Free Trading Journal Template — Excel & Google Sheets for India
Download our free Excel and Google Sheets trading journal template built for Indian traders. Includes auto P&L, STT tracker, F&O support, and weekly/monthly dashboards.
Start journaling today — even a simple spreadsheet beats not tracking at all.
You know you should be journaling your trades. Every successful trader says so. Every trading book recommends it. But when you sit down to create a spreadsheet, you stare at a blank grid and think: "Where do I even start?"
We have built a free trading journal template — available for both Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets — that is specifically designed for Indian traders. It handles NSE/BSE equities, F&O lots, STT calculations, brokerage tracking, and gives you weekly and monthly performance dashboards out of the box.
Why You Need a Trading Journal
We will keep this brief because you have heard it before. But the data is worth repeating:
Traders who journal consistently are 33% more likely to be profitable after 6 months (based on a study of 1,000+ retail traders).
The act of writing down your trade rationale forces you to have a rationale — which alone eliminates 30-40% of impulsive trades.
Patterns in your behaviour (time of day, emotional state, setup type) only become visible after 50+ logged trades.
A trading journal is not about record-keeping. It is about pattern recognition — finding the leaks in your process and plugging them.
What Our Template Includes
The template has 4 sheets:
Sheet 1 — Trade Log
The main sheet where you enter every trade. Columns include:
Date & Time — Entry and exit timestamps
Instrument — Stock name, option strike, or futures contract
Segment — Equity, F&O, or Currency (dropdown)
Direction — Long or Short
Quantity / Lots — Supports both share count and lot-based entry
Entry Price & Exit Price — Auto-calculates P&L
Stop Loss & Target — Pre-trade planning fields
Brokerage — Pre-filled for Zerodha (₹20/order) but editable for any broker
STT & Other Charges — Auto-calculated based on segment and turnover
Net P&L — Gross P&L minus all charges. The number that actually matters.
Emotion — Dropdown: Calm, Anxious, Excited, Frustrated, Revenge, FOMO, Bored
Setup Type — Tag your strategy (Breakout, Pullback, Reversal, Scalp, etc.)
Notes — Free text for trade rationale and post-trade review
Sheet 2 — Weekly Summary
Auto-populated from the Trade Log. Shows:
Total P&L per week (net of charges)
Win rate per week
Average winner vs. average loser (R:R tracking)
Best and worst day
Total brokerage + taxes paid (eye-opening for frequent traders)
Sheet 3 — Monthly Dashboard
A visual summary with:
Monthly P&L bar chart
Cumulative equity curve
Win rate trend over time
P&L by setup type (which strategies make money?)
P&L by emotion (which emotional states lose money?)
Sheet 4 — Settings
Configure your:
Starting capital
Broker fee structure (Zerodha, Groww, Angel One, Dhan presets)
Risk per trade % (used for position sizing column)
Max trades per day (to track discipline)
How to Use It — Step by Step
For Zerodha Users
Download your trade book from Kite: Reports → Trade Book → Download CSV
Open the CSV and copy the relevant columns into the Trade Log sheet
Add your Stop Loss, Target, Emotion, and Notes manually
The Net P&L column auto-calculates including Zerodha's fee structure
Review the Weekly Summary every Sunday
For Groww / Angel One Users
Export your trade history from the app (usually under Reports or Account settings)
Update the brokerage column in the Settings sheet to match your broker's charges
Follow the same process as above
The template works with any Indian broker. Just update the fee structure in the Settings sheet.
What the Template Looks Like
The Trade Log sheet uses conditional formatting to highlight winners (green) and losers (red). The emotion column uses color-coding — Calm is green, Revenge/FOMO are red. This makes it immediately obvious which emotional states correlate with your worst days.
The Monthly Dashboard features a clean equity curve chart that shows your account growth (or decline) over time. This is the single most important chart in your trading career — because it tells you, at a glance, whether your process is working.
The Weekly Summary is designed for your Sunday review session. Print it, annotate it, and ask yourself: "What did I do well this week? What do I need to fix?"
Limitations of Spreadsheet Journals
We built this template because we want every trader to journal. But we will be honest about its limitations:
Manual entry — Every trade needs to be entered by hand (or copy-pasted from broker CSV). This takes 5-15 minutes daily. Many traders start strong but abandon the journal after 2-3 weeks because of this friction.
No AI analysis — A spreadsheet can calculate your win rate and P&L, but it cannot tell you why you are losing on Thursdays or why your afternoon trades underperform. Pattern detection across 500+ trades requires intelligence the spreadsheet doesn't have.
No chart integration — You cannot attach chart screenshots to a spreadsheet cell (well, you can, but it breaks). So your visual context for each trade lives somewhere else — or nowhere.
No behavioural analysis — The emotion column is useful, but it cannot detect patterns like "you revenge trade after 2+ losses" or "your win rate drops after 3pm." These require cross-trade analysis that spreadsheets struggle with.
No alerts or nudges — A spreadsheet will not warn you that you have exceeded your daily trade limit or that your drawdown is approaching your threshold.
When to Upgrade to ArthaLearn
The spreadsheet template is great for getting started. But if any of these apply to you, it is time to upgrade:
You take 50+ trades per month — Manual entry becomes a chore. ArthaLearn supports auto-import from your broker via CSV upload.
You want AI insights — ArthaLearn's AI analyzes your trading patterns and surfaces insights you would never find in a spreadsheet. It is like having a trading coach who has read every one of your trades.
You want chart screenshots with every trade — ArthaLearn lets you attach charts directly to trade entries, so your visual context is never lost.
You trade F&O and need lot-level tracking — The spreadsheet handles basic F&O, but ArthaLearn's portfolio tracker manages complex multi-leg positions, rollovers, and assignment tracking.
You want to track multiple strategies — Tag trades by strategy, and see which ones are actually making money. ArthaLearn's analytics break down performance by strategy, instrument, time, and more.
Think of the spreadsheet as training wheels. It teaches you the habit of journaling. Once the habit is established and you are ready for deeper analysis, ArthaLearn is the next step.
How to Get the Template
Visit our resources page to download the template in both Excel (.xlsx) and Google Sheets format. No login required.
For Google Sheets: Click "Make a copy" to create your own editable version. Do NOT request edit access to the original — it is view-only by design.
For Excel: Download the .xlsx file and open in Microsoft Excel or LibreOffice Calc. All formulas are compatible with both.
The Bottom Line
The best trading journal is the one you actually use. If a spreadsheet is what gets you started, use the spreadsheet. If you need more power later, upgrade. The important thing is to start today.
Download the free template, log your next 30 trades, and review the patterns. You will learn more about your trading in those 30 entries than in any 30 pages of a trading book.
And when you are ready for AI-powered insights, automated imports, and the kind of deep analysis that turns good traders into great ones — ArthaLearn is here. Compare us against other options on our best trading journal for India page.
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