Before: preparing the file
Where to find it. At your broker, the export of your activity is rarely under "Statements" — look under History, Activity or Reports, and choose CSV or Excel, never PDF. At Desjardins Online Brokerage (Disnat), both the CSV and the Excel export are read as they are, columns included. For other brokers, the import screen will tell you on the first try if a column is not recognized, and you will match it in one step.
Which period to request: from the day the account was opened. This is the point that avoids the most common error. If the statement starts after your first purchases, it contains sales whose purchase the application does not know about — and it will refuse those sales rather than invent a quantity. Exporting the longest possible period settles the question before it comes up.
If the export does not go back far enough, first enter the opening position in the portfolio: a purchase dated the actual day, at the price paid, if you know it; otherwise a "Transfer in" adjustment, which adds the shares without an acquisition cost — the application then tells you that the average cost shown will be lower. Then import the statement.
The format is described on the screen itself, under "Expected format": the columns, an example, what is tolerated. This page does not repeat it.
During: the screen guides you
- Open the portfolio concerned, then "Import a statement".
- Choose your file under "Statement file (CSV or Excel)". Nothing is written at this step: the application reads, and shows you.
- If a required column was not recognized, the "Match the columns" screen opens: for each field, pick the file column that matches it — the preview shows the first three lines — then "Continue with this mapping".
- The preview reads in sections: the transactions that will be created, the duplicates already present (unchecked by default), the symbols to resolve, the ignored lines with their reason, and the gaps with your own entries. Each section says what it expects from you; check, resolve, decide.
- The button at the bottom creates the transactions — all of them, or none. A refusal along the way writes nothing: the message names the line, the cause, and the way out.
An ignored line carries its reason and, when useful, the value at fault exactly as written in the file. Fix the file and import it again, or enter that line by hand.
After: what happens next
- The transactions appear in the portfolio, and positions are recomputed from all transactions — imported and hand-entered alike.
- Importing the same file again creates no duplicate: lines already present are recognized and unchecked. You can therefore import the full statement every year without sorting it.
- A gap with an existing entry — same security, same type, same date, different amount — is offered, never imposed: keep your entry, replace it with the statement, or create both.
- To check the result against your statement, the library explains what must match and what can differ without being an error: Reconciling Everyfolio with your statement.
- "Import another file" moves on to the next one.