Accounts
An account is a name you choose and the masked number your broker shows (like ...123). AlertDesk never keeps a full account number. A paper account is practice money: no broker, no number.
Steps
- Adding: an account is made when you import its first file — on the Import page, choose "A new account", give it a name and the masked number the file shows. Or add it first in Settings → Accounts → Add an account: a name, the masked number and the broker.
- Renaming: in Settings → Accounts, change the name and press Rename. Its files, trades and notes stay with it.
- Archiving: press Archive. The account disappears from every page and every total — Positions, Trades, the Ledger, Performance, Needs a look — but nothing is deleted. It waits under Archived in Settings; Bring it back puts it back everywhere, as it was.
- Deleting: press Delete…. The next page lists everything that goes — its imported files, the rows read from them, its trades, its journal entries and notes, the manual fills. To go ahead, type the account's name. AlertDesk first copies all your data into the backups folder inside your data folder, then deletes. To undo it, restore that backup (below).
- A paper account: Settings → Accounts → Add a paper account, with a name and the starting cash. Add or take out practice money later on its Ledger page (Paper cash). Its fills are typed in on Trades → Enter a trade manually, or start from a rec in the Feed with Paper-trade this rec: the ticker, the contract, the buy-up-to price and today's date are filled in; you check the quantity and save. A buy needs the paper cash (buying power is the cash); a close needs the position. Selling to open is cash-secured: a sold put holds its strike × 100 of paper cash until it's closed, a sold call needs the shares to cover it, and shares can't be sold short.
- A service's close alert on a paper position is listed under Here's what's going on too, marked "Paper:" and never red; possible matches on paper trades are confirmed under Needs a look.
- Paper fees: $0 unless you set them under Add a paper account (a fee per stock fill, and per option contract). They're used when a paper fill's Fees box is left empty.
- Deleting a paper account asks once, without typing its name. A backup is still taken first.
What you should see
- Each account in Settings → Accounts, and in the account choices on Positions, Trades and the Ledger.
- A paper account named with "paper" and a paper badge on every page. Its money is never added to your real accounts: Trades shows a paper total of its own, Performance a paper section of its own.
- Open paper positions are priced like real ones; paper results on Performance are what was realized.
If it doesn't work
- A file refused as "for account ...123, but the account chosen is ...456": choose the matching account, or confirm if it really is that account.
- "Not enough paper cash": the buy costs more than the paper account holds on that day or a later one. Deposit more on its Ledger page, or buy less.
- "This closes 10 ABCD, but the paper account holds 5": a close can't be bigger than the position.
- An account seems to have vanished: look under Archived in Settings → Accounts.
- Deleted by mistake: Settings → Data & backups lists the backup "before deleting" the account, made just before; Restore… beside it puts everything back as it was then.