Add a trade manually

Sometimes you just need to add one trade — a recent buy, a dividend your broker didn’t include, a crypto trade, or a sale you made outside your usual account. This shows you how to record a single buy, sell, or dividend by hand. By the end, the trade will be in your portfolio and your holdings and performance will update automatically.

If you have a lot of trades to add, importing a file is much faster — see Import your trade history from a file.

Before you start

• Select the portfolio you want the trade to go into. You can’t add trades while a group is selected — switch to a single portfolio first.
• Have the trade details handy: the date, the ticker and exchange, the quantity, and the price (or, for a dividend, the amount).

Step 1 — Open the form

You can open the manual form from a few places — they all do the same thing:

• Transactions → Add Holdings → Add manually (the main route), or
• Add Holdings on your portfolio dashboard (including the empty-state prompt when a portfolio has no trades yet), or
• A holding’s Trades tab → Add Holdings (handy when you’re already looking at one security).

Step 2 — Choose the trade type

Pick Buy, Sell, or Dividend on the type toggle. This decides which fields you’ll see.

Type	What it records
Buy	A purchase. Creates a new holding, or adds to an existing one.
Sell	A disposal. Realises a gain or loss using your portfolio’s allocation method.
Dividend	A cash distribution. Your share count doesn’t change.

For crypto-specific activity, use the dedicated manual options in Add Holdings:

Option	What it records
Record a crypto-to-crypto trade	A swap where one crypto asset is disposed and another is received.
Record a staking reward	Staking rewards or airdrops that add crypto units to your holding.

Step 3 — Enter the details

Fill in the asset and trade details, then click Add transaction. Metrifly recalculates your holdings and tax figures straight away.

For a buy or sell:

1. Enter the Ticker (up to 10 characters — Metrifly uppercases it for you) and choose the Exchange (ASX, NYSE, NASDAQ, LSE, or OTHER).
2. Enter the Date (YYYY-MM-DD), Quantity, and Price per unit.
3. Add a Fee if there was brokerage — it’s included in your cost basis.
4. Click Add transaction. A Trade total preview (quantity × price + fee) shows before you submit.

For a dividend:

1. Enter the Ticker and Exchange, and the Date the dividend was paid.
2. Enter the Amount (the total cash received).
3. For Australian shares, add any Franking credits — these flow through to your tax income report.
4. Click Add transaction.

Good to know

• Foreign currency: if the trade currency differs from your portfolio’s reporting currency, an Exchange rate field appears (buy and sell only). Leave it blank to use Metrifly’s rate for that date, or enter your own. Dividends don’t use an exchange-rate field.
• Crypto swaps have their own form. Use Record a crypto-to-crypto trade when you traded one crypto asset directly for another.
• Staking rewards are crypto income. Use Record staking rewards when rewards don’t sync from your exchange.
• Selling everything closes the holding. If you sell all your units, Metrifly closes the holding and hides it from the active list — but keeps its full history. Buying the same ticker again reopens it.
• You don’t need to add every dividend by hand. Metrifly detects most dividends for you to confirm; manual entry is for filling gaps.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Fix
You can’t add a trade	A group is selected. Switch to a single portfolio.
The ticker is rejected	Keep it to 10 characters or fewer, and check you’ve picked the right Exchange.
There’s no exchange-rate field	The trade currency matches your portfolio currency, so no rate is needed.
The cost basis looks wrong	Check the date, quantity, and fee, and review your allocation method.

Related articles

• Import your trade history from a file — for many trades at once
• Record a crypto-to-crypto trade
• Record staking rewards
• Edit, fix, or delete a transaction
• Record reinvested dividends (DRP)