Differences between ledger and trades history – Kraken

There are two main kinds of account history that clients can view or export: Ledger and Trades.

Ledger history

Ledger history focuses on changes to account balances.

It answers questions like:

How much was debited from a currency balance? (and the reason for it, e.g. fees, withdrawal, exchange or margin trading loss).
How much was credited to a currency balance? (and the reason for it, e.g. deposit, exchange or margin trading profit).
How much fees and in which currency, were paid to Kraken?

Working with Ledger history:

To find balances for a specific date, look at the last change to each balance before the desired date.
To find what a currency was traded for, look for a matching refid.
To find which margin trade specific rollover fees are associated with, looking for a matching refid.
If you see several deductions from different currencies but with the same refid and type 'margin', that's likely a liquidation.

Trades history focuses on the execution details of non-margin and margin trades (the matching of sell orders with buy orders).

It answers questions like:

What was a balance traded for?
The exchange rate for that trade?
The order type used?
All the executions related to a specific order.
The fee estimate in terms of the quote currency (NOT necessarily the actual amount that was deducted).
The collateral used for a margin trade (and thus also the leverage level)?

Note: Trades history only shows executed or partially executed orders. It does not show cancelled/untouched orders.