Commission on your statement that doesn't match your own count

[Fairman]

Commission on your statement that doesn't match your own count

If you trade an ECN or raw spread account, commission is a big part of your costs. It's also something most people never check against the statement. They see a number, assume it's right and move on.

Checking it isn't difficult. The broker publishes a commission rate, usually per lot per side or per round turn, sometimes per million traded. Take a day's trades, add up the lots, apply the rate, and compare with what the statement charged. On most days it should match closely.

When it doesn't, there are a few common reasons. The rate might be charged in a different currency from your account and converted at a rate you didn't expect. Partial closes might be charged as separate trades. Some brokers charge commission on opening and closing separately and round each one up to the nearest cent, which adds up over hundreds of trades. And occasionally the broker's rate has changed without much notice.

I keep a simple spreadsheet tab for this. Once a month I take a sample of days and compare. If my count and the statement differ by more than rounding, I look into why.

For a high frequency scalper, a small difference per trade can add up to more than you'd guess over a year. It's a few minutes of work to keep an eye on it.

[FXS HongKong Scalper]

One cause worth adding is commission charged in a different currency. On some accounts the commission is set per lot in USD, but the account is in EUR or GBP, so the amount converts at a rate that changes daily and the totals never match a simple calculation. Another is that some brokers charge the full round turn at opening, while others split it between open and close. If a position is still open at the end of the day, the statement for that day can look high. Checking a few closed trades by ticket usually resolves it.

[Fairman]

Per million commission works differently from per lot. It's based on the notional value of the trade in the account currency or in USD, so it changes with the exchange rate. A lot of EURUSD at 1.20 costs more in commission than a lot at 1.05 under a per million model. If your broker charges this way, your count needs to use the price at the time of each trade, not just the number of lots. Most brokers state which one they use somewhere in the account type details, often in small print beneath the headline commission figure.

[Fairman]

Some platforms show commission as a separate line per trade, while others combine it with the profit or loss. In MT5 it usually shows in the deals list. In MT4 it's often a column in the history. If you export the history to a spreadsheet, check which field contains the commission before doing the sums, because swap and commission sometimes end up in the same column depending on the broker's settings. Exporting to CSV from the history tab usually gives cleaner columns than copying the report. Some brokers also offer a downloadable statement from their client area with commission broken out per trade, which is easier to check against your own count.

[Fairman]

Rebates and cashback programmes complicate the picture. If you're getting a rebate through an introducing broker or a cashback site, that usually comes as a separate credit, not as a reduced commission. Your net cost is the commission minus the rebate, but the two arrive at different times. Keeping both in the same sheet is the only way to know what you're really paying per lot. Some rebate programs pay monthly and some pay daily. If the rebate is calculated on a different lot count from yours, that's another mismatch to look into, and it's often in the rebate provider's favour rather than yours.

[Fairman]

When contacting the broker about a mismatch, give them specific trades with ticket numbers and your calculation. A general question about commissions will get a link to the pricing page. A specific question with tickets usually gets a real answer, and occasionally a refund if their system made an error, which does happen with partial closes and rounding. Keep a short record of each query and its outcome. If the same issue repeats, having previous tickets and replies makes the next conversation quicker, and it helps when deciding whether to stay with that broker.

[Shadow Trader]

A scalper compares the monthly statement with the platform's trade history and the totals differ by a small amount. Sometimes it's a few dollars, sometimes more.

Common causes include swap and commission posted at different times from the trade, rounding differences between the platform and the back-office system, currency conversion at different rates, and adjustments such as dividends on index instruments or corrections after a data issue.

Some are harmless. Others deserve a question. A trade that appears on one record and not the other, a fill price that differs from the history, or a closing time that doesn't match all need explanation.

The most reliable approach is reconciling at the trade level, not the total. Matching each ticket number between the two records shows exactly which items differ.

Brokers generally respond to specific ticket numbers faster than to vague complaints.

Screenshots of the platform at the time of a dispute are useful, since history can be edited or corrected afterwards.

Has a reconciliation ever revealed something unexpected?