Trading Journal for the Indian Market: Rupees, Lot Sizes and the Charges on Your Contract Note

Download the trading journal for the Indian market as an Excel workbook (.xlsx) or a CSV with the values but no formulas. It's our free trading journal template in rupees, with the three columns Indian F&O needs: Segment, Lot size and Lots. Quantity, Risk, Result, R multiple and Win/Loss are formulas, so the arithmetic is done for you, and the Summary sheet adds your total charges and your average R in F&O against equity. Delete the three rows marked EXAMPLE, then log one row per closed trade. No email, no account.

Upload the .xlsx to Google Sheets (File → Import → Upload) to keep its formulas, Summary and dropdowns. The CSV has the example rows with their worked-out values but no formulas, so rows you add won't calculate.

What should a trading journal for the Indian market have?

One row per closed trade, with the planned risk fixed at entry and the result net of every charge. The workbook's Trades sheet keeps the free template's 18 columns in their places and adds three. Each column, by the name the file gives it:

In the file, Segment, Lot size and Lots sit at the end (columns S to U), so the first 18 columns line up with the free template and its Summary formulas. The three formulas that make this the Indian edition, as row 2 has them:

I2  Quantity    =IF(AND(T2<>"",U2<>""),T2*U2,"")
J2  Risk (₹)    =IF(OR(E2="",F2="",I2=""),"",ABS(E2-F2)*I2)
K2  Result (₹)  =IF(OR(E2="",H2="",I2=""),"",(H2-E2)*IF($C2="Short",-1,1)*I2-N2)

Charges are the ones Zerodha's support pages list as "displayed on the contract note": brokerage, STT (securities transaction tax), exchange transaction charges, GST, SEBI charges and stamp duty. Add them up for the trade and type the total. We don't quote rates: your contract note already has the exact rupees. Risk is fixed at entry: if you move your stop, Risk stays what you planned, so a moved stop shows up as a loss bigger than −1R, which is what the sheet should catch.

To size an equity trade from the risk you want, the stock position size calculator works out shares = risk ÷ |entry − stop|. Its labels say dollars; the arithmetic is the same in rupees.

Which lot size goes in the Lot size column?

The one NSE set for that contract when you traded it. NSE's circular NSE/FAOP/70616, dated 3 October 2025 and titled "Revision in Market Lot of Derivative Contracts on Indices", revised the index lots "in pursuance of SEBI guidelines for periodic revision of lot size". NSE's market-lot file (fo_mktlots.csv), read 29 October 2026, still shows the revised sizes:

So NIFTY is 65 and BANKNIFTY is 30 through the Jan-2027 series and later. The circular also kept the old size for a while: "The existing lot size will be applicable for weekly and monthly contracts till December 30,2025 expiry date." A NIFTY trade from 2025 may have been 75 a lot.

Lot sizes are revised periodically. Take yours from NSE's current list or your broker's order window, not from this page, and type it on each row. That's why Lot size is a column you type and not a lookup: when NSE changes it, your old rows keep the size they were traded at, and their Risk and Result stay right. For a stock future, use that stock's lot size from the same list.

The three example rows, worked by hand

The workbook ships with three example rows, recalculated in LibreOffice. The prices are illustrative, not quotes:

NIFTY futures, 1 lot. The stop is 50 points below entry, and one lot is 65, so Risk is 50 × 65 = ₹3,250. It was closed at 25120 at 3:15 pm, 120 points up and short of the 25150 target, as planned: 120 × 65 = ₹7,800, less ₹180 of charges, is ₹7,620. That's 7,620 ÷ 3,250 = +2.34R.

RELIANCE intraday short, 100 shares. Short at 1400 with the stop at 1410: Risk is 10 × 100 = ₹1,000. The stop filled at 1411.50, ₹1.50 of slippage past it. The loss is 11.50 × 100 = ₹1,150 plus ₹45 of charges: −₹1,195, or −1.195R. The part beyond 1R is ₹150 of slippage and ₹45 of charges, the ordinary cost of trading, not a mistake, so Followed plan? is Y.

BANKNIFTY call, 2 lots. Bought at a premium of 300, with a stop at 240 and a target at 420. Two lots of 30 is a quantity of 60, so Risk is 60 × 60 = ₹3,600. It was sold at 285 on a red candle: −15 × 60 = −₹900, less ₹95, is −₹995, or −0.28R. That's a smaller loss than the planned 1R, and it's still a rule break: the plan was the 240 stop or the 420 target, and an early exit was neither. Followed plan? N, Mistake tag Early exit. One early exit that lost less proves nothing; twenty of them, in the plan-broken line, show whether the habit pays or costs.

For more entries filled in the same way, with notes, see six filled-in trading journal examples. For an option's breakeven and the shape of its payoff, the options profit calculator tabulates it; it counts US contracts of 100 shares, so use it for the shape, not the rupee totals.

How do I fill it from Zerodha Console?

From four Console reports, as Zerodha's support pages describe them (read 29 October 2026). One gives the trades, one checks them, two give the charges.

1. The tradebook, for the trades. "Login to Console." / "Click on Reports." / "Click on Tradebook." / "Select the Segment." / "Select the date range and click on the arrow button." Then: "You can download your Tradebook in XLSX or CSV format by clicking beside the Download button." The limit: "Tradebook can only be downloaded for a period of 365 days." A longer history takes more than one download.

Zerodha's help pages don't list the tradebook's columns, so check yours: if it shows each buy and each sell on its own line, pair them, because the journal wants one row per round trip. A long is the buy and the sell that closed it; a short is the sell and the buy that closed it. Entry is the opening price, Exit the closing price, and if a position opened or closed over several fills, use their average price weighted by quantity. The tradebook can't tell you the setup, your planned stop or whether you followed your plan: type those on the day, while you remember them.

2. The P&L report, to check you have every trade. "Visit console.zerodha.com/reports/pnl." / "Select the segment from the drop-down." / "Select Combined, Realised or Unrealised P&L from the drop-down." / "Select the date range and click on the arrow button." / "You can download the P&L as a spreadsheet once it loads." Zerodha itself says: "You should cross-check the P&L report, holdings, and position data with your tradebook, contract notes, and funds statement."

3. The Tax P&L, for each trade's charges. "Log in to Console." / "Click on Reports." / "Click on Tax P&L." / "Select the Financial year." / "Select the quarter range and click on the arrow button." / "Segment wise capital gains report will be displayed." / "Click on Download." What makes it useful here: "The Tax P&L report includes tradewise charges." One caution from the same page: "The sum of tradewise charges for a segment may not always match the charges shown in the summary. This happens when a trade is entered in the current financial year but not exited within the same year."

4. Contract notes, for the breakdown. "Visit console.zerodha.com/reports/downloads." / "Select Contract note in the statement." / "Select Report type as PDF, XML etc." / "Select a Date range". The charges, in Zerodha's words, are "brokerage, exchange transaction charges, STT, GST, Stamp duty, SEBI charges, which are displayed on the contract note." The limit: "You can only download contract notes for the past 365 days". Save each month's notes beside the journal, so a charge you check next year is still there.

What should I review every week?

The Summary computes the free template's numbers, plus three for this market. On the three example rows:

The total result is ₹5,430 after ₹320 of charges. The F&O against equity split is the one this edition adds. In rupees, the larger position dominates the total; in R, the NIFTY lot and the 100 RELIANCE shares are on one scale. Three rows are a worked example, not evidence. The trading expectancy calculator takes your own win rate and average R and adds the break-even win rate.

Then count the mistake tags, total each setup's R, and write one rule for next week. The printable trading journal has the weekly review on paper if you'd rather fill it by hand.

What is the best trading journal in India?

The one that records what the Indian market needs, and that you keep filling. That's rupees, the segment, the lot size and lots, the charges from your contract note, R, and a plan flag. The free sheet does all of it in rupees, with every formula visible. A paid app saves typing; it doesn't change the columns that matter.

Subscription journals such as TradeZella price in dollars: its pricing page, read 29 October 2026, lists $35, $59 and $99 a month. Before you pay for any app, check that it imports your broker's file; we haven't checked any of them for Zerodha. Our trading journal comparison sets the subscription journals side by side.

Ours, TradeLens, is a $47 download (launch price; $79 regular) that runs on your own computer: Python, a browser UI and one SQLite file. It takes a broker CSV through a column-mapping wizard, with starter templates for MT4, MT5, cTrader, TradingView and a generic file. None of them is for an Indian broker, and its page says it shows "where your trading leaks money in dollars", so for a rupee journal the free sheet is the better fit.

What the sheet doesn't do

• It isn't a tax record, and this isn't tax advice. For tax, use your broker's Tax P&L. The sheet is arithmetic on what you type.
• It doesn't read your account. Every trade goes in by hand, or by pasting from the tradebook.
• It doesn't know lot sizes. Type each row's from NSE's list or your broker's order window.
• A sold option with no stop has no Risk. The formula needs a stop premium. Type the risk you planned over it, or the row has no R.
• Filtering the Trades sheet doesn't filter the Summary. Its formulas read whole columns; for one segment or one month, review a copy with only those rows.

The R method behind all of it is in count R, not money. If you trade a prop firm account as well, the prop firm tracker spreadsheet tracks the account's rules beside the journal.