[TP1]Getting started with the Journal
Four ways to get trades in, when to use each, and what each part of the Journal is for.
The Journal is where your trades live: what you took, why you took it, and what it paid or cost. It comes with the free account, with no cap on how many trades you log. Prophet AI, the Journal's AI side, is part of the membership.
Four ways to get trades in
| Way | Where | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Add trade | Log a trade in the side pane, or Add trade on Trades | You want one trade in full: prices, times, tags, playbook, charts and notes. It can post the trade to Discord as you save. |
| Quick log | The top of the Overview | You'd rather drop or paste a screenshot of your fills, then check a draft before it saves. Membership only. |
| CSV import | Import CSV on the Add trade page | You're backfilling history from a spreadsheet, another journal or a Tradovate Performance export. |
| Tradovate sync | Connect Tradovate on Accounts | You trade on Tradovate and want closed trades to arrive on their own. The button only shows once sync is open on your account. |
More on each: Importing trades from a CSV, Connecting Tradovate and Prophet AI. Trades you close in the Backtester go to the Backtest journal instead and never mix with these.
Logging a trade by hand
- Open Add trade. NQ, 1 contract and Long are filled in, so change only what's different.
- Enter the entry price. Exit is optional: leave it blank and the trade saves as open.
- Set the date and times. Net P&L fills itself in for the common futures, marked Auto; type over it if yours differs.
- Add a stop if you want an R, tick the accounts it fired on, and pick a playbook under Setup.
- Fees fills itself in from the ticked account's commission per contract × contracts, and the automatic Net P&L comes out after them. Type over either one.
- Press Log and post → to save and post to #successful-trades, or switch Post it off and press Log trade →. Save & add another keeps you on the form.
Fees and commissions
Every P&L in the Journal is net: after fees and commissions. A trade can also carry its fees, and its gross is then net + fees. A trade with no fees recorded counts them as $0.
- Typed P&L: stays exactly as you typed it, and the fees are saved beside it.
- Automatic P&L: the price math is gross, so the fees come off it.
- The default: set Commission on an account (per contract, round turn, fees included) and Fees fills in as that × contracts, marked Auto until you type your own. A trade ticked on several accounts takes the average of their commissions, once: its P&L and contracts are one copy's, counted on each account.
- Editing: changing a saved trade's fees keeps its gross and moves its net. A trade's fees never change because an account's commission did.
What's in the Journal
| Section | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Overview | Your numbers for the accounts and dates you pick, the quick log, a calendar and your latest trades. |
| Trades | Every trade, with filters, a Days view and the Add trade button. |
| Accounts | Your evals, funded and personal accounts, their balances and any Tradovate links. |
| Backtest journal | Trades from the Backtester, kept apart from your live numbers. |
| Notebook | A page per day for your plan before the open and your review after the close. |
| Weekly digest | One week at a glance: the net, the day that cost you, the notes you wrote. |
| Odds | How often your own trading days would pass a generic evaluation. |
| Docs | These pages. |
Once you've made a playbook, your playbooks show under these with their win rates. Show me around at the bottom of the Overview replays the guided tour.