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Quick Start

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Before following this guide, ensure you've completed the Getting Started steps — the add-on installed and enabled on your copy of the official template.

You can start tracking right away — no configuration required. The add-on ships with sensible defaults that work out of the box, and your first 14 days are a full Pro trial: no license key, no card, and no limit on how many transactions you log. Tweaking the ⚙️ Settings is entirely optional and covered at the end of this guide.

Troubleshooting the Menu

If you click Extensions > tradeGIST and only see one option (Enable extension), click it to activate the full suite of tools. Once enabled, the full menu appears.

1. Enter your transactions​

Add your trades to the Transactions sheet — one row per transaction. The required columns are Date, Asset type, Op, Ticker, Volume, and Price. See Managing Transactions for the full column reference and bulk-import tips.

2. Generate Trades​

Open the tradeGIST menu and click Transactions > Generate Trades. After a few seconds, your matched trades appear in the Trades sheet.

The first time you run it, tradeGIST shows a dialog listing every asset found in your transactions that isn't yet declared in your configuration, organized by type (equity, crypto, option). Each group has a Copy button so you can paste the tickers straight into the right place:

Add the listed assets to those sections — then update prices (next step) to value your positions.

3. Update prices​

To value your open positions at the latest market prices, open the tradeGIST menu and click Update prices. This fills in the current price for each asset — equities via Google Finance, plus live crypto and option prices where an API key is configured.

Then check the Summary sheet for an aggregated view of your holdings, and the Dashboard sheet for a visual breakdown of your performance.

Adjusting settings (optional)​

The defaults work out of the box, so you can skip this when starting out. When you're ready to fine-tune, open the tradeGIST menu and click ⚙️ Settings:

  • Portfolio base currency — the currency your total value and P&L are reported in (default: USD).
  • Matching method — FIFO or LIFO for pairing your buy and sell transactions (default: FIFO).
  • API keys — only needed for live crypto (CoinMarketCap) and options (Massive) prices.

See the Configuration guide for the full list of settings.

Currency Formats

If you need to change how dates or currencies are displayed (e.g., changing from $1,000.00 to 1.000,00 €), refer to the spreadsheet "Locale" in the advanced topics Locale.

License​

The first time you run the add-on, a 14-day trial of the full Pro feature set starts — no license key, no card, and no limit on the number of transactions. It is granted once per Google account, so reinstalling the add-on or starting a new copy of the template doesn't start a second one.

When the 14 days are up, you move to the free tier automatically: nothing is charged, and nothing in your spreadsheet is deleted, hidden, or locked. The free tier has the same features as Pro but is capped at 30 transactions. Below the cap, everything keeps working as before. Above it, Generate Trades stops with a license-required message and the sheets it already generated stay as they are until you activate a license — your transactions remain in the sheet, readable and exportable.

Activate a license from the License tab of the ⚙️ Settings dialog (or the 🔑 Manage License menu item). You can get one here.

Next Steps​

Now that you've generated your initial trades, explore the Trades sheet for detailed breakdowns, the Summary for overviews, and the Dashboard for visualizations.