Getting started with ZenLedger is easy! In order to complete accurate tax reports, and eliminate any accounting issues in your account, we HIGHLY recommend doing the following:
Gather a list of ALL the exchanges and wallets you have ever used in the past, even for prior years.
Make sure you follow our import instructions exactly. Incorrectly importing your data outside of our recommended methods will lead to inaccurate data, and incomplete/incorrect tax reports. We provide detailed instructions, as well as articles, for each of our supported exchanges, wallets, custom CSV imports, and manual entries.
After you have imported all of your sources, be sure to run your tax calculation so that your tax forms update based on your imports. You can always review your Imports under the Imports tab by clicking Imported History.
Do not try to resolve any issues in your account until you have imported everything. You will continue to see issues until all of your transaction sources have been imported, and all of the pieces of the puzzle come together.
Importing Exchanges & Wallets:
We recommend importing your exchanges first. Start with making sure you have your passwords and devices for Two-Factor Authentication. Some sites do 2FA with SMS, some with Google Authenticator, and some with Authy - you would have set this up when you set up the account with the exchange. To import your exchanges, you will click the Import tab at the top of the page. Then search for the Exchanges and Wallets that you need to import and follow the import instructions. Don't see your exchange on the list? We will cover how to import those later in this article.
If your wallet is not listed and it is a wallet containing ERC-20 coins or any other blockchain that we support, you can use your public receive address to import the coin and select Ethereum (ETH) as the blockchain under a different wallet that we do support. Just keep note of that for yourself as it will show in your Import History as imported under that wallet.
Importing Custom CSVs and Manual Entry Transactions:
If the source you are trying to import is not listed among the exchanges, wallets, or blockchains we currently support, you will still need to import that source by either creating a Custom CSV (if more than a handful of transactions) or using Manual Entry (best option when there are only a few transactions from the source) to import the transactions. Manual entries are also useful for reporting stolen or lost coins if the loss/stolen outgoing transaction doesn't already appear in your account.
Article on how to Manually Add a Transactions (with video instructions).
Article on How to Create a Custom CSV (with video instructions).
Reviewing Imported Transactions:
To review your imported transactions, you will select the Imports tab at the top of your account.. This will show you what was imported, and when. For more information on the terms on this page, check out our Glossary.
Troubleshooting Self-Transfers, Missing Price, and Missing Imports:
After you have imported all of your data and run your tax calculation, you may still see items on your 8949 or Form Schedule 1 that don't look right to you. If that's the case it may be due to one or more of the following reasons:
All crypto to crypto trades are treated by the IRS as a sale of the original (outgoing) coin and an acquisition of the new (incoming) coin. Depending on your accounting method (FIFO, LIFO, or HIFO) you may have a capital loss or gain on the disposition of the original coin and this will be reported on the 8949. Check out our Crypto Taxation Article for more information.
If we see an Outgoing transaction from one source without a corresponding Incoming transaction into another source, this would appear as a sale. If this was actually a self-transfer, then there is either a missing wallet, or a wallet that is not reported in UTC and/or has a timestamp of the incoming transaction after the outgoing transaction. Example for the latter: You have 1 BTC outgoing from Coinbase at 8:30am UTC but your wallet shows incoming 7 hours earlier at 1:30am in your timezone - this would not match as a self transfer and would need to have the timestamp edited to make sure the incoming is after the outgoing. Check out our Self-Transfer Article to learn more about how to troubleshoot this.
Typically when there is a missing source, our system will flag these issues. Once you have everything completely and correctly imported into ZenLedger, you can begin troubleshooting the issues in your account using our Resolution Center.
Video Walkthrough: