Every futures journal lives or dies by a clean CSV import. The export step looks simple — until the timestamps are in the wrong timezone, the rollover changes the instrument code mid-quarter, the simulation account silently merges into the live one, or every order modify creates a duplicate row. These guides walk through the exact export path on each platform, what every CSV column means, the 3 quiet pitfalls that break naïve imports, and the journal-ready cleanup checklist before you load it anywhere.
Pick the page that matches where the fills come from, not where you watch the chart. If your fills clear through Rithmic but you click them in NinjaTrader 8, the NinjaTrader export is your authoritative file (Rithmic statements are a multi-firm fallback). If you front-end Sierra Chart over a Rithmic-routed firm, the Sierra Chart Trade Activity Log is your file — not the firm portal's CSV.
Logs/TradeActivityLog.YYYY-MM-DD.txt long-term archive (most SC users don't know the second file exists). Watch the per-workspace Trade Simulation Mode toggle.Four guides, four audience profiles. Each one covers the exact export menu path, the full CSV column reference for that platform, the platform-specific pitfalls, and a cleanup checklist before import.
5-step export path on web + mobile, full 9-column CSV reference, the 3 quiet pitfalls (timezone, partial fills, multi-leg bracketed orders), and a 6-step journal-ready cleanup checklist with timestamp normalization + root-symbol mapping.
ESM5) breaks rollover grouping if you don't map to the root.Control Center → Account Performance → Trades grid → right-click → Export. The "Trades vs Orders vs Executions — which grid?" mini-section. 10-column reference (Instrument / Account / Quantity / Entry+Exit / MAE / MFE / Profit / Cum. profit / Commission). 3 pitfalls (rollover instruments, "All Accounts" sim-mixed-into-live, data-feed-timezone defaults).
Trade > Trade Activity Log → filter → right-click → save. The on-disk Logs/TradeActivityLog.YYYY-MM-DD.txt long-term archive most users miss. 10-column reference. 3 pitfalls (per-workspace Trade Simulation Mode toggle, every order modify being its own row, CQG-style symbol format ESM26-CME). Internal Order ID / Parent Internal Order ID for round-turn pairing.
Account > Statements → Executions tab → right-click → Export to CSV. The multi-firm-on-one-login workflow (Apex + MFFU + TPT + Tradeify + Bulenox + Earn2Trade under one Rithmic login). 11-column reference with the broken-out commission / exchange-fee / clearing-fee / NFA columns. 3 pitfalls (partial fills inflating trade count, "All Accounts" silently mixing firm presets, R|Trader basic vs R|Trader Pro confusion).
Both Topstep export paths in one place. TopstepX dashboard → trade-history → Download CSV (raw exchange fills, no DLL adjustment). NinjaTrader 8 → Account Performance → Trades grid (DLL-adjusted P&L). The post-Aug-2024 DLL split, why the two files measure P&L differently, Combine-vs-XFA account tagging for the right trail-DD math, and the 50% consistency-rule angle.
Every one of these guides ends with a cleanup checklist. The checklists differ in detail but they're solving the same six problems. If you understand the shape first, the platform-specific steps make sense the first time you read them:
2026-06-02T14:30:18-04:00 is the format every journal accepts.ES 03-26 (NT8) / ESM5 (Tradovate) / ESM26-CME (Sierra Chart) all need to collapse to ES for grouping across quarterly rollovers. Otherwise your ES stats split into 4 contracts per year.Sim101, Sierra Chart's per-workspace Trade Simulation Mode, Tradovate's separate demo accounts — explicit account filter before import. One sim trade in a funded-account journal blows the rule tracker.Parent Internal Order ID grouping before they become round turns.The platform-specific pitfalls are in each guide. These four hit you regardless of where you trade:
ES stats will look like four different futures.Read the rule headroom before you load the CSV. Each calculator runs in your browser, no login, no card:
Topstep + Apex 4.0 presets. Intraday + EOD trail mechanics. See exact drawdown line, headroom, and lock threshold per account size.
Open the calculator →Topstep 50% / Apex 30% / MFFU 40% presets. Drop in daily P&L; see payout eligibility and extra profit needed to stay compliant.
Open the calculator →30+ contracts preloaded. Entry / exit / stop → ticks, points, gross + net P&L, $ risk, R-multiple — all in one screen.
Open the calculator →Topstep / Apex 4.0 / MFFU presets + 22 instruments. Stop in ticks → max contracts, % of trail-DD buffer used, N losses to floor.
Open the calculator →Every step in the cleanup checklists above is what Aurafy runs automatically when you drop in a Tradovate / NinjaTrader / Sierra Chart export. Timestamps normalize. Symbols collapse to root. Orders pair into round turns. Sim accounts route to a separate book. Prop-firm rule headroom (Topstep 100K Combine, Apex 4.0 100K EOD, MFFU Core 50K, etc.) tracks against each account live. Screen recording captures the session you took the trades in — the part no CSV can ever export. Free tier never expires (last 30 days, 1 account, 3 playbooks, no card). First 50 founders: $19/mo locked for life.
Start free — no card See $19 founder seatAPI sync sounds easier and is the right answer for retail brokers. For prop-firm traders it's a liability — sharing API credentials with a third-party journal is a rules violation on several firms (Topstep, Apex, MFFU all have language in the funded-trader agreement around credential sharing or third-party automation). CSV export uses your own platform UI, your file, your decision when to import. Nothing installed in the broker, no API keys passed around, no surface area for a credential leak. This is the legitimate version of the same outcome.
Daily after the session is the cleanest. If you trade multiple sessions or multiple firms, end-of-day across all of them. Weekly works but you lose the 1-day feedback loop most prop-firm traders actually need — most rule violations happen within hours of a winning streak, not after a long drawdown. Aurafy will refresh from a fresh CSV without re-importing prior trades; the duplicate-detection runs on the platform-side trade ID, not the row number.
Two — one filtered to each account. The "All Accounts" export merges them and even though the Account column tags each row, a naïve import treats them as a single book. Filter inside the platform before exporting (NT8: Account dropdown in Control Center; Sierra Chart: Trade Activity Log filter). Aurafy treats each as a separate prop-firm-rules-tracked book with its own trail-DD floor, consistency threshold, and DLL setting. That's the entire point of running one journal across multiple firms.
CSV exports don't carry the chart you were looking at. Aurafy's screen-recording captures the session window-by-window — replay the screen you saw, not just the fills you took. The CSV import locates each trade on the recording's timeline so you watch the 30 seconds before and after the entry without scrubbing. None of NT8 Market Replay, Sierra Chart Chart Replay, or Tradovate's mobile replay covers this — they replay market data, not your screen.
NT8 + Sierra Chart commissions come from a user-filled template in the platform — if you never set it up, every commission cell reads $0. Tradovate populates from the broker side and is usually correct. Fix the template at the platform if you can; if not, the journal can apply a per-instrument commission rate at import (Aurafy does this — Topstep MES = $0.74 round-turn, Apex MES = $0.78 round-turn, etc., editable per account). The platform CSV's gross P&L is still authoritative; only the net P&L needs the commission overlay.
These front-end a Tradovate or Rithmic order route — the fills clear at the broker, not at the front-end. The cleanest export is from the broker side (Tradovate web or Rithmic R|Trader Pro), not the charting platform. The charting platform may have its own CSV; treat it as a fallback when the broker export is unavailable or you need front-end-specific tags (chart timeframe, indicator markers) that the broker doesn't carry.
Firm dashboards (TopstepX, ApexTrader, MFFU portals) surface what the firm needs for rule enforcement — daily P&L, current drawdown, payout status — not what a journal needs (per-trade rows with timestamps, fills, MAE / MFE). Some firm dashboards do export a trades CSV; quality varies. The rule of thumb: the platform you executed on has the cleanest per-trade file. The firm dashboard is the authoritative source for daily P&L totals to cross-check against, not the import file.
The Topstep export guide just shipped — opens the firm-specific axis alongside the four platform guides (Tradovate / NinjaTrader 8 / Sierra Chart / Rithmic R|Trader Pro). Next on the queue: Apex firm-specific import workflow, MFFU Core / Expert program-aware imports, and front-end-platform CSVs (Quantower, MotiveWave, TradingView-with-Rithmic). Each new guide will appear in the grid above when it ships — bookmark this page if you want notified-by-RSS-equivalent.