ATAS shows you the order flow. Actal shows you what you did with it.
ATAS has a real Trading Journal module. You can add notes and tags to a trade and see statistics per tag. That is more than most platforms do. What it does not do is grade execution, check your own rules on every trade, hold the plan you wrote before the open, or turn your worst habit into one thing to fix this week. Actal takes the ATAS statistics export and does that part.
Does ATAS have a trading journal?
Yes. ATAS has a Statistics window with a Journal tab that lists each trade with open and close time, price and volume, and the Trading Journal module lets you add notes and tags to a trade and filter statistics by tag. What it does not have is a grade on execution, rules checked per trade, a premarket plan with a closeout, a weekly focus, or friends who can see your journal. Export statistics, save the Journal sheet as CSV, and Actal reads it.
Where ATAS traders get stuck, and what a week with Actal looks like.
I tag trades in ATAS. I have twenty tags now and no idea which one is actually costing me.
Mistakes in Actal carry a running dollar cost and are ranked. The top one is your focus this week, with the count on the dashboard every morning. Twenty tags become one thing to fix.
I read the order flow right and still lost, because I sized up on the third trade.
The read and the execution get graded separately from the result. A good read with a sizing mistake is a D with a tag, and oversized after a win shows up with its cost.
My rule is stop after two losses. ATAS lets me take the third just as easily.
Rules are checked on every import: stop after a set number of losses, daily loss, max trades, cooldown. The third trade is red on the day it happened, with what it cost.
I trade FDAX and NQ in ATAS, and most journals choke on the instrument names or the European number format.
Semicolons, comma decimals and dd.mm.yyyy dates are handled. Instruments like NQZ3@CME_Ind are recognised, and anything unknown still imports with the P&L ATAS computed.
I plan levels on the footprint before the open. By noon I have traded something else entirely.
A, B and C scenarios before the open, a closeout after. Within a month you know how often you traded against your own plan, and the P&L splits into in-plan and off-plan.
Journaling alone, I always have a reason why today was different.
Add friends and they see your full journal, grades and all. Or make a group with a board ranked on execution, not P&L. Harder to explain away a D when someone else can read it.
The order flow, footprint, cluster charts and ATAS's own Journal notes stay in ATAS. Actal takes the Journal sheet from the statistics export and grades the trades in it.
How to get the file out of ATAS.
Written from ATAS's own documentation and checked against real files where we have them. The same guide shows on the import page and next to any error.
Export statistics writes an Excel workbook. Open it, switch to the Journal sheet and save that sheet as CSV. That file has account, instrument, open and close time, price and volume, P&L and the comment.
A non-English Excel saves with semicolons, comma decimals and dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm:ss dates. Actal reads those as they are, no find-and-replace needed.
The Journal sheet has no long or short column. A positive open volume with a negative close volume is a long, the reverse is a short, and the sign of the price P&L is the fallback.
The PnL column is taken as stated, so instruments Actal does not know yet, like FDAX, still import with the right money. R and points fill in once the symbol is set up.
- 1Open the Statistics window and choose Export statistics; ATAS writes an Excel workbook.
- 2Open the workbook, switch to the Journal sheet, and save that sheet as CSV (File > Save As, CSV).
- 3Import the CSV.
- Semicolon separators and comma decimals from a non-English Excel are handled; dates come out as dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm:ss.
- The Journal sheet has no direction column; a positive Open volume with a negative Close volume is a long, the reverse a short, and the sign of Price PnL is the fallback.
- PnL from the sheet is taken as stated, so instruments the journal does not know (FDAX, for example) still import; R and points stay unavailable until the symbol is set up.
- Commissions are not in the Journal sheet, so the per-contract default is applied. Verified against a real export.
If your account is on Rithmic, R | Trader Order History imports too, with commission, one day per file. The ATAS Journal sheet covers a longer range and is usually quicker. Pick one source per account.
Upload the workbook to Google Sheets, open the Journal sheet and use File, Download, Comma-separated values. Only the current sheet is downloaded, which is exactly what you want.
The Statistics window's RealTime mode shows the current week. Switch to History to load older periods before you export, so the Journal sheet covers the range you need.
Every trade checked against your rules, then graded.
Daily loss limit, max trades, size and cooldowns are checked the moment the file lands. Then each trade gets a grade on execution with your own setup criteria as the checklist, a mistake tag if there was one, and the chart marked up so the lesson sticks.
Five things that happen with ATAS files, and the fix.
You uploaded the whole Excel workbook or saved a different sheet. Open the workbook, select the Journal sheet and save only that sheet as CSV.
Excel changed the sign format of the volume columns. Open the original workbook, save the Journal sheet as CSV again without editing, and import that file.
The Statistics window was in RealTime mode. Switch to History, load the period you want, then export statistics again.
The Journal sheet has no commissions. Set the per-contract default on the preview to what your broker charges and it is applied to every trade.
The instrument is not set up yet, often a European contract. The P&L is still right. Set the symbol's point value once in settings and R and points fill in.
Sim, eval, funded and live, side by side.
Each ATAS account becomes an account in Actal with its own rules where they differ, and one dashboard across all of them. A habit that shows up on every account is easy to see.
ATAS questions
Import today's ATAS session. Grade it tonight.
One export, one minute, and the rules tell you how the day actually went. Free while in beta, no card, everything unlocked.