Free download
Free Futures Trading Journal Template
A free, downloadable spreadsheet for logging futures trades by hand — real formulas for gross P&L, net P&L, and R-multiple, a blank template and a filled synthetic example, and explicit guidance on the timezone and session-date traps that quietly corrupt manually-kept futures logs.
What's included
- A blank 'Journal Template' tab (30 rows) and a filled 'Example (Synthetic)' tab (8 clearly labeled made-up trades) — see exactly how the formulas behave before you trust them with real numbers.
- Instrument, direction, quantity, entry/exit timestamps and prices, with explicit timezone fields next to each timestamp.
- A dedicated Session Date column, with instructions for when a trade's calendar date and its trading-session date diverge.
- Contract point value, gross P&L, round-trip cost, and net P&L — all formula-driven, never a number you have to compute by hand.
- Planned initial risk and R-multiple, correctly left blank (not zero, not an error) when no stop was predefined.
- Setup tags, review notes, and a Review Summary block (trade count, win rate, average R, profit factor) that recalculates as you add rows.
A standard .xlsx file — opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice Calc. No signup, no email required.
Timezone and session-date guidance
Futures trade nearly 24 hours across time zones, so a timestamp without an explicit timezone becomes ambiguous the moment you or a broker export crosses one — this template has a dedicated timezone field next to every entry/exit timestamp for that reason. Separately, a trading session's date is not always the same as the calendar date of your entry timestamp: most CME futures sessions run from roughly 5:00 PM Central to the next day's 4:00 PM Central, so a position opened at 6:30 PM Central on a given evening belongs to the next day's trading session. The template's Session Date column is where you record that session-adjusted date explicitly, once you've confirmed your specific instrument's actual session hours — it is not auto-derived, since getting this wrong silently either double-counts or drops a day when you later summarize results by day.
The formulas
Gross P&L = (Exit − Entry) × Quantity × Point Value × (Long: 1, Short: −1)
Net P&L = Gross P&L − Round-Trip Cost
R-Multiple = Net P&L ÷ Planned Initial Risk (blank if no risk was planned)
Point value is fixed per contract by the exchange (ES = $50/point, MES = $5/point, and so on) — the same figures Fillbook's own journal and calculators use. R-Multiple is deliberately left blank rather than shown as 0 or an error whenever Planned Initial Risk is blank or zero, since a trade with no predefined stop genuinely has no valid R-multiple to report.
How this was verified
Every formula was checked against 8 hand-computed synthetic examples (varied instruments, both directions, wins and losses, one intentionally missing a planned stop) using real spreadsheet recalculation, not just a formula that looks right on paper — the computed Gross P&L, Net P&L, R-Multiple, and Review Summary totals (win rate, average R, profit factor) all matched the independently hand-calculated expected values exactly, with zero formula errors across both the blank template and the filled example.
Honest path to Fillbook
This spreadsheet does not have a verified one-click import path into a Fillbook account — its columns are not the CSV format Fillbook's importer expects, and claiming otherwise would be a guess we haven't checked. If you want this same trade history tracked automatically, with live broker sync, drawdown/daily-loss rule tracking, and behavioral pattern detection, the real route is to export your trade history as a CSV directly from your broker or prop firm platform and import that CSV into Fillbook, which maps the columns automatically. This spreadsheet exists as a free, ungated tool for logging trades manually — not a hidden on-ramp into the product.
Skip the spreadsheet upkeep — let Fillbook calculate this automatically
Fillbook computes gross/net P&L, R-multiple, and prop-firm rule tracking automatically from an imported or synced trade history — no formulas to maintain.
Start free trial →Frequently asked questions
No — this spreadsheet's columns aren't Fillbook's CSV import format. To get the same trade history into Fillbook automatically, export a CSV from your broker or prop firm platform directly and import that instead; Fillbook maps those columns automatically.
A blank R-Multiple means no Planned Initial Risk was entered for that trade — there is no stop-based risk to divide by, so showing 0 or an error would misrepresent the trade. Enter a planned risk amount to see R-Multiple calculated for that row.
Whatever timezone you actually think in when you place trades — the important part is writing it down explicitly next to each timestamp, and being consistent, since futures sessions span multiple U.S. time zones and cross midnight in most of them most nights.
Enter your best per-trade estimate — most brokers and prop firms quote a per-side commission that you can double for a round-trip, plus any per-trade platform or data fees. See Fillbook's futures commission fee guide for current per-side rates across several brokers and prop firms as a reference point.
See how this fits into futures-specific journaling on Futures Trading Journal — Fillbook.Size your next position with the Futures Position Size Calculator — Fillbook.Check the P&L math on a filled trade with the Futures P&L Calculator — Fillbook.Trading journal learning center