Crypto trading journal template: what to put in the columns
A spreadsheet journal works if it has the right columns from day one. Here is a template for futures trading — and the formulas that turn it into answers.
The columns
- Date and time of entry and exit
- Exchange and coin
- Side (long / short), size, leverage
- Entry and exit price (averages if you scaled in or out)
- Fees and funding
- Net PnL
- Planned risk (1R) and R multiple
- Setup tag and mistake tag
- Link to a chart screenshot and a one-line note
The formulas
- Price PnL: long (exit − entry) × size, short (entry − exit) × size.
- Net PnL: price PnL − fees ± funding (or the exchange’s net PnL if it already includes them).
- R multiple: net PnL ÷ planned risk.
- Win rate: count of net PnL > 0 ÷ count of trades.
- Profit factor: sum of positive net PnL ÷ |sum of negative net PnL|.
- Average trade: sum of net PnL ÷ count of trades.
Tags beat long notes
Keep a short fixed list of setup tags (“breakout”, “pullback”, “range”) and mistake tags (“moved stop”, “FOMO entry”, “revenge”). After a hundred trades a pivot table by tag tells you which setups make money and which mistakes cost the most — something free-form notes never do.
See these numbers for your own trades
Connect an exchange and your trades load automatically — PnL, fees and funding per trade. The demo works without signing up.
When the spreadsheet stops working
Usually at the first partial close, the first funding payment you forgot, or the second exchange. Each trade takes minutes to enter, and after a bad week nobody wants to type in their losses — exactly when the journal is most useful.
The automatic version
CheckMyProfit fills these columns from the exchange automatically: entry and exit, size, leverage where the exchange gives it, fees, funding, net PnL, a candle chart per trade, plus your tags, notes and screenshots — with win rate, profit factor, drawdown and breakdowns calculated for you.