Incoming)

Incoming

Receive

-

Increase

-

Moving Assets Between Own Accounts (Outgoing)

Outgoing

Send

Decrease

-

-

Disposal

Outgoing

Sell, Expense, Fee, etc

Decrease

-

Decrease

Notes:

  • The Transfer (Send and Receive) category impacts the account ending balances but does NOT change the overall balance.

  • The impact of Bridge, Staking Deposits and Withdrawals, and Collateral Deposits and Withdrawals on the overall balance depends on your tax toggle settings:

    • Non-taxable: The overall balance remains unchanged.

    • Taxable: The overall balance is adjusted accordingly.

Transaction Flow Example

Here’s a simple scenario of Buy, Transfer, and Sell transactions and how they impact the different types of balances.

Transaction Details

Outgoing Balance
(by account)

Incoming Balance
(by account)

Overall Balance
(all imported accounts)

Explanation

Buy 1 BTC in Coinbase

-

1 BTC (Coinbase)

1 BTC

This acquisition transaction increased the balance of the individual account and the overall balance.

Transfer 0.5 BTC from Coinbase to Wallet 1

0.5 BTC (Coinbase)

0.5 BTC (Wallet 1)

1 BTC

This transfer transaction decreased and increased the balances of the individual accounts. Note that it does not impact the overall balance.

Sell 0.5 BTC in Wallet 1

0 BTC
(Wallet 1)

-

0.5 BTC

This disposal transaction decreased the balance of the individual account and the overall balance.

Why do I have a Negative Balance Issue?

A negative balance occurs when an outgoing transaction (like a ‘Sell’) exceeds the available balance of an asset. This often indicates a missing purchase history and/or problems in your transaction history.

To determine what went wrong, use the ‘Ledger’ or ‘Balance View’ to review the transactions happened before the negative balance. Here are some things you can check, including:

  • Missing data (e.g., incomplete data import)

  • Incorrect transaction categories and uncategorized transactions

  • Duplicate transactions

In the above example, if only Wallet 1 data is imported but not the Coinbase data, CTC shows issues to be fixed with two indicators:

Indicator

Meaning

Explanation

Red Balance

Negative balance

The sale of 0.5 BTC in Wallet 1 creates a negative balance because there is no prior purchase to account for it.

Yellow Dot

The sale transaction is flagged with a yellow dot, indicating a missing purchase history.

The indicators show that the received 0.5 BTC has no incoming source, and the source account needs to be imported.

Solving Negative Balance

To fix a negative balance, identify and address its root cause. In this example, the problem is the missing Coinbase data.

By importing the missing exchange:

  • The missing ‘Send’ transaction is imported and automatically grouped into a Transfer (Send + Receive), transferring the cost basis to Wallet 1.

  • The missing ‘Buy’ transaction is imported, providing a cost basis of 0.5 BTC to be transferred from Coinbase to Wallet 1, and then sold in Wallet 1.

By importing the missing exchange, the negative balance and the associated missing purchase history are resolved.

If you have any questions or need help, we're here for you! Feel free to reach out to us via the in-app chat in the bottom-right corner or send your inquiries to [email protected].

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