Prop firm challenges fail for one of two reasons: the trader was not good enough, or the trader was good enough but lost track of a rule. The second case is far more common — and entirely preventable.
Daily loss limits, max drawdown, minimum trading days, consistency rules — violate any one of these and your challenge is over regardless of your P&L. Building a tracker in Notion means these numbers are visible every time you sit down to trade.
1. Prop firm rules you must track
The four major firms active in 2026 have similar but importantly different rules. Know them before you build your tracker.
- Daily loss limit5%
- Max drawdown10% (static)
- Profit target (Phase 1)10%
- Profit target (Phase 2)5%
- Min trading days4 days
- Time limitNone
- Consistency ruleNone
- Daily loss limitVaries by plan
- Max drawdownTrailing EOD
- Profit targetVaries by plan
- Min trading days5 days
- Time limitNone
- Trailing locks atBreakeven + 10%
- Consistency ruleNone
- Daily loss limit4%
- Max drawdown5% (static)
- Profit target6%
- Min trading daysNone
- Time limitNone
- Consistency ruleBest day ≤ 50% total
- Daily loss limit5%
- Max drawdown10% (static)
- Profit target (Phase 1)8%
- Profit target (Phase 2)5%
- Min trading days5 days
- Time limitNone
- Consistency ruleBest day ≤ 40% total
2. Building the tracker in Notion
The tracker needs two components: a configuration page for your challenge rules, and a daily log database that tracks P&L against those rules.
Create a Challenge Config page
A simple Notion page with your challenge parameters as properties: Firm, Account Size, Daily Loss Limit ($), Max Drawdown ($), Profit Target ($), Start Date, Min Trading Days. These are the fixed values your formulas will reference.
Create a Daily P&L database
One row per trading day. Fields: Date, Daily P&L, Cumulative P&L, Running Drawdown, Trades Count, Status (Active / Passed / Failed). Link it to your Trade Log via a relation if you already have one.
Add status formulas
Formula properties that go red when you approach limits. The most important: daily loss warning (80% of limit used), max drawdown warning, trading days counter, profit progress bar.
Build a single-view dashboard
Create a Notion page that shows current balance, distance to daily limit, distance to max drawdown, and profit progress — all visible at a glance before you open a position.
3. Formulas for limits
These formulas go in your Daily P&L database. Replace the numbers with your actual account parameters.
4. Daily dashboard view
Before every session, you should see five numbers:
- Current balance — starting capital + cumulative P&L
- Distance to daily limit — how much you can still lose today
- Distance to max drawdown — your absolute floor
- Profit progress — % toward the target
- Trading days completed — vs. minimum required
In Notion, build this as a filtered gallery view showing only today's row, or use a linked database on your main trading dashboard page. The goal is zero ambiguity about where you stand before a single trade is placed.
5. What Notion can't do
Notion handles static rules well. It breaks down on dynamic ones.
Trailing drawdown is the hardest to track manually. TopStep's drawdown floor moves every time your equity makes a new high. Calculating this correctly requires knowing your equity at end-of-day for every day since the start — a rollup Notion can't do without significant formula gymnastics, and even then it's prone to error.
Real-time limits. Notion updates when you type. If you're trading live and forget to log a loss, your dashboard looks fine while you're already at the limit. TSB's prop firm tracker pulls live balance from the broker — it knows your actual drawdown at any moment.
Multi-account view. Running two challenges simultaneously? Notion requires two separate databases. TSB handles multiple accounts on one dashboard.
6. Free tracker template
The TSB free template includes a prop firm tracker section pre-configured for FTMO and The5%ers, with all formulas built in and a daily dashboard view ready to go.