What Belongs in a Handwritten Trade Log

Holders who rebalance manually often jot trades on scattered notes. When we compile your annual record, gaps in the log extend session time. A consistent handwritten format prevents reconstruction work.

Required fields per trade

Each entry should include:

1. Date — day, month, year in unambiguous format (2025-04-15, not 4/15)
2. Action — “rebalance,” “contribution,” or “withdrawal”
3. Source device label — where assets moved from
4. Destination device label — where assets moved to
5. Asset and amount — ticker and quantity moved (e.g., 0.15 BTC)
6. Allocation before/after — target percentages you were aiming for

Optional but valuable

• Reason — one line: “April scheduled rebalance” or “Reduced ETH to fund property purchase”
• Co-signer — if a family member witnessed the transaction
• Reference — transaction ID if you looked it up on an air-gapped device

Frequency

Write the entry on rebalance day, not from memory weeks later. Clients who log same-day typically finish annual sessions in under four hours. Clients reconstructing from memory often need the full quoted time plus a follow-up revision.

Paper choice

Use bound notebooks, not loose sheets. Sticky labels fall off — we have recovered missing trades, but it adds stress you can avoid. Number your notebook pages; we reference page numbers in the bound annual record.

What not to write

Never record seed phrases, PINs, or passphrases in your trade log. If you accidentally did, redact before bringing the log to our office and rotate credentials at home.