Tier 6 · Master · Module 6.2
Run a live or funded trial with full audit trail
Run your capstone system live or on a funded account with a complete audit trail — broker statements, journal, logs, screenshots, and version records — so every result can be traced and verified.
Lesson 2 of 3 · 4 min read
A system document proves you can design a strategy. A live trial proves you can run it. For your capstone, the trial must also be auditable: every trade traceable from the rule that triggered it to the broker statement that recorded it. An audit trail protects you from self-deception, makes your results credible to others, and is exactly what a professional would expect before trusting a track record.
What you'll learn
- Setting up the trial: account, size, duration, and rules
- What a complete audit trail contains
- Reconciling your journal with broker statements
- Handling deviations and incidents honestly
- What the trial should produce for your final presentation
1. Setting up the trial
| Decision | Guidance |
|---|---|
| Account | A live account at reduced risk, or a funded/prop account |
| Risk | Start at a fraction of your planned risk (see Realistic income expectations and scaling rules) |
| Duration | Long enough for a meaningful sample — ideally 50+ trades, or at least 2–3 months for slower systems |
| Rules | The system document version is frozen for the trial |
| Benchmarks | Forward-test expectancy and drawdown, written down before starting |
2. The audit trail
A complete audit trail has five layers that must agree with each other:
| Layer | What it proves |
|---|---|
| Broker statements | The official record of every order, fill, fee, and balance |
| Trade journal | Why each trade was taken, R-multiple, checklist result, tags (see Behavioral journaling) |
| Screenshots | The chart at entry and exit, taken at the time |
| System logs (automated systems) | Every signal, decision, order, and error with timestamps |
| Version records | Which version of the system was running, and any changes |
3. Reconciliation
At least weekly, reconcile the journal with broker statements:
- Every trade in the statement appears in the journal, and vice versa.
- Entry and exit prices, sizes, and fees match.
- Your R calculations use actual fills, not planned prices.
- Deposits, withdrawals, and fees are recorded.
Worked example
(Illustrative weekly reconciliation.)
| Check | Result | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Trades in statement vs journal | 12 vs 11 | One missing journal entry — added with notes |
| Fill prices | 2 trades filled 0.3–0.5 pips worse than journal | Journal corrected to actual fills; slippage logged |
| R totals | +3.4R (journal) vs +3.1R (after corrections) | Report the corrected figure |
Reconciliation caught a missing trade and overstated results. Without it, the capstone would present numbers that don't match reality.
4. Deviations and incidents
Real trials include mistakes. What matters is how they're recorded:
- Rule deviations — trades that broke the rules. Tag them, and report results with and without them.
- Incidents — platform outages, missed signals, wrong sizes. Log what happened, the impact in R, and the fix.
- No silent edits — never delete or adjust records to make results look better.
5. What the trial produces
By the end, you should have:
- A reconciled trade list with actual fills and R-multiples
- Equity curves in money and R
- A statistics table matching the evidence format from your system document
- A log of deviations and incidents with their impact
- A comparison with your forward-test benchmark
These become the raw material for your final presentation (next lesson).
Common beginner mistakes
- Starting without a frozen system version and written benchmarks.
- Calculating R from planned prices instead of actual fills.
- Missing screenshots or taking them after the fact.
- Never reconciling with broker statements.
- Quietly removing bad trades from the record.
Key terms
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Live trial | Running a system with real money (or funded capital) under fixed rules |
| Audit trail | Records that let every result be traced and verified |
| Reconciliation | Checking the journal against broker statements |
| Actual fill | The price at which an order was really executed |
| Deviation | A trade that didn't follow the system's rules |
| Incident log | A record of operational problems and their impact |
Practice
- Write the trial setup: account, risk, duration, frozen version, and benchmarks.
- Set up your screenshot naming convention and folder structure.
- Run the trial, reconciling weekly.
- At the end, produce the reconciled trade list, curves, statistics, and incident log.
Quick recap
- Run the trial on a frozen system version with written benchmarks.
- Keep a five-layer audit trail: statements, journal, screenshots, logs, versions.
- Reconcile weekly and use actual fills for R.
- Record deviations and incidents openly — never edit silently.
- The trial produces the verified evidence for your presentation.
Educational content only — not financial advice. Trading involves substantial risk of loss. Practise on a demo account before risking real money.
