Keeping a Spot Trade Log That Separates Maker and Taker Outcomes

Most spot trade logs record the pair, the size and the price, then stop. That is enough to reconstruct a position, but not enough to reconstruct what the order actually cost you. Maker and taker treatment is decided by how your order interacted with the book, and the two can carry different fee treatment depending on the exchange and your account tier. If you only write down the average fill price, you lose the one detail that explains why two trades of the same size on the same pair produced different net outcomes. Over a few dozen trades this turns into a vague sense that costs are higher than expected, with no way to locate where. The fix is not a more complicated spreadsheet. It is a small set of fields captured at the moment of the fill, plus a habit of reconciling them against the exchange's own records before you close the month. This guide sets out that method for Singapore-based readers trading spot markets, with steps that work whether you keep a simple sheet or a more structured table.

Decide the fields before you place the next order

A trade log only works if the fields are fixed in advance. If you decide what to record after the fact, you will record what you remember, and memory is exactly what fails. Before your next spot order, open your sheet or note file and add these columns: date and time of the fill, exchange account, trading pair, side, order type, whether the order was posted to the book or took from it, filled quantity, average fill price, fee charged, fee asset, and the order identifier shown in your order history. Add one free-text column for anything unusual, such as a partial fill or an order you amended before it executed.

The maker or taker column should not be filled in from assumption. It should be filled in from what the exchange reports for that specific order. Some interfaces label the order type and let you infer the rest, but inference is where errors creep in, especially with limit orders that execute immediately because they crossed the spread. Treat the exchange record as the authority and your own note as a pointer to it.

Keep the field names stable once you start. If you rename a column halfway through a month, sorting and filtering will silently drop rows, and you will be reconciling a log that no longer matches itself. If you trade on more than one platform, use the same column names everywhere so the records can be combined later without manual mapping.

Capture the maker or taker flag at the moment of the fill

The cleanest habit is to record the fill while the confirmation is still on screen. Note the order identifier exactly as displayed, then add the maker or taker indication from the order detail view. If the interface does not state it plainly, note the order type and the time the fill occurred, and mark the row as unconfirmed until you check it against the order history page. Do not guess and do not leave the cell blank, because a blank cell is indistinguishable from a forgotten row.

Partial fills deserve their own rows. A single limit order can fill in several pieces, and the pieces can receive different treatment if part of the order rests on the book and part executes against incoming flow. Recording one averaged row for a multi-part fill hides that. If the number of pieces is large, record the aggregate but note the number of fills and keep the order identifier so you can return to the detail later.

After the session, open the order history and spot-check a few rows against your notes. You are looking for two things: that the identifier matches, and that the treatment you recorded matches what the exchange shows. Correct any mismatch immediately, while you still remember the trade. A log that is corrected the same day stays trustworthy; one corrected a month later usually is not.

Reconcile against the official fee and order records

Once a week, take your log and compare it to the exchange's own reporting. The trading fee schedule on the official fee page tells you how maker and taker treatment is defined for your account tier, and the help centre explains where to find your fee history and order details. Read those pages rather than relying on a number you saw once, because tiers and conditions are described there and can be revised. Your job in reconciliation is not to memorise the schedule but to confirm that the treatment recorded in your log matches the treatment the exchange applied.

Work through the discrepancies rather than around them. A fee that looks wrong is usually one of four things: the order was recorded with the wrong treatment, the fill was split and only one part was logged, the fee was charged in a different asset than you assumed, or the row belongs to a different account or sub-account. Each of these has a different fix, and none of them is fixed by adjusting the fee number until the totals agree.

Record what you changed and why. A short reconciliation note per week, listing the rows corrected and the reason, turns the log into an audit trail rather than a spreadsheet that happens to be current. It also means that if you later review a month, you can see whether a gap came from missing data or from a genuine cost.

Keep the log reviewable over months

A log that is only readable by its author has limited value. Use a consistent date format, keep one row per fill, and avoid merging cells or adding summary rows in the middle of the data. Put totals and summaries on a separate tab or at the bottom, clearly separated. If you share the file with an accountant or use it for your own quarterly review, the structure should be obvious without explanation.

Back up the file somewhere you control, and decide how long you keep it. The exchange's own records are the primary source, but your log is what shows your reasoning at the time, which the exchange record does not. Export a copy at the end of each month rather than relying on a single live file that can be overwritten or corrupted.

Finally, review the log against your own behaviour, not just against the exchange. If most of your fills are taker, the log will show it plainly, and that is useful information about how you are entering positions. If maker fills cluster in orders that were later cancelled or amended, that is also visible. The point of separating maker and taker outcomes is to make your actual trading pattern legible to you, so that any change you make later is based on what you did rather than on what you assumed you did.

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Scenario checkpoint

• Add maker or taker, fee amount, fee asset and order identifier columns before placing your next spot order.
• Record the order identifier and treatment from the confirmation screen, marking any uncertain row as unconfirmed rather than guessing.
• Split partial fills into separate rows, or note the number of fills and keep the order identifier for later checking.
• Reconcile weekly against the exchange order history and the official fee page, and note each correction with its reason.
• Keep one row per fill with a consistent date format, and store an exported copy at the end of each month.