P&L stands for profit and loss. Gross P&L is what the price move made; net P&L is what reached your account after commissions, exchange and regulatory fees, and overnight swap or funding. Every metric worth reading in a trading journal is built on net P&L, because that is the money you can spend.
Formula
gross (long) = (exit − entry) × quantity × contract value
gross (short) = (entry − exit) × quantity × contract value
net = gross − commission − fees
Contract value is how much one unit of price is worth per unit of quantity: $20 per point for NQ, $50 for ES, 100,000 units for one standard lot of EUR/USD.
Example
Short 1 lot of EUR/USD at 1.0850, bought back at 1.0815. Commission $7, swap −$1.20.
Why the difference matters
On one trade costs look small. On 400 trades a year at $8 each they are $3,200, which can be the difference between a profit factor of 1.15 and 0.98. Scalpers feel it most. A journal that records only gross P&L will tell a high-frequency trader they are profitable while the broker statement says otherwise.
In SetupBook
Enter fill prices and size and SetupBook computes the gross result; commission and fees are separate fields, and a default commission per symbol can be set in Settings. If you also type a net figure by hand and it disagrees with the prices, the form warns you instead of silently picking one. Imported files bring their costs with them where the file has them: commission and swap from MetaTrader reports, fees from Binance.