Choosing how to import: spreadsheet vs bulk-row vs broker-total

PropStax gives you three ways to backfill historical data, and they’re not interchangeable. Pick the one that matches what you actually have, not what sounds most thorough.

Quick comparison

Path	Use when	Get	Lose
Upload a spreadsheet	You have per-account dates, amounts, and outcomes	Per-account ROI, individual outcomes, full broker breakdown	No daily charts / no trade-level history
Bulk-create by row	You know “I had N of these and N of those” but not per-account specifics	Account counts per broker, lifecycle stats, aggregated cost rollups	No per-account breakdown of which won/lost what
Broker-total cost/payout	You don’t want to recreate historical accounts at all	Lifetime net cash flow per broker	No account-level analytics for the historical period

Scenario A — You have everything

Situation: You’ve been a careful record-keeper. Your spreadsheet has one row per account: account ID, broker, start date, account size, outcome, every reset fee, every payout. Maybe even per-trade history.

Use: Upload a spreadsheet.

Why: This is the only path that gets you per-account analytics for historical data. The wizard maps your spreadsheet columns to PropStax account fields, creates one account record per row, and attaches your costs and payouts to the right accounts.

What you get:

Lifetime tab on Reports shows every historical account individually with its own net P&L.
Per-broker comparison on Reports reflects the full picture.
Each historical account has a clickable detail page (though analytics tabs will be empty since there are no daily snapshots).

What you DON’T get: Daily trade-by-trade data. Imported accounts have no snapshots so the equity curve and analytics cards on the Account detail page will be empty. The account record + financial entries are there; the day-by-day chart isn’t.

Time investment: Highest. You need a spreadsheet in the template format. If your current sheet is structured differently, it’s a copy-paste-and-tidy job before upload.

Scenario B — You know totals but not per-account specifics

Situation: You remember roughly: “I bought 20 Apex 50K evals over Q1 2026. 14 of them blew, 5 closed, 1 passed and is now funded. Total spent ~$2,800.” But you don’t have a per-account record.

Use: Bulk-create from scratch + log costs separately.

Why: Bulk-create lets you describe groups. Each row in the wizard is one outcome (“20 Apex 50K evals, blown” / “5 Apex 50K evals, closed” / “1 Apex 50K eval, passed”). PropStax generates the account records for each group.

For the costs, you have a couple choices:

Add the cost per-row in the bulk-create wizard if you can estimate per-row (eg. “20 blown evals × $140 each”).
Or add costs in bulk after the accounts exist, attributing them to the broker or specific accounts.

What you get:

Account counts per broker on the Brokers page (so the lifecycle funnel and “evaluations attempted” totals are accurate).
Per-broker total spend on Reports.
A rough net cash flow that reflects what you actually spent and were paid.

What you DON’T get: Per-account financial breakdowns for the historical accounts (since you didn’t have per-account data to enter). The Lifetime tab on Reports will show your historical accounts but with identical specs within each group.

Time investment: Medium. Five minutes per broker, mostly.

Scenario C — You just want net cash flow, no account stubs

Situation: You’ve been trading prop firms for years. You know you spent ~$8K total and were paid out ~$11K. You don’t care about per-account analytics for the past, you just want PropStax to know the lifetime totals so going-forward analytics start from the right baseline.

Use: Broker-total mode in Add cost and Add payout directly. Skip Import entirely.

Why: Broker-total mode lets you log a single cost or payout against a broker as a whole, no account tied to it. One entry per broker covers all your historical spend; one entry covers all your payouts. PropStax doesn’t need to know about the individual evaluations.

Steps:

Go to Financials → Add cost → pick the broker → Mode = Broker total → enter the lifetime total spend → date can be today or backdated.
Repeat for Add payout with the lifetime total received.
Repeat for each broker.

What you get:

Accurate net cash flow on the Dashboard tile + Financials page.
Per-broker comparison on Reports that includes your historical totals.
A clean slate going forward — new accounts from this point on get tracked normally.

What you DON’T get: Anything on the Brokers page or Lifetime tab for the historical period. There are no account records, so they don’t appear. You’re trading detail for speed.

Time investment: Lowest. Two minutes per broker.

When in doubt

If you’re not sure which path fits, ask: “Do I want PropStax to show me past per-account ROI, or am I happy with past lifetime totals only?”

Past per-account ROI matters → Scenario A.
Past per-broker totals are enough → Scenario B or C.
Just want to start fresh, baseline the money already moved → Scenario C.

You can also mix: Scenario A for one broker where you have full records, Scenario C for another where you don’t. PropStax doesn’t care if your import strategy varies by broker.