Updated June 2026 · Sierra Chart import + prop-firm tracking

The Best Trading Journal for Sierra Chart Users (2026)

Sierra Chart is the orderflow trader's platform — footprint, numbers bars, DOM, T&S, the whole microstructure toolkit. The Trade Activity Log captures every fill tick-by-tick, but it's a record, not a journal. Here's how to import Sierra Chart trades into a journal that overlays them on the chart you traded, tracks the prop-firm rule headroom, and records the session you took them in.

Independent guide. Aurafy is not affiliated with Sierra Chart or Safe Harbor Trading Technologies. Sierra Chart is a trademark of Safe Harbor Trading Technologies, LLC. We import Sierra Chart's standard Trade Activity Log CSV export — no ACSIL custom study, no DTC protocol integration, nothing installed in your Sierra Chart instance. Verify the current export format in your Sierra Chart version before relying on any third-party journal.
What Sierra Chart's logs miss Import to Aurafy Prop-firm rule tracking Orderflow context vs screen recording Free calculators FAQ

What Sierra Chart's built-in trade tracking misses

Sierra Chart is one of the most powerful low-level platforms in retail futures — Denali exchange data, Rithmic / CQG / Teton connections, ACSIL custom studies, footprint and numbers bars that no NT8 or Tradovate user has access to without buying a third-party add-on. The platform's tick-level depth is its differentiator. But the Trade Activity Log and the Spreadsheet System — the two ways Sierra Chart "tracks" trades — are operator tools, not review tools:

The honest framing: Sierra Chart is an execution-plus-microstructure platform with a deep log layer. A journal is a separate tool — it's the part that pairs fills into trades, overlays them on the chart you were actually reading, and turns last week's setups into a stats table you can act on next week.

How to import Sierra Chart trades into Aurafy

Aurafy reads the standard Sierra Chart Trade Activity Log CSV export — no ACSIL custom study, no DTC server connection, no Sierra Chart credentials shared. About three minutes:

1
Export from Sierra Chart

Open Trade >> Trade Activity Log (or use the Trade Activity window directly). Filter by date range and account. Right-click the grid → Export to .csv File. The export includes account ID, symbol, side, qty, fill price, fill time (to the millisecond), commission, and exchange/clearing fees per fill. (You can also export from File >> Open Spreadsheet if you keep trade records there.)

2
Drop the CSV into Aurafy

Open app.aurafy.dev, go to Imports → Sierra Chart, drag the file. Aurafy pairs the fill rows into round-turn trades (FIFO matching by account + symbol), applies the correct tick value per contract (ES, NQ, MES, MNQ, CL, MCL, GC, MGC, ZB, 6E, MBT — 30+ presets), and computes net P&L after commissions + exchange + clearing pulled directly from the export.

3
Trades land on the chart

Every Sierra Chart fill plots on the chart with entry / stop / exit arrows. R-multiples compute automatically from the stop you set. The first time you see a week of orderflow scalps overlaid on the 1-minute (or your tick chart), you'll see which footprint setups actually paid and which were narrative — the kind of read the Trade Activity Log silently hides.

4
(Optional) Multiple accounts in one import

Most Sierra Chart users run several account connections in parallel — a Sim account on Sierra Chart Data Service, a live Apex eval through Rithmic, an MFFU funded through Rithmic, maybe a personal account through Teton. Export the Trade Activity Log per account; Aurafy keeps them separate and applies the correct prop-firm preset per account.

Rithmic R|Trader Pro as an alternative. If you prefer not to use Sierra Chart's Trade Activity Log export, Aurafy also imports the Rithmic R|Trader Pro account statement directly — same prop-firm accounts, same fills, just sourced from the broker side instead of the platform side. Use whichever export is cleaner for your workflow.

Prop-firm rule tracking — for the audience Sierra Chart serves

A large share of Sierra Chart's active 2026 user base is prop-firm funded or eval accounts, most of them routed through Rithmic. Apex Trader Funding, MyFundedFutures, Take Profit Trader, Tradeify, and Bulenox all support Sierra Chart as an execution platform via Rithmic. Aurafy tracks:

The Topstep landmine, 2026. Topstep does not officially support Sierra Chart as an execution platform — their supported platforms are TopstepX, NinjaTrader, and Tradovate. If you're running a Topstep account on Sierra Chart via an unofficial Rithmic route, you're outside their supported config and the DLL / trail rules apply based on the platform Topstep thinks you're on (which, post Aug 2024, depends on whether it's TopstepX or NT). Aurafy applies the rule preset you assign, not whatever the platform claims — if you're not sure which rule is live for your account, verify with Topstep before sizing into it.

The honest pitch

Sierra Chart is the execution-and-microstructure platform. Aurafy is the journal that knows you're trading SC on Rithmic, on a $100K Apex 4.0 funded account, with a 30% consistency rule that decides your next payout — and shows you the footprint context you were actually reading when you took the trade. Free tier covers the last 30 days of trades — no card, no trial-with-charge. Pro is $49/mo, or $19/mo locked for life as one of the first 50 founders.

Try Aurafy free → See pricing

Orderflow context vs Sierra Chart Replay vs screen recording — three different tools

Sierra Chart users review at three layers, and they're often confused with each other. Worth separating them honestly:

For prop-firm orderflow traders, where most blowups are behavioral (oversizing on a clean read, revenge-trading after a stopped trade, freezing on news), the screen recording is the only review layer that catches the failure mode. Aurafy's recorder is the only major journal that bundles it. Full breakdown of tape replay vs screen recording →

Free calculators for Sierra Chart prop-firm traders

These work with or without an Aurafy account — single-page, no login, mobile-friendly. Preloaded with the exact tick values for the contracts you actually trade on Sierra Chart (ES, NQ, MES, MNQ, CL, MCL, GC, MGC, ZB, 6E, MBT, MET, and 18 more):

Trailing Drawdown Calculator

Apex 4.0 + MFFU + Topstep presets. Intraday + EOD trail modeled separately. See your exact floor and headroom.

Open →

Futures P&L Calculator

Drop in entry / exit / stop on any of 30+ futures contracts. Get ticks, points, gross + net P&L (after Rithmic commissions), $ risk, R-multiple.

Open →

Position Size Calculator

Prop-firm-aware sizing — checks both your risk-per-trade and the trail-DD floor. Tells you how many losses in a row to blow the account.

Open →

Consistency-Rule Calculator

Apex 4.0 30%, MFFU 40%, Topstep 50%. Drop in your daily P&L list — get max-allowed-best-day and the extra profit needed to qualify for payout.

Open →

FAQ — Sierra Chart + journal questions

Does Aurafy connect to my Sierra Chart instance directly?

No. Aurafy reads the standard Sierra Chart Trade Activity Log CSV export. No ACSIL custom study installed in your Sierra Chart, no DTC protocol server connection, no Rithmic / Teton / CQG credentials shared. The CSV-only model is intentional — it's the lowest-risk import path and works identically across every Sierra Chart connection (Sierra Chart Data Service / Denali, Rithmic, Teton, CQG, IQFeed, sim).

Will it work for an Apex / MFFU / TPT account running on Sierra Chart via Rithmic?

Yes — that's the primary use case for the Sierra Chart import. Most active Sierra Chart prop-firm users are routed through Rithmic to Apex, MFFU, TPT, Tradeify, or Bulenox. Aurafy's prop-firm rule tracking (trail-DD, DLL, consistency) is preset for Apex 4.0 and MFFU and supports custom rules for firms not yet preset. Topstep accounts on Sierra Chart are not officially supported by Topstep — see the alert above before relying on rule tracking there.

What about footprint, delta, and numbers-bar context?

The Trade Activity Log records prices and times, not what the footprint cell looked like. Aurafy plots the entry / stop / exit on whatever chart you re-open later in your chartbook, but it doesn't reconstruct the delta or cluster volume from raw tick data — that's still the chartbook's job. The screen recording layer is the better answer for "what was I actually reading at the moment of entry": the recording captures the footprint cell, the DOM stacking, and the T&S exactly as you saw it.

How does Aurafy pair fills into round-turn trades?

FIFO matching per account per symbol. Sierra Chart fires every partial fill as its own log entry, so a 5-lot entry filled in three pieces (2 + 2 + 1) and exited in two (3 + 2) shows as five rows in the Trade Activity Log. Aurafy collapses those into a single round-turn trade with a volume-weighted entry, volume-weighted exit, and aggregate commission. If you want per-fill granularity, the underlying data is preserved — you can expand any trade to see the fills.

What if I use NinjaTrader, Tradovate, or Rithmic R|Trader Pro too?

Same flow, different export. Aurafy imports CSVs from NinjaTrader (see NinjaTrader guide), Tradovate (see Tradovate guide), and Rithmic R|Trader Pro statements. The rule tracking, chart overlay, and screen recording work identically — only the export button changes. Each platform's accounts stay separate in the journal.

Does Sierra Chart's Chart Replay (Bar Replay) integrate with the journal?

Not directly — Chart Replay is a Sierra Chart feature that replays historical tick data, separate from your trade record. You can re-trade the tape in Sim mode, and those sim fills will show up in the Trade Activity Log as a separate "Sim" account. Export and import them like any other account — Aurafy keeps sim accounts separate from live prop-firm accounts and doesn't apply prop-firm rules to them by default.

Does the free tier actually work for prop-firm traders, or is it gated?

Real free tier — last 30 days of trades, 1 account, 3 playbooks, no card. For a single Apex 4.0 evaluation or MFFU funded you're actively running through Sierra Chart, 30 days of history is enough to see whether rule tracking + chart overlay + screen recording is useful before you pay anything. No trial-with-charge — if you don't upgrade, nothing happens.

What's the catch on the $19 founder price?

First 50 paying customers get $19/mo locked for life instead of $49/mo. After 50, the price goes to $49 for new signups, but existing $19 seats stay $19 forever. No upsell, no trial, no rate-rise clause. If you cancel and come back, the founder price is gone.

Is there a screen recording size limit on free?

Screen recording is a Pro-tier feature. Free covers the journal, imports, and chart overlays but not the recorder. The next-closest stack for a Sierra Chart user (TradeZella + Loom or OBS) runs $49 + $15 = $64/mo and still doesn't link recordings to specific trades. The $19 founder seat is the cheapest path to the recording layer for orderflow traders.